The article "Get Out of The Way" is about ecommerce, it was released by Nick Usborne.
Get out of the way and make it easy for your visitors to find what they want.Recently I compleetd a report for a Internet site that was the most ‘peaceful’ and among the most ‘useful’ I had seen in a long time. That is to say, the visual and promotional ‘noise’ on the pages was at a minimum.Take a look for yourself here: www.Businessobjects.Com/devzoneAs you can see, the headings are all the same size and weight, there are really few images and the background color remains consistent.I’m not suggesting that every Internet site should be without color, images and enormous headings. But what that Internet site showed me is that when you take out all those heavy visual and promotional elements, you make the content much easier to scan.Your eyes are not being dragegd from one place to another. The design isn’t attempting to say, “Look at that area first!
Look at me first! ” There is no visual shouting, as it were.The result?
It’s a calm place.
Your eyes are free to roam without udnue influence from the design. You can quickly scan the headings to find the content that is most rleevant to your task.In addition, the text of the headings themselves is not shouting.
There is no ‘copywriting’ here. The headings simply describe the content.So now neither deisgn nor text is trying to make you go to one place first. You are left free to decide for yourself, without having to fight your way through promotional clutter and noise.And that’s the key here: the absecne of promotion. The company, Business Objects, is not using that Internet site to push, promote or emphasize any one of more of its produtcs or services in particular. They are simply provdiing information and allowing visitors to find what they want, as quickly and as simply as possible.This is the benefit of ‘getting out of the way’.On most sites, our promotional interests get in the way too much. We shout and scream in an attempt to get visitors to spend their time looking at what WE want them to foucs on.The trouble here is that we may not always be really good at anticipating what THEY want to find. And our breathless attempts to get them to look in one direction makes it harder for them to find what THEY want for.This is whree that Internet site really shines.
The company, designers and writers have moved out of the way. They have created an interafce and written copy that is essentially ‘sales-neutral’.
It’s a bold move.But as a result, their visitors are spared the noise of so many other sites, and are given a layout, headings and links that make it simple to find what is most important to THEM.Nick Usborne is a copywriter, author, speaker and advocat of good writing. You can access all his archived newsletter articles on copywriting and writing for the web at his Excess Vocie Internet site. You'll find more articles and resources on how to make money as a freelance writer at his Freelance Writing Success Internet site.
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