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	<title>Vasudeva Server &#187; Useful stuff</title>
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		<title>Don&#8217;t Make Me Think</title>
		<link>http://www.vasudevaserver.org/blog/2010/02/21/dont-make-me-think/</link>
		<comments>http://www.vasudevaserver.org/blog/2010/02/21/dont-make-me-think/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 21 Feb 2010 22:16:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>tejvan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Useful stuff]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.vasudevaserver.org/?p=113</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#34;Don&#8217;t Make Me Think&#34; is a book about designing websites by Steve Krug. I only read it very briefly but liked the essence of his book. Inspired by this book and other sources here are a few ideas for designing sites. 1. First Impressions Count:&#160; People&#8217;s attention span is very short, especially on the internet.If [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&quot;<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=ur2&amp;camp=1789&amp;tag=poetseers-20&amp;creative=9325&amp;path=external-search%3Fsearch-type=ss%26keyword=Dont make me think Krug%26index=blended">Don&rsquo;t Make Me Think</a>&quot; is a book about designing websites by Steve Krug.
</p>
<p> I only read it very briefly but liked the essence of his book. </p>
<p>Inspired by this book and other sources here are a few ideas for designing sites. </p>
</p>
<div>
<p style="font-weight: bold;">1. First Impressions Count:&nbsp;</p>
<p>People&rsquo;s attention span is very short, especially on the internet.<br />If something is too complicated or not interesting, they can easily click and leave.</p>
</div>
<div> </div>
<div>
<p style="font-weight: bold;">2.&nbsp;Make it Obvious&nbsp;</p>
<p>People don&rsquo;t surf the net to work things out and calculate, people generally take the path of least resistance.</p>
<p>You may spend hours designing and working on a site, but 80% of your visitors will spend less than 30 seconds.</p>
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<div>
<p><span style="font-weight: bold;">3.&nbsp;Simplicity</span> </p>
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<p>Don&rsquo;t overcomplicate pages. But, make it very clear what it is about.</p>
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<p>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">4.&nbsp;Send Visitors Where You Want Them To Go</span></p>
<p>Web visitors do not spend time trying to think where they want to go. They will click on the most obvious links. Therefore, make sure, you point visitors exactly where you want them to go.</p>
<p><span id="more-113"></span></p>
<p>
  <span style="font-weight: bold;"> 5.&nbsp;Plain English </span>
</p>
<p>People don&rsquo;t usually like long text. People like pictures and short captions<br />Also people will often click on images expecting a link.&nbsp; </p>
<p style="margin-right: 0px;" dir="ltr"><span style="font-weight: bold;">6.&nbsp;Write in simple sentences</span>. <br />Have you ever read &ldquo;Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus&rdquo; by Wittgenstein? Neither have I. </p>
<p>  If you write like this your visitors won&rsquo;t stay long: </p>
<p>- Book on <a href="http://www.kfs.org/~jonathan/witt/ten.html">Philosophy</a>&nbsp;<br />- Winner of <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/story/news/national/2003/12/02/Rumsfeld_031202.html">Bad English award</a>. 
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>However don&rsquo;t forget Search Engines give importance to text, not ease of navigation. It is important to have many pages of text but these are better as links within the site not as home pages or index_html pages. (Also Google don&rsquo;t like too many pages that are very short)    </p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">7.&nbsp;Look at Successful Sites</span></p>
<p>Successful commercial sites like Amazon and Google have invested a lot of money in making sure visitors are happy. <br />It is worth checking their sites for ideas. It is perhaps no conincendence the most successful home page (Google) is also the most simple.</p>
<p>  <strong>8. Don&#8217;t Reinvent the Wheel.</strong></p>
<p>When it comes to site navigation, it is good to adopt common practises that visitors expect elsewhere on the web.</p>
<p><strong>9. Lists are Good.</strong></p>
<p>Lists are good because it is easy to scan read. People don&#8217;t read websites like a book. They scan sites looking for something that interests them.</p>
<p><strong>10. Less Choice Is Better</strong></p>
<p>Faced with more than 7 options, visitors are less likely to click on anything, but leave.</p>
<p>When there is a simple choice, they are more likely to click on something. When you have a long list of say 20, web visitors are more likely to leave straight away. &#8211; People don&#8217;t want to invest time of having to choose.</p>
</p>
<h3>Related </h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.wdvl.com/Authoring/Design/Dont/index.html">Don&#8217;t Make me think </a>by Steve Krug<strong><br /></strong></li>
</ul>
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		<title>Dterm &#8211; a very handy command-line utility&#8230;</title>
		<link>http://www.vasudevaserver.org/blog/2010/02/01/dterm-a-very-handy-command-line-utility/</link>
		<comments>http://www.vasudevaserver.org/blog/2010/02/01/dterm-a-very-handy-command-line-utility/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 01 Feb 2010 22:37:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>nirbhasa</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Useful stuff]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.vasudevaserver.org/?p=37</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I was rebuilding my development setup following my recent hard drive crash when i came across this very useful Mac utility: Dterm. Put simply, it allows you to go to a folder using finder, press a hotkey (apple + shift + return, but that can be configured) and then a window comes up where you [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I was rebuilding my development setup following my recent hard drive crash when i came across this very useful Mac utility: <a href="http://www.decimus.net/dterm.php">Dterm</a>.</p>
<p>Put simply, it allows you to go to a folder using finder, press a hotkey (apple + shift + return, but that can be configured) and then a window comes up where you can enter a command line:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.vasudevaserver.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/dterm.png"><img src="http://www.vasudevaserver.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/dterm.png" alt="" title="dterm" width="550"  class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-38" /></a></p>
<p>Perfect if you just want to enter one command, you can also select files and use them as argumants. And if you need to do more than just one line, press shift + return and a Terminal window will open up already arrived at that folder. </p>
<p>( p.s notice the amount of space i have in my new hard drive &#8211; every cloud has a silver lining <img src='http://www.vasudevaserver.org/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' />  )</p>
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