Tag Archives: Web design

Does anyone really read the right rail?

I am by no means a web designer, but I do have a sense of aesthetics and design elements (and I’m in marketing, which means anything that has anything to do with making anything presentable falls to me).

Most websites feature content on the right rail, or a banner running down the right side of the page. Most internet users, however, have trained themselves to ignore content featured here because it so often is home to advertising.  Hoa Loranger, of the Nielsen Norman Group, writes that you shouldn’t write off the sidebar because of this habit, but instead take different tactics to get users to break their habits.

Don’t make content look like ads

‘Banner blindness’ refers to a user ignoring anything located in the sidebar that resembles an ad. Bright colors in boxes, different font and large images all signify advertisements.  These graphical treatments are usually good ways to draw in a user’s eye, but in this case it actually ensures that your content will be ignored.  Instead, make your right rail content look similar to the rest of your page.

Put space between your content and ads

If your site does put advertising in the sidebar, make sure you put the ads far away from the content you want users to see.  Any content placed close to, or in between, ads will be associated with those ads.  Instead, make an obvious visual distinction between where your content starts and ends and where advertising begins.

Use relevant, informative images

Using images coupled with links to other content is a wise practice, but you have to be careful. Facebook is one of many sites that put ads with thumbnail images in the right rail, so users have been trained to ignore these types of links.  If you want them to notice yours, make sure the images are relevant to the content and clearly a part of your page.

Have a plan

The sidebar shouldn’t be used as a catch-all for content that you didn’t know where to put.  Have a specific use for it, or it will look cluttered, messy and resemble a hodgepodge of ads.  One great way to use the right rail is to feature content that is similar to what the user is currently viewing.  This is a great way to improve your user experience and make the site more intuitive.

The right rail has evolved to have its own set of design rules.  Because it has been abused by advertisers over the years, you have to design it specifically to overcome a user’s bias.  Design tactics that work well in the body of a web page won’t necessarily work in the sidebar.

You can ensure a good first impression by applying the 4 A’s to web page design: attractiveness, approachability, attention, and action.  These are page design principles that influence the extent to which a website or intranet meets both its business objectives and user goals.  The basic unit of Web design is the page.  Pages are the destinations users navigate to and where you put your content.  When user expectations are met on destination pages, they are delighted and more likely to convert.

The Nielsen Norman Group has conducted an eye tracking study that has shown that most users read in an F shaped pattern when visiting a website.

What should web designers learn from this study?

  • users won’t read your site thoroughly
  • the first two paragraphs are the most important
  • information-carrying words should start subheadings, bullet points and paragraphs

Users almost never look at anything that looks like an advertisement, whether or not it’s actually an ad.  On hundreds of pages, users didn’t fixate on ads.  The heat maps show three examples that cover a range of user engagement with the content: quick scanning, partial reading, and thorough reading.   Scanning is more common than reading, but users will sometimes dig into an article if they really care about it.

Here are some examples of good uses of Right Rail:

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