February 05, 2004 | View Comments (8) | Category: Design
Summary: What is the right amount of content to present to your users?
If you have ever had the pleasure of reading one of Edward Tufte's wonderful books on information visualization you will understand that the more useful information you can present your users, the more valuable the graphic. Notice I used the word useful implying that more information is not always better, but if it is useful to the user to gain a better understanding of the data then it should be used. On the other end of the spectrum (or so you might think) you have the Nielsen school of design, which implies that the less content you provide on the page, the better. However, this is faulty thinking. In fact, Nielsen and Tufte are thinking alike in the fact that Tufte wishes for people to add more useful information and Nielsen wishes for people to subtract content so that only useful information is present.
Number 1 on Nielsen's list for Web Design Mistakes of 2003 is the lack of a statement of purpose for websites. This is a piece of information that I think is vital for every website, until they get so popular where people just get to know what the site is. On my sites (whitespace, cssvault, and version2) I have taken the route of using the title followed by the statement of purpose for the site. This should give all the new users an idea of what to expect on the site. This is a piece of content that you will find many blogs miss. The reason it is important is because different blogs talk about different subjects and just because you have a blog doesn't mean people will read it. Just because there is an image of some cats in the background it doesn't mean the site is about cats. The beauty of a statement of purpose is that it can take up very little space, therefore keeping design minimal.
The purpose of visiting your site is of course for the content. When it comes to presenting the content you have to decide what is the main content. The main content should always dominate the design. Deciding what the main content is though can be difficult. For a blog the main content becomes the entries. However, what do you do for a video game site where you offer previews, reviews, and articles? Is it best to have a single list which shows the most recent entry last like a blog or should you split it up in 3 columns. I would split it up in 3 columns if I considered all the content equal.
Different audiences may see different amounts of content as optimal. Someone who is new to Yahoo may think it is great that their site lists almost everything the web has to offer. On the other hand you have the experienced users who just wish to check their email or stocks. In this situation I say it is probably best to cater to the newbies as the more experienced users will learn your site to the point where they can bypass all the content that is not useful for them.
This week 37Signals released their new project management tool Basecamp. The frontpage contains a lot of information. I was thinking in the mindset of a first time user and I found this setup very useful. It read almost like a brochure in the sense that I wanted to learn about the product so I read and just scrolled down. It made sense to me. Obviously there was a lot of content that they wanted the user to see, so they included it on the page. But after your first visit, you lose the "first-time" user status.
On the homepage at the bottom of the page you will notice a Q&A section. This section provides some very valuable information. However, what if I were to come back to the site and went looking for a FAQ section. Well I would have to do some searching.
This is not a gripe about the design of the site. But more of a questioning of if there is really just too much information for one page. Sometimes we want everything available immediately to our users, while other times we need to break things up. Sometimes the decision is not as easy as you may think.
What makes this even more difficult is that there are no metrics that I am aware of that say when you have reached content overload. The amount of content that becomes too much for someone seems to be a qualitative issue instead of a quantitative one. To each his own it seems.
It seems by writing this I have only caused myself more confusion. I think most sites have to go through an evolution process (as this one did) where over some time they will evenutally reach that median between the right amount of content for both new users and advanced users. However, not all of us are given the abilities to go through several stages of design for a single site and for these sites I guess you can only do your best in trying to give them just the right amount of content they need to get the job done.
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Ah, now I just need to filter out the crap from the content.
Scrivs (http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/)
It's tough to decide whether you want to make your front page more relevant to the casual or frequent visitor. You either end up depriving the casual user of important introductory information or interfering with the usability available to the frequent visitor.
I think whitespace's current front page is a good trade-off of the two. The mission statement is prominentely placed and the fresh content is neatly summarised. This gives a chance for new visitors to see the sorts of topics discussed without assualting them with information. It also allows return visitors to see the latest articles at a glance and lets them catch-up (because there are days when you just can't visit all your websites).
The trade-off (albiet a tiny one) is that frequent visitors have to click-thru to be able to read an entire article. That's not a complaint, just an observation - it's almost like the way you click an email to read it.
Jack (http://boxofjack.com/)
Disclaimer: The next few paragraphs is my view of things, so you may have already read some of it in the entry.
I see your point, Scrivs. Too much content and you'll scare away the new users and little content means more clicks (and frustration) for the more experienced user. I use the word 'user', bacause sites may resemble papermedia, it is certainly not. A website is to be used, not to drive away those awful dull moments riding the train to work every day.
This is also a problem that occurs when faced with the question "How much content?". You can give the user more control by links that points to specific parts of the website, but this means that you need more space wich adds more to the complexity and, enevitably, more to the confusion of the user.
The median in this lies in the purpose of the website. Portal? giv'em all you got. Portfolio page? Go for content divided in appropriate section. Don't forget about the users themselves. A portal for the elderly needs much clearer navigation, so think about how much content you want to present to them at one time.
As most of these usability issues, there is no rule of thumb, no solid way of doing things. Think about your users, where you want the site to go and Test. The only way to see if your site is that what you want to be, is to test it with your target group.
So what is the way to approach this? Know what the site's purpose is, what the target group is and what kind of message you want to convey. If you have a layout, test it with the target group. What works, what needs some refinement?
In any case, always design elements distinctively. I've seen many weblogs that have one sidebar, with all links in them. Blog roll, sections and about all in the same format. This makes it harder to navigate trough the site.
[m] (http://mantaworks.nl)
This subject is not a contentious one; there is no two ways to say it: content is king. When I first built my own site doepud my chief aim was to sell myself as a recent IT graduate ... so the site had the proverbial CV etc.
Now my situation has changed and so has the meaning of the site. I still have the front page as an introduction to the site content and myself, however the main interest to regular visitors must be my log. Lengthy deliberation led me to stick with the the present format, which means regulars are a click away from the log and first timers get the useful intro!
Blair (http://doepud.tk)
Designers missing the point again. Everyone looking at the QUANTITY of content and not the quality.
It's the quality that counts. It's the length of paragraghs that matter. It's the speed at which you get to the point. It's not the total character count that matters.
Ugh
The greatest epic "Mahabharata" and "Ramayana" were full of content in it, and its been read by all in India very intrestingly by the Folk peoples. This is a great example because,Except Folk peoples no one read it throughtly, due to many factors,like time,avalibility and languages. But The same epic got instance capture when it was introduced in Indian Schools with the Graphics dipicting each instances on Ramayana and Mahabharata, titles Sanksipt Ramayana and Sankshipt Mahabharata respectively. Irony is that there is 30 perCent text content in it only.
Saumendra (http://www.saumendra.com)
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#1
All content, little metadata, no crap.
Brian (http://joechip.net/brian/)