Simply Design Your Web Site

I visited the io9.com web site today, after getting there from an external link. I've visited this site before, and mostly read stories they publish via RSS. But today, when I landed on the home page, I was frozen. I had no idea what to do.

Over the past several weeks I've been working on a project where the initial landing page needs to give the visitor enough information about the sites offering, and make it painlessly obvious what options are available. I consider myself an expert web browser, but I must admit when I landed on io9.com today, I had no idea what they wanted me to do.

Experimenting, redefining, shifting, and tossing, has shown us so much can be accomplished through simplicity. Using a sifting method, we have been able to remove the pieces of a web site that shift the focus from the message. Are the elements on your site changing the focus of your message. If they are, remove them, or add elements that speak to the message.

For example, looking at my site, I can see there are several elements that probably distract visitors from my message. Those are things in the side bar. Here are some things that could probably be removed. I wonder if I can find something that would let me track the effectiveness of these sidebar elements.

[gallery link="file" columns="2" orderby="ID" exclude="1556"]

Remember to "simply" design your website.