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There's a web design trend that I've been seeing more and more in sites I come across. The thing is, I don't know what it's officially called, so I don't know how to look for the topic in web design sites or blogs. I'd like to find tutorials and articles regarding tips and best practices, but I haven't found any and don't know what people are calling this design style.
Basically, it's having a long front page (or inside pages too) with lots of horizontal sections with big images and text. It's sort of like one-page sites, but it's not one-page. It's sort of like Parallax, but it doesn't really use the parallax effect (not necessarily at least). It also goes very closely hand-in-hand with responsive design, as it shares that long vertical format made for lots of scrolling.
A couple of examples of what I'm referring to: www.marketo.com, www.ginzametrics.com, www.kinhr.com
I'd appreciate any help finding the official name of this, if there's any, or also any related articles or resources. Thanks!
I believe the technical term you're looking for is single-page application or single-page interface.
Google search results for the phrase "single page website" show that it is used to describe the same types of sites. One page website comes up as another synonym (onepagelove.com provides a collection of single-page site designs, for example).
However, single-page application seems to be the most official and comprehensive term. Relatedly, it is actively used as a question tag here at Stack Overflow: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/single-page-application
They are "long page scrolling" designs. See: http://www.dtelepathy.com/blog/inspiration/long-page-scrolling-designs
A single page application is NOT the same as a "single page website". First of all, the difference between an application and a site is that a site is simply used to display information whereas an application provides a function or utility or service to the user. Applications are interactive by necessity. In addition, single page apps may have more than one "screen" or "view", but these views are loaded in via AJAX calls behind the scenes and do not require a page refresh. Examples of single page applications include Gmail and Facebook.
A single page website does not necessarily have a long page scrolling design.
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My company is looking to create a page for an accreditation document which is several hundred pages long. There are about five sections, each with roughly 40-70 pages.
What do you think is the best way to handle navigation and display for this? Currently the only thing I've got in my mind is a simple nav window on the left that directs to iframes of each section's PDF and lets Adobe's table of contents manage navigation from there.
OR I could make each section in the nav a drop-down and each subsection a separate PDF (to reduce load times), but that feels clunky.
Large PDFs are nice as there is less page jumping, but they have awful load times. Small PDFs are nice for the fast load times, but awful with jumping around.
Any ideas would be appreciated. I'm left scratching my head on this one.
We've server-side pdf-to-png converters for that.
The webpage is loading page by page as png-image via AJAX while scrolling.
Works like a charm.
On the PDF side, make sure that your document is optimized for fast web view. This would transfer the first page plus all the overhead, and then only transfer the pages which are requested.
Conditions for that is that the server supports byteserving (something any kind of new webserver should be able to do), and that the PDF viewer component used to display the PDF understands about byteserving (the Acrobat/Reader component does, for example).
For the navigation, you could use bookmarks, which you make displaying in the document options of the document. With a good set of bookmarks, navigation through the document becomes rather easy.
It is big PDF. Navigation is fine but you want that user should not download the pdf and each time they have to read from site. Second case is when many users are not interested complete the PDF file, They may download/read particular section.
As per my view you should break PDF in smaller section and sections should managed by navigation links.
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I published my first website and I am still trying to solve its problems. I have mainly two questions regarding my website:
I have published my website and it suddenly appears in Google, but not in the way I want. For example, my site is www.mysite.com, but in Google www.mysite.com/contact.html or www.mysite.com/blog.html come before the original website URL.
I would like my website to be displayed like a website. (Please, write envato on Google and you will see the first result. Main link is on the top, sub-links are below it). How can I achieve this?
There is not right way to appear in Google. Google decides in which order it presents your pages according to what it thinks is best for its users. You have no control on this. However, you can influence this by creating more backlinks to your preferred URLs and focus on its content too. Make it more valuable than other pages for example.
This is a SEO related question. Next time, it should be asked on Pro Webmasters.
Google will rank what they deem the most relevant result the highest. If they're ranking your contact or blog pages higher, chances are there's not much useful content on the home page.
You can't affect this. Google does it based on an algorithm, and only for sites where they deem it to be sufficiently useful.
Optimise your home page for the keywords / phrases for which related pages are showing. You cannot control what Google deems relevant as per their algo.
Re-optimise your inner pages (unwanted links) for related phrases. Building a site-map with proper hierarchy also helps.
Also, are your inner pages within sub-folders or in the open folder along with your index.html? Defining a proper 'folder-drill-down' bread-crumb also helps search engines in understanding page hierarchy and displaying it like so.
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I know that <meta name="Description" content="[description here]" /> can be used but I wonder how to make a description like the one in facebook.
Does this description use the <meta> tag as well? Or is there some other secret behind it?
Edit: I code my site by myself (no wordpress and stuff) :)
I believe this is how it happens.
Google primarily displays multi link listings when they feel a query
has a strong chance of being navigational in nature. I think they can
determine that something is navigational in nature based on linkage
data and click streams. If the domain is well aligned with the term
that could be another signal to consider.
