Recently Kate blogged about the often overloaded design layouts of social media sites like Facebook. Kate summarised that they are hugely overloaded with information but get away with it because people are prepared to invest more time skimming and digging through piles of extraneous information because of the emotional attachment to the material presented. Following on from that I would like to add that the social media world and its gurus are especially guilty of poor design consideration when creating web pages about events or information about social media. I, as someone who advises brands on social media, frequent these sites and it is quite frustrating to be searching for basic information for 15 minutes through masses of wikis, threads, updates and so on. It reinforces in my mind the importance of good clear, simple design and simple usability - something that ALL site creators, within social media or not, should remember when producing content for the web.

These web site usability / design principles are especially true when it comes to technology companies as they more than others need to convey clarity, due to the often potentially confusing and inherently technical nature of the products or services.

1. Who are you and what do you do?
It should be immediately clear who you are and what you do from just seconds of landing on your site. What you do can be conveyed simply in a sentence or two and who you are can be conveyed by a strong sense of brand through imagery and visuals.

2. Key facts at the fore.
Make sure your key information is either on the homepage or very clearly labelled in the navigation. Dates, relevant news, phone numbers, key products etc.

3. Avoid jargon.
Jargon is only useful for those who know what the terminology actually means! Why on earth would you want to risk alienating half the audience of people who visit your site? Beats me, but many people seem to miss this point.

4. Less is more.
In copy and also in imagery, logos etc, try to hold back and just include what is necessary so the page is uncluttered and simple to scan read.

5. Encourage them to get in touch.
Contact links, email addresses, snail mail, Twitter links and phone numbers: as much as possible encourage them to get in touch for more information. If they need help be clear about where they can go to get it.

There are lots of other, more complex and intricate considerations to expert web design, but if these basic points are covered (and you'd be surprised how many big companies don't manage to cover them) then you will convert more visitors - and more importantly people won't get frustrated and click away with a bad impression of your business.