User-Goals-Oriented Design to keep Homepage afloat

TG was giggling while reading a post from 呆聋瞎. In his Chinese blog, the author questioned who is the culprit causing a chaotic homepage design for China major portal sites.

有过在大型网站设计经验的人，应该会理解什么叫“做加法容易，做减法难”。你在首页添个东西，只要不影响先占位子的相关方，没人管你。好了，你想精简内容，从首页删掉一块儿，相关利益方，就来跟你理论了。“凭什么删掉我们呀，你们不考虑用户习惯么？”（奶奶的，你们占位置的时候，怎么不考虑用户习惯呀？现在又拿用户当挡箭牌）。

The language is hilarious and funny, it does not match with the author I know in person.. Again, we should not judge people by their appearances…Haha!!

For those who can’t read Simplified Chinese, may I have the honor to translate it in brief: It literally says that ”Reduction” (removing functions and contents in a website) does not come as easy as “Addition“. Those who deny your request for applying the law of reduction will simply fight back with such statement as ” you don’t care about user behavior any more?” All of a sudden, they will use users behavior as a trump card ruling out your effort to streamline the home page.

Mr 呆聋瞎 appears to be overwhelmed, using ”interesting words” to describe his feeling. I am not going to translate that part though.

Less is More, User-Goals-Oriented Design is critical

Apparently, many of site operators in China are conceived that the more content a home page has, the more likely it can draw users to it. But what if we think from a user perspective, do they really like a cluttered page? do they enjoy swimming in the ocean of information which they care the least? Should it be worthwhile keeping your homepage light and afloat so that it can spin faster than your peers?

User Goal Design_Kelikuru.com

From TG’s experiences, most users who use Internet and web sites for work purposes would rather get what they want in a few seconds. A web page may has as short as 5 seconds to retain users’ attention. Defining User Goals, Finding Out What Our Users Need To do in Our Homepage should be the centerpiece in designing a home page. Users can be largely differentiated to new and returning users to whom we provide different levels of satisfaction.

Apply The Laws of Simplicity

As a designer and researcher, TG faces the same dilemma ever since I set my foot on this field. Mr John Maeda in his book – The Laws of Simplicity has already pointed out that the process of reaching an ideal state of simplicity can be truly complex. Mr Maeda has come up with 10 Laws and 3 Keys to ease our pain in the design process.

Hands got tied up very easily. Trying to make a balance between simplicity and complexity while redesigning a product in a big corporation can be a tormenting experience!

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