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As a suggestion to, "You've buried the lede.": use an About link. Even his example, Basecamp; I have no idea what they do. They "help groups work together"?

As a suggestion to, "You've buried the lede.": use an About link. Even his example, Basecamp; I have no idea what they do. They "help groups work together"? Details, please. Have an About link so I can go and get a complete description of what you do. This is especially important for startups. (Put it next to the Contact link.)

jwdunne 13y ago
Actually, Basecamp has this in large text on the homepage: "Last week 6,033 companies signed up for Basecamp to manage their projects. Today it’s your turn." It's clear that Basecamp is some sort of tool to manage projects. A project management tool. An about link is okay but it should be obvious as soon as you land on the homepage, or any landing page, what the product does. Basecamp actually clearly describes what it does as soon as you hit the homepage.
jeltz 13y ago
Agreed, if I am investigating a set of alternatives and am overwhelmed I usually first ignore the pages which do not explain what they are selling. I do not want to spend 5 minutes to find what your website is about.
crazygringo 13y ago
This, times a million. There's some kind of bizarre belief that people don't want to ever read more than a sentence and a half of text, so links to "About" pages are often buried somewhere obscure in a footer, or worse, there isn't even one. It's not enough for me to know what the product is -- I need the details -- why does it exist? What does it do specifically, and what does it not? Sometimes I'll find myself checking if there's a Wikipedia page for the site, just because the site can't manage to tell me directly just what the heck it is, exactly. (A particularly egregious example of this is when a site focuses on presenting a product as a "solution" and tells you what it solves -- well, without telling me exactly how you solve it, it's pretty useless to me.)

jwdunne 13y ago

Actually, Basecamp has this in large text on the homepage: "Last week 6,033 companies signed up for Basecamp to manage their projects. Today it’s your turn." It's clear that Basecamp is some sort of tool to manage projects. A project management tool. An about link is okay but it should be obvious as soon as you land on the homepage, or any landing page, what the product does. Basecamp actually clearly describes what it does as soon as you hit the homepage.

jeltz 13y ago

Agreed, if I am investigating a set of alternatives and am overwhelmed I usually first ignore the pages which do not explain what they are selling. I do not want to spend 5 minutes to find what your website is about.

crazygringo 13y ago

This, times a million. There's some kind of bizarre belief that people don't want to ever read more than a sentence and a half of text, so links to "About" pages are often buried somewhere obscure in a footer, or worse, there isn't even one. It's not enough for me to know what the product is -- I need the details -- why does it exist? What does it do specifically, and what does it not? Sometimes I'll find myself checking if there's a Wikipedia page for the site, just because the site can't manage to tell me directly just what the heck it is, exactly. (A particularly egregious example of this is when a site focuses on presenting a product as a "solution" and tells you what it solves -- well, without telling me exactly how you solve it, it's pretty useless to me.)