Stop for one second. Now imagine that you’re navigating a website and you find it difficult to find the menu, the main features, or the contact information. Painful, right?
This happens though. More than it should. Those first few seconds in the navigation will determine if people will return to your website or not. To help you make the most of those seconds, today we’ll talk about a little thing we like to call: Scannability.
First things first, let’s dive head first into the main principles: What it is scannability?, Why is it important?, and last but not least, How to make the best of it?
P.S: If you’re having trouble driving people to your website to start with, read this article on our best SEO tips!
Good scannability example A: FINIS, Inc.
Consider scannability as your website’s first impression on the users. It’s how the content is presented and how it’s processed during the first few seconds of navigation.
We don’t often talk about scannability, yet it’s the most important aspect to take into account when designing a website. Maybe we take it for granted, maybe we consider it too basic of a principle to even pay attention to it, but bad scannability will render your content irrelevant, no matter how brilliant.
Good scannability example B: Slingshot Sports
When we first look at a website -or anything else, for that matter-, we first take a quick glance at all the main features that catch our eye, to later inspect them one by one.
We scan the page to find what we’re looking for, we don’t read every word. Considering that screens are more tiring to read than paper, users want to find the information they’re looking for ASAP.
Good scannability example C: CLUSE, Europe Watch Group B.V.
The good news is that scannability is quite easy to master. First of all, you need to understand how people navigate websites. We tend to notice the top left first and then scan horizontally the top of the page. That’s a no-brainer, really.
This is quite the standard for most people and we will use this as the basis for three different scanning patterns:
Good scannability example D: VHC Brands
Making your website more scannable is a good exercise in intuition. In addition to evident tactics like noticeable CTAs, good readability, identifiable clickable parts and other basic website design notions, it’s the user’s experience while navigating your website that must carry the heavier weight in your design decisions.
Before finishing, ask yourself: Can you find all the relevant features of your business on the first few minutes of navigation? Can you understand your brand in the first few minutes of navigation? There’s no other acceptable answer but yes.
Let us help improve your NetSuite eCommerce website’s scannability, drop us a line, and let’s get started optimizing your strategy!
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