seaside man wrote:
Hi i have a website
http://www.in2town.co.uk and i am concerned that my site speed is losing me visitors.
I have noticed that i am getting a lot of visitors who stay on the site for 34 seconds and i feel this could be a speed issue.
. . .
A bit of tough love . . .
People are leaving your website in 30 seconds because it is nearly impossible to read.
The headlines and titles are all caps, condensed font, with nearly no leading (line height).
There is not much else you could do to make it harder to scan for something of interest.
SEVERAL MONTHS AGO WHEN THIS FORUM WAS REDESIGNED,
SOMEONE REMOVED THE LEADING OR LINE-HEIGHT ON THE POST TEXT.
ROOKIE DESIGNER MOVE, IGNORANCE, CLUELESS CODER, OR SIMPLE OVERSIGHT? DUNNO.
THIS MAKES IT MUCH HARDER TO READ BECAUSE THERE IS LESS WHITESPACE BETWEEN THE LINES.
ALL CAPS MAKES IT EVEN HARDER TO READ BECAUSE READERS CAN NO LONGER SEE THE LETTER SHAPES.
BECAUSE READERS CANNOT SCAN AND RECOGNIZE WORDS INSTANTLY THEY HAVE TO READ EACH CHARACTER.
THIS IS VERY SLOW AND DIFFICULT AND MAKES USERS WORK MUCH HARDER.
USERS DO NOT LIKE THIS SO THEY STOP READING AND LEAVE.
ADD A BOLD NARROW CONDENSED SANS-SERIF FONT AND YOU HAVE THE PERFECT STORM OF HARD-TO-READ.
THIS IS YOUR HEADLINES.
In that
Latest News With In2town module the titles have many characters that are just black blobs.
The intro text is too small and too hard to read sans-serif type to effectively draw a reader into reading more.
In one of your other threads you mention the HuffingtonPost.
Look at their titles and intro text, and compare that to the readability/scanability of yours.
Big difference.
And you have too much advertising on inner pages, and to soon on the page.
The article pull quotes are way too big, so big they break up the article and the page.
The typography on this website is just horrendous.
Users first impression is that this not a quality website.
Gossip sites are for the terminally aimless with low attention spans.
Make it
very easy to scan and read.
Make them work just to scan and they are gone.
How does a gossip site survive without any mobile support?
Mindless mobile surfers are a major audience for this type of website.
Do some homework on typography, and usability, and design which helps engage the users.
Performance is an issue, but even the best performance will not overcome these basic usability issues.
.
