8a Basics of homepage design

Clearly establish your organisation’s identity

• Use the official logo and branding
• Provide an appropriate tag line that shows the key mission of the organisation/site
• Provide brief ‘about us’ information
  • And a link to ‘more about us’

Clearly establish the purpose of the site and provide clear calls to action to the main sections within the page

• Provide content examples that demonstrate the key sections, information types and functions, and provide clear calls to action from those.
  • Do not rely solely on global navigation bars put the most important items in prominent locations on the homepage
• If the content examples do not adequately explain the purpose, use concise and highly factual text to describe the purpose and what is available

Put the most important items high up on the page – but do not be frightened of creating a page that requires vertical scrolling if you have valuable content to put on there

• Avoid scroll blockers [see 1b] and structure the page to ‘advertise’ that value is to be had by scrolling further down

Provide dynamic up-to-date information to reinforce trust and give access to the newest items, for example:

• Dated news or articles
• This weeks most popular

Ensure that the homepage downloads quickly

• Avoid unnecessary large imagery, animations, and plug-ins

Make sure your homepage presents immediately useful and relevant information

• Avoid splash pages or animated introductions

Disable the links to the homepage on the homepage itself

• For example, on the homepage the logo and the ‘home’ link should not be active

Make the majority of the page about your target audience rather than about you and your organisation

• Facilitate their needs
• Demonstrate the benefits to them of the site or service
• Use their language