If you have 10,000 legit links for a term that nobody else has more
than a few dozen external citations for then odds are pretty good that
your site is the official brand source for that term. I think overall
relevancy as primarily determined by link reputation is the driving
factor for weather or not they post mini site map links near your
domain.
This site ranks for many terms, but for most of them I don't get the
multi link map love. For the exceptionally navigational type terms
(like seobook or seo book) I get multi links.
The mini site maps are query specific. For Aaron Wall I do not get the
mini site map. Most people usually refer to the site by it's domain
name instead of my name.
Google may also include subdomains in their mini sitemaps. In some
cases they will list those subdomains as part of the mini site map and
also list them in the regular search results as additional results.
Michael Nguyen put together a post comparing the mini site maps to
Alexa traffic patterns. I think that the mini site maps may roughly
resemble traffic patterns, but I think the mini links may also be
associated with internal link structure.
For instance, I have a sitewide link to my sales letter page which I
use the word testimonials as the anchor text. Google lists a link to
the sales letter page using the word testimonials.
When I got sued the page referencing the lawsuit got tons and tons of
links from many sources, which not only built up a ton of linkage
data, but also sent tons of traffic to that specific page. That page
was never listed on the Google mini site map, which would indicate
that if they place heavy emphasis on external traffic or external
linkage data either they try to smooth the data out over a significant
period of time and / or they have a heavy emphasis on internal
linkage.
My old site used to also list the monthly archives on the right side
of each page, and the February 2004 category used to be one of the
mini site map links in Google.
You should present the pages you want people to visit the most to
search bots the most often as well. If you can get a few extra links
to some of your most important internal pages and use smart channeling
of internal linkage data then you should be able to help control which
pages Google picks as being the most appropriate matches for your mini
site map.
Sometimes exceptionally popular sites will get mini site map
navigational links for broad queries. SEO Chat had them for the term
SEO, but after they ticked off some of their lead moderators they
stopped being as active and stopped getting referenced as much. The
navigational links may ebb and flow like that on broad generic
queries. For your official brand term it may make sense to try to get
them, but for broad generic untargeted terms in competitive markets
the amount of effort necessary to try to get them will likely exceed
the opportunity cost for most webmasters.
Source.
Hope this helps.
It depends on the website popularity.
Google does it, you don't.
Google may do it but you can persuade them.And check this out sub sitelinks in google search result
For starters, be sure you have a “sitemap.xml” file. This is a file
that tells the search engine about the pages on your site and makes
it easier for its spiders to crawl and understand it. Your
webmaster or website provider or Content Management System (like
WordPress) should have handled this for you, but it’s worth
checking. If you’re not a master of website technical stuff,
whoever is your technical support person will be able to tell you if
that page is there, and properly set up.
You should register your site with Google Webmaster Tools, if you
haven’t already. The exact process changes from time to time, but
basically, you’ll give Google the URL of your Sitemap file, which
you’ll have from the previous step. You’ll have to put a “Site
Verification Code” on your site to prove to them that you own the
site, and there are a few other simple steps.
Whenever you link one page to another in your site, use anchor text
and alt text that’s descriptive, and as succinct as possible, and
consistent. For example, you’ve linked to your “concierge services”
page from another page using the anchor text “concierge services.”
That’s perfect. Now, don’t link from another page using “guest
services.” You don’t want to be confusing the poor Google spider,
after all.
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Has anyone, with a large sampling, done research on how many users actually print webpages? I'm looking for some percentage values. .01%, 1%, etc actually print webpages.
It seems like a waste of time, to create design oriented print pages, if the stats extremely low.
It is very easy to create some print styles for your stylesheet to make printing easier on people.
As an example: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/goingtoprint/
In the same way that not everyone who visits your site will be disabled, the best practice is still to create sites that work for people with accessibility problems.
I don't have a link to a study for you but I'm very confident that it depends heavily on the type of content. I.e. the percentage of people who print a youtube video page is for sure much lower than those who print a recipe from a online cookbook.
So it's probably best to run your own study on the particular website where you need it. You can either make a little poll for the users of your site or track how often pages actually get printed.
This is not a metric that is usually tracked.
Since one needs to differentiate the regular page from the printable page, this requires a custom implementation on the printable version page that sends a particular tracking code/cookie.
It is not that hard to implement, one can even have printable pages tracked in google analytics or any analytic engine, but as I said it does require preparation and most people don't track this metric in particular.
It is possible through JavaScript to track the actual printing event with IE browsers. Considering users most likely won't switch to IE just to do the printing, it would give some sort of accurate indication of what % of the IE users, print the page.
For more information about the onbeforeprint and onafterprint events have a look at:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms536672(v=vs.85).aspx
Btw, I am not saying that collecting this data solely from IE users would give an accurate indication of the overall % of printed pages across all browsers, because IE is far more commonly used in office environments rather than home environments.
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Designing a web application, how do you design the main page? By this I mean the page that is displayed to a user after entering the base url, like http://www.foo.com.
