To help improve the usability of a site, key web standards should be followed during the design and build. Here you will find some of guidelines and examples of how they should be used to optimize their impact.
A company logo on the top left corner of the site has become one of the most standard elements on a website. This norm is a helpful feature for users as it allows one of the most important parts of the site, the company logo, to get noticed first. Another benefit is that it allows the more web savvy users an alternative route for returning home.
Breadcrumbs play an important role in websites as they represent the hierarchy of the site content and provide a click path to allow users to return home. Therefore, how they are used and positioned is important and should be carefully considered in terms of usability and how they support the purpose of the site.
One of the first things users tend to use on a site is the search bar so its style and placement is an important factor for usability. In terms of alignment, different sites position the bar in different areas depending on the purpose of the site. For style, however, there is a standard that users expect and that is an open text field with a button labeled search next to it.
Content is the most important part of any website and how it is placed and grouped can either drive the audience towards the site's intended goal or away from it. Luckily there are standards to help ensure the full potential of website content. These can guide you as you create and evaluate your own web content.
There are two widely recognized menus in web designs, the vertical and the horizontal menu. Each serves different purposes, for example the vertical menu is ideal for a site with a lot of menu items but the horizontal menu can ensure your list gets more visibility. Which to use should align with the purpose of the site and what works well in terms of improving your sites usability.
The way the bottom navigation is used has changed over the years. Today the standard, established by the trends of those most frequented sites, is to display copyright information, privacy policies, terms and conditions, and contact information in this panel. This ensures that a websites main content is displayed in the top quadrant, that receives the most attention. Secondary information is displayed lower in areas such as the bottom navigation.
