There are a few shows on TV that I always try to watch, Supernatural on Tuesday on the CW (formerly the WB), Meet the Press on Sunday mornings, and The Simpsons on Sunday evening. Supernatural is sort of my trash television show, Meet the Press gives me my political fix, and The Simpsons provides me with a base of material that I can use to compare real-life experiences and events.

A few years ago there was an episode where Homer shows up to work, but no one else is there. He finds out the nuclear plant where he works is closed, and that everyone was notified of this fact by e-mail. He decides to take out a fifth mortgage to purchase a $5000 computer, which Lisa helps him set up.

Homer designs his own web page, which is a ridiculous combination of everything that he can find on the Internet: dancing hamsters and dancing Jesus, flying toasters, little walking mouths, etc. The site was a mess. Which brings me to my point: too many folks set up their web sites without keeping in mind the #1 fundamental of web design - usability. Too many folks sacrifice a well-designed site for extraneous bells and whistles that may be visually interesting, but take away from the purpose of your site.

There’s a ton of books out there on web design and usability. A really good one to check out is Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug. Here are some quick usability considerations when laying out your site:

Do

1) Make the navigation as clear as possible. Some folks design their site with pop up nav’s and cleverly hidden links. This may look cool, but folks that are finding out about you for the first time are not going to want to take the time to figure out how to operate the site.

2) Make the purpose of your site as clear as possible. Your band’s logo or name should be up top, in a font that is consistent with how the name is presented on your CD or other merch you make. You want folks to know that this is the band’s Web site, not some other weird portal.

3) Stay true to the focus of the site. What is most important for your users to know? Are you constantly touring? If so, the tour button on your nav should be really prominent, and your homepage should have your tour dates front and center. Is the main purpose of your site to sell merch? If so, then this should be highlighted.

4) Encode sound files at a high enough bit rate that they sound presentable. There is always a trade off between file size and sound quality online, and while podcasts that feature spoken word may sound fine at 96K, you will definitely hear some problems with music files encoded at the same bit rate. I encourage creating podcasts of either live performances, demos, or new singles.

5) Update your site and news more than occasionally. Obviously updated content is the reason folks come back to sites.

Don’t

1) Be copy heavy on the site. Folks don’t read online, they skim. Keep your descriptive copy short! Users spend 30 seconds generally on your homepage. Encapsulate what you do in as few words as possible.

2) Use large graphics that take a long time to load. By the time the graphic has finished loading, your user will be gone.

3) Force people to watch a video or listen to music when they show up on the site. Many folks are already listening to music through speakers or headphones when they are online. It’s a total drag to have to turn off the music or sound from a video when they show up on your site. You need to give your users a reason to come back to the site, not a reason to stay away.

4) Link to a million other sites. You don’t want to give people a reason to leave your site. Links to other popular sites should be part of your larger optimization strategy (more on this later), but they need to be strategically placed. If you must link to another site, make sure it leads to a pop-up.

5) Create copy without having a keyword strategy in place. The majority of your traffic is going to come from keyword searches, and if your site is not highly optimized for the search engines, you may as well not exist.