“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” – Bert Lance
An apt quote that applies to just about every facet in life, from home remodels to governmental policies. Don’t get us wrong. In many cases where the web is involved; improvements and thinking outside the box are great assets. However, when it comes to web conventions, well, they’re conventions for a reason.
From one website to another there are a few consistencies you may notice. For example, where the company logo is placed, the location of the navigation, how links within the page are styled, what the buttons on the page do, the standardization of icons, visual hierarchy, and naming things clearly and precisely. All of these come together to give the user a familiar and reliable experience across pages. It’s when we stray too far from these conventions that the frustrations begin.
As a visitor to a website the last thing you would expect when you click on a “Read More” is to be taken to a page with a random dancing frog and zero textual content referencing the article. In fact, you might find yourself a bit peeved that you’ve been sent to a completely irrelevant page when you wanted to read about that given topic. Of course “This doesn’t mean you have to churn out the same boring web design over and over again. Innovation in web design is great! What it does mean is that you shouldn’t sacrifice the advantages of convention merely for the sake of innovation.”
There are established meanings behind each convention that are globally understood. Everyone knows the hamburger icon on mobile screens indicates that if you click it you will expand a menu or that colored content within a paragraph of text means that it’s a link. Don’t make your audience think too hard about how they are supposed to navigate or use your site, this will likely only result in increased bounce rates and hinder your message.
Web conventions are your friends and even though it may not require you to think outside of the box it means your audience doesn’t have to either and that is a wonderful thing. You want you’re website to feel familiar and be easy to use. Don’t give your audience a dancing frog, give them a great design that they can understand and a link that sends them to the right place.