The Purpose of a Home Page
The home page is the first page most of your visitors will see. It is also the most important. It therefore needs to do the following:
- identify who you are
- identify the main categories of information on your site
- identify where information can be found on a page
- load quickly
Identifying Who You Are
The visitor to the page first wants to know if she is on the right page. To find out, she looks for identifying information, such as:
- a logo or trademark
- your (or your company or organization) name
- brief, clear narrative
If you are a well-known company or organization, your logo should suffice. Otherwise, you should also include your company's or organization's full name.
A short statement explaining who you are might be necessary, if you are not well-known. This includes most people and most companies.
Identifying the Main Categories of Information on Your Site
Your home page should clearly identify the main categories of information, or the main activites people will engage in on your site. These are usually expressed as a list of topics further on the page, and/or as navigation links.
How these categories are determined is a topic of ongoing discussion, mainly by usability analysts. Each site is unique in its information content and in the activities performed on it. However, certain paradigms dictate how the sites should be structured. Look on this site in the future for a discussion of paradigms.
Identifying Where Information Can Be Found on a Page
When the visitor visits each page, she scans to verify that she is on the correct page. She looks for identifying information to be found in "usual" locations:
- logos/name identifiers in the upper left corner;
- main navigation links groupings in the "usual" locations:
- top navigation bar;
- left and/or right navigation panels;
- bottom (optional) navigation bar;
- page header identifying which page of the site she is on;
- main content section somewhere in the center, as the largest group of information.
Throughout your site, this information should be consistently presented on the page in the same locations, and with the same format (fonts, colors). This consistent organization and formatting represents the page architecture. If the architecture changes from page to page on the site, the visitor might actually think she has left your site!
Loading Quickly
Because this is the first page one may see of your site, it is essential that it load quickly. First, to create a good impression of efficiency and usability. Second, to enable the visitor to verify she is on the right page as quickly as possible.
For tips on how to improve the performance of your pages, see the Performance section of this site.
Uncluttered Appearance
Because your home page may be the first (and only) page visitors see, it needs to make a good impression. It cannot if it has too much stuff on it.
Keep it simple. Remove the fluff.