04-02-2006

How to Draw Users in From the Start

Spark This has an article on how to design home pages that will draw users in. The article has some great visual examples of sites that do it well.

In terms of bad examples, I’ve seen a lot on populicio.us. Populicio.us is a great way to find new and interesting sites, but it offers no context about why the site is interesting. It’s often not immediately apparent why people are bookmarking it. Many web designers would benefit from the advice in the Spark This post:

So how do you engage in a conversation in three seconds or less?

There are four things you can do to improve your odds:

  • What’s in it for me?
  • Call to Action
  • Images
  • Testimonials

As in, “WAIT WAIT! Don’t back-button me!”

I know my own site’s front page could use a redesign. Now I have a better idea of how to go about it.

Incidentally, I’ve created a Google Blog Search bookmarklet for times when I can’t immediately figure out what might be interesting about a site I’ve run across on populicio.us. Searching on the URL will give you a list of other sites with posts about the page in question. The delicious linkbacks bookmarklet is also useful for providing context.

UPDATE (05/08/06): I’ve created a more generic version of the Google Blog Search bookmarklet that prompts for a search string, rather than prompting with the current URL.

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Posted by Matt in bookmarklets, communication, tech | RSS 2.0

One Response to “How to Draw Users in From the Start”
  1. techtraveller Says:

    Some other bookmarklet collections that i have seen in my travel on net.

    http://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/

    http://www.bookmarklets.com/

    http://www.wisdombay.com/bm/bm00001.htm

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