There have been some fun experiments carried out into working memory, or, how much information a person is able to temporarily store in their short term memory and how that affects their decision making capabilities.

My favorite involves asking the subject to remember either a single digit number or a seven digit number, then ‘by chance’ offering them a piece of chocolate cake or a fruit salad. Those who had been given a single digit number more often chose the fruit salad, while those with the longer number to remember chose the chocolate cake. The theory is that the ones carrying a ‘lighter cognitive load’ had more brain power left to resist the lure of the cake.

(Source: http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/bmag/sbsm0802/feature-babashiv.html)

This is important for your web design, because you want to ensure your visitors are processing what you want them to – i.e. your USPs (unique selling points) and special offers.

If your website is too deviant from the prototype, lackscognitive fluency or is too visually complex, then the poor user will be exhausted before they’ve even noticed you’ve got 40% off everything.

Having expended all that brainpower just looking at your website, they will feel disengaged and tired and will switch over to somewhere else that makes them feel more relaxed and at home – i.e. your competitor’s site.

However, if they’re arrived at your site and it instantly looks familiar, feels straightforward and doesn’t distract, then they can immediately get on with what they came there for in the first place – i.e. buying your products and services.

Check out these articles for more detail on why simple website are better:

• Why Simple Websites are Better  #1 - Playing to Prototypes
• Why Simple Websites are Better  #2 - Cognitive Fluency
•             Why Simple Websites are Better  #3 - Visual Processing of Complexity
   

Click here to read about tips on choosing a web designer and how to write copy for your website homepage.

Keep it simple, stupid!

Successful people have long known that the simple solution is almost always the best one, but unfortunately when it comes to practice, too many designers and clients think that having lots of varying stuff on their website will somehow meet the needs of everyone – rather than nobody.

Good designers instinctively know that simple, familiar designs will perform better, and one of the scientific theories that backs up this intuition is cognitive fluency.

So, what is cognitive fluency and why does it matter for my website?

Cognitive fluency refers to the experience of how easy or difficult it is to think about something. As a general rule, humans prefer things that are easy to think about and shy away from things that are hard to think about.

This principle influences pretty much every aspect of human behaviour - and decision making when it comes to buying goods and services online is no exception.

So, if a user reaches a website for the first time, but the navigation looks similar to the vast majority of other websites they been to, then it will feel familiar and ‘right’ and they will feel at home and know how to proceed.

On the other hand, if they arrive and the navigation is in a completely unexpected place, or requires them to figure out some kind of krypton factoresque puzzle in order to find their way around the site, they are more likely to think the site is ‘wrong’ or at the very least it leave them with a vague, sub-conscious uncomfortable feeling.

The Mere Exposure Effect

Cognitive fluency is closely linked with The Mere Exposure Effect, which basically states that the more you are exposed to something, the more you prefer it. This can easily be seen when popular brands change their imagery, and all the customers moan and groan that it’s not as good anymore, even in the product inside is identical.

If you’re smart, you can take advantage of this exposure effect with your web design, by playing on the experiences people will have had in the past and ensuring your website echoes those experiences.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you should just copy everyone else, or that all websites should always look exactly like they did in the 90s – far from it. But you need to use originality and innovation where it works, and in small enough chunks that it delights your users in comfort rather than baffling them.

Further reading:

Read more interesting and research backed up stuff about cognitive fluency here: http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2011/07/how-cognitive-fluency-affects-decision-making.php

We offer managed web hosting as standard with all our websites, because all websites need hosting, and it's a critical part of having an effective, reliable website.

But quite often clients who don't work with technology have no idea what web hosting is, or why they need it. We try our best to explain everything in terms that every one can understand, because a client who is confident that they know what's going on and are in control of the process, is a happy client.

This article aims to explain what web hosting is in very basic terms so that everyone can understand the principles. We don't go into the nitty gritty technical details, so it's not quite as simple as we make out - but it's as much as most people need to know.

So.

