SITES at Penn State is powered by WordPress and allows you to design and build free websites, portfolios, and blogs. Sites is available to faculty, staff, and students. The possibilities are endless in creating your website. There are some considerations to keep in mind when developing your site to ensure that it is effective and user-friendly to your visitors.
1: Accessibility
It is a misconception that developing an accessible website is only intended for those with disabilities. Accessibility helps everyone! By developing an accessible website, you are ensuring that any potential visitor to your site has a user-friendly experience, regardless of the device or any adaptive equipment they may be using. An accessibility friendly site allows for clear and simple navigation and overall ease of use.
Learn More: Penn State Accessibility
2: Useful Content
Users visit a website to obtain information. Content design or content “architecture” is key and should put the user first. Chunking your content and making it easy to locate will improve the overall usability of your site.
3: Contact Information & Social media
Contact information that is easily visible adds to the effectiveness of your site. Without a straightforward means of connecting with you, users may distrust you and your content. Users want the ability to contact and connect with the site owner to submit comments or questions to gather additional information for their needs.
4: Logical Navigation & Mobile Friendliness
You want to create an easy, logical way to navigate through your website beginning from the top down. When visitors land on a website they want to have the ability to conduct a quick skim to see if the information they need is accessible. A navigation menu can help a visitor walk through a site. The menu also allows for easy navigation back to a previous page within the site or back to the home page. With busy lives, site visitors also want the ability to use a mobile device to search for information. Navigation may be different with a mobile device. Responsive design layouts need to maximize images as well as place buttons in a way that they can be tapped on a small screen.
5: Search Area
Creating a user-friendly website is one thing, but you want your site homepage to be more than a drop in. Your website needs to earn traffic for not only the home page but other pages throughout the site. Your menu is an overview guide to your various pages, but making sure your site theme includes a search bar will allow users to search by key words to more specifically locate the content they are looking for.
Visit these resources to learn more about creating and managing Sites: