http://deyalexander.com.au/blog Research, ideas, opinions and examples of good and bad web content... because good content matters! Fri, 17 Oct 2008 08:56:33 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en It's rarely a good idea to keep saying something over and over on a web page. Repeating information tends to bury it, rather than make it more visible. [caption id="attachment_40" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Repeated information, Coles"][/caption] On this page, the heading 'Delivery to your door' is hard to miss. It doesn't need to ... http://deyalexander.com.au/blog/2008/10/16/i-heard-you-the-first-time/ This page links to lists of subjects ('units' in university-speak) available at Macquarie University. I wonder how much sense this makes to prospective students? It may be even worse for international students. Australian students will probably be able to make sense of things like ECON, POL and PHIL. It's probably not ... http://deyalexander.com.au/blog/2008/10/15/student-friendly/ [caption id="attachment_35" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Bulleted list, Q-Comp"][/caption] Only yesterday I mentioned how important it is to design lists well. Here is another one from the Q-Comp site, where visibility of key information would be improved by moving the word "to" up to the end of the lead-in sentence. http://deyalexander.com.au/blog/2008/10/14/more-list-problems/ Bulleted lists are a great way of showing information at a glance. We know web users move fairly quickly through pages, and lists can quickly bring key information to their attention. But only when they are well designed. [caption id="attachment_17" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Bulleted list, Office of Economic and Statistical Research"][/caption] This ... http://deyalexander.com.au/blog/2008/10/13/writing-effective-lists/