Six projects to do before you do a webside redesign: Learn what the user can and can't see

[This is the fourth part of a six part series on projects you should do before you commit to a redesign.  To learn why redesigns are expensive and often serve the agency much better than the client, read my introduction.]

I have an assertion for all of you considering a redesign of your website:

Some significant portion of your web visitors can't see, or don't see portions of your website.  If you redesign the website without knowing what they aren't seeing, you may put crucial information in their blind spot in your redesign.

There are three reasons for users not to see the information you put on a page:

1. They physically can't see it.
2. They don't see it because it's not prominent.
3. They don't look at it because they've been trained not to.

You need to understand the blind spots in your website before you build another one, or you may put information in a blind spot even with the help of a usability expert.  You also need to understand how people read on the web.  Here are the reasons a visitor may not be seeing your content.

Can't see it: Blind visitors

If you're blind, you can't see the images.  If you don't tag your pages carefully to facilitate screenreaders for the blind, these your visitors will miss out.  It's not enough to just add alt tags to all your images, you need to attempt some level of 508 compliance.  The US Government has some great tools for you at section508.gov.

Can't see it: Too small text

If you're text is too small, your visitors may not see what you've written.  You can facilitate this with font sizing functions on your site that let the user make the font bigger.  The major browsers also build this into their functions, but many visitors won't know they've missed it.

Can't see it: Color blind

This affects more people than you think.  There are several different types of color blindness, and you only need to render something difficult to see (as opposed to invisible) in order to get tripped up by this and affect the effectiveness of your site.  Use a tool that shows you the filtered version of your website to spot color blindness problems.

Can't see it: Screen size too small

Do you have a solid understanding of the screen sizes of your visitors?  While you may not want to design your website to satisfy the 5% users that only have 600 pixels of width to view, you need to know enough not to put the most crucial information on the far right.

You can get screen size information from your analytics product.  You can also see an immediate overlay of the site with Google Browser Overlay.  If you run this on truthypr.com, you'll see why I moved my call-to-action column to the left.

Don't see it: not prominent

You can also bury important information in your website by cluttering it with too much material.  I suggest running an eyetracking study on some of your competitors before doing a new design.  People typically advise running a study on a design before you implement it, but a design that only exists on paper (or hasn't been worked into a CMS) is still very theoretical. 

If you run a study of a competitor website, you'll learn the secrets that are specific to your issues, as well as learn a little about what your competitors don't know about their own audience.  Of course, if you have the money, run it on your new design as well.  Just don't be surprised when the design changes six months after implementation and another eyetracking study reveals a problem.

Don't see it: it looks like an ad

This is something I see commonly on nonprofit websites.  Someone wants to promote something and so they build out a graphical promotion, maybe even an animated gif, to look like an ad, and drop it into every page on the site.

The problem with this is that web visitors have been training themselves to ignore ads for years.   They gloss right over them, which is why the Internet Advertising Bureau has standardized larger and larger ad sizes to be embedded into pages.

Understanding how your existing website, no matter how awful, really works is a key step to creating a better one.  These suggestions won't break the bank, but will help you understand what you need to do.

[This is the fourth part of a six part series on projects you should do before you commit to a redesign.  To learn why redesigns are expensive and often serve the agency much better than the client, read my introduction.]