Jeff Bridgforth :: Webcraftsman

I am a Web designer with a passion for creating visually appealing, inspiring and usable Web sites. More >>

Homepage the least important page on your site?

September 7, 2007

Best Practices · Design (Web) · Useability

Last week, I was lis­ten­ing to a pod­cast from UIE on Home­page design. Jared Spool pointed out that the home­page is the least impor­tant page on your site. He believes the con­tent page is the most impor­tant because that is what the user is look­ing for. I see his wis­dom in this.

Jared also talked about how the home­page is usu­ally the first page that gets designed because it is the eas­i­est (and I think can be the most fun). Con­tent pages and other pages that get you there are harder.

Users are not on your site to hang out on your home­page. They are there to get some­thing, whether it is buy­ing some­thing, get­ting news, read­ing an arti­cle or con­nect­ing with a friend. The home­page and sup­port­ing pages (depart­ments, gal­leries, etc.) are there to get users to what they want.

Given this, I have been re-thinking the design process and here are pre­lim­i­nary thoughts for the order of atten­tion I give to design:

  1. Con­tent pages
  2. Gallery pages
  3. Depart­ment pages
  4. Home­page

For an expla­na­tion of these type of nav­i­ga­tion pages, see 8 Types of Nav­i­ga­tion Pages by Jared Spool.

Of course the day I lis­tened to this pod­cast, I was work­ing on a new design for a site and I was start­ing with the home­page. After hear­ing this pod­cast, I think I need to put the home­page aside and start on the con­tent pages and work my way up.

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