What is web hosting and why do you need it if you have a website?

A website is essentially a collection of files, including code files and images. These files need to be stored somewhere. You could keep them on your computer, but then your website would dissappear every time your turned your computer off, and if your internet connection wasn't very powerful, your website might appear unreliable to visitors. Also, whenever someone wanted to view your website, they would be using up your personal intenet connection.

So, instead of having websites live on home computers, there are huge computers which are dedicated to being homes for websites - and these are called servers. Servers are usually very powerful and are never turned off.

Having your computer live on one of these computers is called 'hosting'. Your 'host' is the supplier of the space on the server.

If you found this article helpful and want to learn more about web design and SEO, then have a look at our resource bank.

If you're looking for IT Support services for business or home, then try Unigold 2000.

If you have a website, then you should have stats for it - your web designer will probably have provided them for you.

There are lots of different programs out there that will give you web statistics, and many are free. One of the most popular is Google Analytics, because it means going right to the source and (in theory) getting the best data. Also, because of Google's humungous budget, Analytics has a lot of fancy graphics and functionality.

 

The kind of data you get can be anything from how many visitors your site gets to what time of day they came, how long they stayed, which pages they visited and in what order, what country they're in, how they came across your site and much, much more.

It's important to check out your stats and keep and eye on them, because the information can be used to fine tune your site and gauge performance.

However, it's easy to become obsessed with these numbers. This is bad idea for several reasons. First of all, traffic doesn't directly translate into sales. Revenue and profit are much more important - if you have millions of visitors, but no sales, then you have nothing.

Secondly, while you're analysing your stats, you are not spending time on more important things, such as running or promoting your business.

Finally, if you're looking too closely at your stats in an attempt to increase traffic, then the chances are you'll start being tempted to 'game' the system by tweaking, rather than focussing on just creating quality and value for your customers. As Google is constantly updating their algorithm and trying to make it even better at returning good results, SEO work based on complicated link text targetting, keyword density and the like is going to be fragile and could come tumbling down at any moment. Whereas, good quality content is robust and should stand the test of time.

Sentiva offer web design services in Leeds.

Here are our top five tips for web designers who are just starting out:

Keep it Simple

It can be tempting to put something in just because you can, not because it's right. This tends to lead to animated gifs, flash banners, scrolling marquee tags, loads of different fonts and basically a horrible mess that is a confusing turn off for visitors. Try to avoid including anything that doesn't have a clear purpose, and keep the design clean and simple.

Check the website on a range of browsers

Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari and  Chrome all interpret code is slightly different ways and it's worth checking your design on each of them to make sure nothing breaks. These days lots of people use mobiles to view websites as well, so check its not impossible on a smaller screen.

Focus on the visitor

Your starting point should be what the visitor wants, not what you want to tell them. This means being careful about using jargon or any terms or concepts they might not understand, and thinking about their objectives and how they might move around your site.

Make sure the structure and navigation is clear and consistent

The main navigation should be identical on every page, and ideally every page should be able to be reached from the main navigation. If there are a lot of pages, then use dropdowns. The exception is if you have large resource banks or ecommerce stores with hundreds of pages, but in this case consistency and clarity is even more important.

Don't have autoplaying music

This is one of the biggest turn-offs for visitors, who might be browsing at work, or at the very least might be playing their own music, which yours will conflict with.

For more advice about good and bad web design and SEO, check out our resource bank.

If you're looking to hire a web designer - click here.

We've got vampire teeth coming through the post, a skeleton trophy for best costume and bat wings for the dog - are you ready for halloween?

Take a break from carving pumpkins to think about getting a website for your business.

Whether you're taking your first steps onto the Internet or if you have an old website which is in need of refreshing and upgrading, now is a great time to get a new website - especially if you are a business owner in Leeds, because we're offering 20% off all website packages until the 31st of October.

Visit our website to find out more about our web design services, more about our team and see exmaples of the wesbites we've made in the past.