It would probably depend on a website, but...
stackoverflow welcomes us with list of questions, no silly what is stackoverflow landing page,
last.fm prestens a kind of dashboard, being very popular lately, kind of personalized landing page for registered users
google welcomes us with a search box, but iGoogle i completly diffrent story - looks diffrent for everyone (well, and that's the point actually).
The other thing is, if the user is logged in (provided the website supports logging in), should we present him a diffrent content there then some new, random incomer? And I don't mean some personalized content, but something completly diffrent, like his user profile instead of main page?
From one perspective it could be good - registered users usually know our site, and get a kind of special greeting as soon as they come back. On the other hand, this could cause problems - when I show a website to a friend, then he goes there from his computer and sees something totally diffrent.
And other thing is, when I show a http://www.foo.com to a friend, and it takes me directly to my user profile / dashboard - this isn't sometimes what I'd like to show everyone, as this might show some of my personal data, etc.
What do you do when you design your web applications? What's, in your opinion, best from user's point of view, do my concerns about the website looking diffrent for registered and unregistered users do or don't make any sense? (Again, I don't mean small diffrences, like hiding huge register now link - but showing completly diffrent view then).
It really depends on the focus of your application, but if you were to generalise I would say determine the one or two most critical paths in your application and focus on those.
Registration is probably what you
want to drive more than anything
else, so make it clear how users can
sign up and get involved.
Make it is easy for existing users to sign in.
Consider the amount of text you have
on your front page and reduce and
pair it down as much as possible. Keep the messages and information you
convey here as succinct as possible.
Provide some content immediately
showing what your application or site
provides. Don't make users follow a
link to access the core functionality
of your site immediately e.g. if
you're building an auction site,
ensure there are listings on the
front page.
Consider your audience. If your site is non-technical, the fewer UI elements you present the better. Portal like sites, with lots of compartmentalised functionality and information can be confusing and overwhelming for many non-technical users.
Make it clear how users can get Help if they require it
Without knowing the business area of your site then it's going to be tricky to answer this, but...
You should get the user into the main flow of your website as soon as possible, and the home page is the best place to do this.
If you're an online store, start showing your products.
If you're a search engine, give the user the ability to search.
If you're a blog/news site, show the user the latest news.
Yes - make the experience for a logged on/registered user better (show them THEIR news, show them their recommended products etc), but the purpose of your site should be obvious and accessible from that home page. Get your existing users into their flow as soon as possible, and attact new users in to your site by showing them the meat of your site.
There are plenty of places out there that discuss good web design, making your site "sticky" etc. Check out SmashingMagazine.com (it's one such site) but there are plenty of others.
Oh, and remember that there's one very important user of your home page that you need to accomodate - search engines. Make their life easy, make the content discoverable and indexable, and drive people to your site via Search.
What I've found works best for me is to "role-play" the end-user's experience.
When they initially hit your site, what do they most want to see, or in other words, what are they most likely to be looking for and wanting to do?
I work on many intranet websites for a very large company, and what I've learned is that a home page that has detailed information of the site and what it does is useless and, consequently, my end-users just skip over it in order to get to the pages that they really need. So, my strategy usually consists in a home page that allows them to get straight down to business and whatever they're there to do.
BUT, that's just for the sites that I create. I think it totally depends on your target market and what they're wanting to do.
For the most part, a visitor landing on your page will already know the gist of what your application is about, so there shouldn't be a need to explain in detail what is is you do. Instead, show them that you have the information they are looking for. Screenshots and screencasts are becoming popular these days as a means of getting this across to the short-attention-spanned user.
For registered users, I'd recommend taking them directly to the primary application page instead of the homepage (unless the homepage is the primary application page). For many apps this is a Dashboard (Flickr, Basecamp, Campaign Monitor). If your app's main focus is the homepage, you may want to show them a personalized version of that page (think Google vs. iGoogle).
With all this said, it really does depend on what you are building. Every application is different and there's no right way to do it - only conventions that work for most.
I would start by looking at the type of tasks that can be performed inside your web app, what's important? what's important when they are a new user? what's important when they are a repeat user? what's important when they haven't even registered yet.
Although all of these things happen on the the same page, it's likely that you'll need to define different states. e.g. If a user is on the homepage and not logged in, should we prompt them to login and register.
Perhaps also look at Personas so you can figure out exactly who will be using the app and what is relevant to them.
It should be whatever makes sense for the application, and this should be verified by testing the application with a group of expected users.
The main page should provide a first-time user with enough visual and/or written information to understand what the application is about. They should have some idea as to what actions they can take to interact with the app and what the outcomes of these actions could be.
I know people hate this answer on stackoverflow but there's only one way to find out what the most appropriate thing for your users is - you need to brainstorm ideas with potential users or at the very least you ask them.
I'm not suggesting that you do a focus group, or put a flawed poll up (neither of those things work). Rather, I'm suggesting that you go out and talk to people who will potentially be in your target users and do planning games with them (like card sorting) or go out and do some user testing with paper prototyping.
Anything else is guessing.