Design of Inner Pages vs. Homepages

June 04, 2003 | 0 Comments

Today over at Digital Web, Jeff Lash (yes that Jeff Lash) comes strong with an article entitled How did you get here? Designing for visitors who don’t enter through the home page.

I think many folks would be surprised about how many people don’t enter sites through a home page. Inner (content) pages are all too often overlooked and quite often more effort is put into the home page of a site. Jeff’s article gives a bit of good insight into how you can help those readers / users who come in through the back door. One thing he didn’t mention — always make it easy for a user to get to the home page from wherever they may enter.

When talking about home page vs. interior page design it is important to note that they should really be treated as parts of a whole. A great site will have not only a good home page design, but a well thought out content design as well. These things go hand in hand and the design should reflect that, sadly often times it does not. The home page usually get’s all the attention, and frankly, even then many home pages are poorly designed.

At the very least a home page shouldn’t become a barrier to getting to the content and inner pages. A well done home page will not only carry a nice visual theme, but provide trigger words and clear links that will help a user get to what it is they are looking for. It should set the stage for the user experience, establish the navigation and work as a site map in many ways.

After all, where do people go when they get lost on a site? Search? Maybe. Site Map? Don’t count on it. I would bet that in many cases, it’s the home page. In findability tests I’ve noticed that users tend to ping-pong from the home page into the site looking for what they want. And if they can’t find what they are looking for there? Yep, they go elsewhere.

Filed under: Web Design