Wether it’s a new site design, a cool promotion, or something free you always needs to think about the audience first. I know it sounds stupid, but it’s amazing the amount of times the audience of your website can be ignored if you are not careful. You should not think about what makes you happy, or what design works for you, but what works for those people coming to your site. Sometimes its trial and error, but you must remember one critical aspect of web site ownership: Unfortunately, a website is not a “set and forget” proposition. Tastes change as well.

The easiest way to keep your website “Fluff Free” is to think of your website like a power point presentation you have to give to the owner of the company. You don’t give him a presentation about your trip to Disney. Sure it might have been cool, but we’re pretty sure the boss wants to know what you are doing at work, rather then in your spare time. Same thing with a website. Don’t get suckered into bell and whistles that are cool because they are free or they look nice. The real question is: will my users find value in this. Anything else is fluff. Your role is to be anti-fluff.

Sometimes it can also be a fine line between the two. For this we will use the Snap.com example. Snap Shots is a website plug-in you can add to your web pages that does the following: when your users hover over links, it pops up a thumbnail preview of the web page, or what ever content you chose to have displayed to your visitors.

Sounds cool no? Well to some it’s not. There are many opinions for and against it’s use out there. Generally it comes down to the implementation these users have experienced. And as someone with a website it’s up to you to make this experience the best possible.

First off I will summarize some of the complaints about Snap.com:

The users are not stupid: Well written links will tell people what the link is about so no preview is needed.
The thumbnails are useless: A thumbnail does not tell you much, except what a site looks like. It’s great for pictures but not much else.
Accessibility matters: External scripts take time to load, and having every link hovered upon open-up is a real distraction–and time loading nightmare.

These arguments are all valid. Nevertheless, with 2,000,000 websites and blogs using snapshots, there must be a reason. The truth is, it all comes down to proper implementation. I suspect those that hate snap.com were victims of overzealous usage at a website. Snapshots, allows for many ways to restrict the use of snap previews. There is also a value for having video and images direct link for users. But it also depends on your audience. A tech savvy audience would not be happy to be force feed content on a hover. They like to right click into a new tab or new window to explore what they find interesting.

You should look into your own backyard as well once in a while. You’ll be surprised what you find if you look carefully. We used to have many useless widgets, even on this blog. It’s easy to get caught up ion the cool. Taking these widgets off has improved loading time performance, and it has happened without anyone upset about those removed widgets. So remember, don’t be suckered into a “free cool widget”, think about the user experience every time. Should you need help with your website, please don’t hesitate to contact Mark8t E-Marketing Solutions today.