11 words to ban from your website

A short list of words and phrases that should never darken your online doors again…
1. Welcome
On a homepage, a Welcome message contains no information and is a massive waste of very valuable screen space. The way to welcome your visitors online is to provide information that shows them exactly what you’re about and how you [...]


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50% of usability problems are text fixes, says Jakob

More than half of all website usability problems are to do with text and can be resolved by copy fixes, says usability guru Jakob Nielsen.
Speaking with me at an event last week, Nielsen confirmed what we have long suspected: that because the web is essentially a word-driven medium, getting the words right is the key [...]


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External link disclaimers – how much is too much?

It’s worth being careful when you link to other sites, but don’t let over-cautious legal jargon get in the way of usability.


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Button naming in the real world at Sainsbury’s

I notice that the customer service desk in every Sainsbury superstore now sits under a banner that says not “Customer service” but “Here to help”. It’s a reminder that real-world retailing often has some useful lessons for online best practice (they’ve been using eyetracking for years, too).
That Sainsbury’s sign is a great example of how [...]


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Web text that’s worth it: the six most underrated types of digital copy

Digital copy is underappreciated, underrated and - astonishingly - still the poor cousin of the web relaunch process.


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