Summary:
In this chapter, Steve Krug takes us on a journey through the daunting, restrictive (yet all-encompassing) homepage. He establishes that a homepage (namely an eCommerce site) must accommodate site identity and mission, site hierarchy, search, teases (content and feature promos), timely content, deals, shortcuts, and registration. Including these things, it must then show the user what they're looking for, expose them to new things, show them where to start, and establish credibility and trust. He then explains the many pitfalls that become homepage design, such as how most advertising partners will want the prime real estate it provides, and how these obstacles can cause designers to lose sight of the big picture, namely that the home page must make clear what the site is and what it does. He explains that at the first glance, a good homepage should answer for the user the four questions: What is this? What can I do here? What do they have here? and Why should I be here and not somewhere else? He explains how to answer these questions by using a well-crafted tagline next to the site ID and a welcome blurb that describes the site quickly and in an abbreviated fashion. Finally, he closes by revisiting the concept of navigation. This time for the homepage, he explains that navigation can be different from the rest of the site, but it must be similar enough so as not to be confusing. Similar wording and identical order is necessary in this case.
Links:
http://www.fivestarwebdesign.com/home.htm
Though it serves as an advertisement of sorts for a web design service, this site quickly lays out four things a good website should have.
http://www.coolhomepages.com/
A vast collection of decidedly good homepages in several different categories.
http://www.copyblogger.com/create-a-tagline/
A sort of "Taglines For Dummies" article laying out the steps to strong tagline writing in an easy to digest manner.
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