Editing Web design (section)

==Homepage design==
Usability experts, including [[Jakob Nielsen (usability consultant)|Jakob Nielsen]] and Kyle Soucy, have often emphasised homepage design for website success and asserted that the homepage is the most important page on a website.<ref>{{citation|url=http://www.usableinterface.com/articles/homepage.php|first=Kyle|last=Soucy|archive-date=8 June 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120608071219/http://www.usableinterface.com/articles/homepage.php |title=Is Your Homepage Doing What It Should?|publisher=Usable Interface}}</ref>{{citation|first1=Jakob|last1=Nielsen|first2=Marie|last2=Tahir|title=Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed|date=October 2001|isbn=978-0-7357-1102-0|publisher=New Riders Publishing|url=https://archive.org/details/homepageusabilit00jako_0}}<ref name=20031110nngroup>{{citation|url=http://www.nngroup.com/articles/most-violated-homepage-guidelines/|title=The Ten Most Violated Homepage Design Guidelines|date=10 November 2003|first=Jakob|last=Nielsen|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131005150112/http://www.nngroup.com/articles/most-violated-homepage-guidelines/ |archive-date=5 October 2013|publisher=Nielsen Norman Group}}</ref><ref name=20090820sixrevisions>{{citation|url=http://sixrevisions.com/web_design/essential-tips-for-designing-an-effective-homepage/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130821151637/http://sixrevisions.com/web_design/essential-tips-for-designing-an-effective-homepage/ |archive-date=21 August 2013|date=20 August 2009|first=Kayla|last=Knight|publisher=Six Revisions|title=Essential Tips for Designing an Effective Homepage}}</ref> However practitioners into the 2000s were starting to find that a growing number of website traffic was bypassing the homepage, going directly to internal content pages through search engines, e-newsletters and RSS feeds.<ref name=20050929uie-is>{{citation|url=http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2005/09/29/is-home-page-design-relevant-anymore/|publisher=User Interface Engineering|first=Jared|last=Spool|date=29 September 2005|archive-date=16 September 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130916092857/http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2005/09/29/is-home-page-design-relevant-anymore/ |title=Is Home Page Design Relevant Anymore?}}</ref> This led many practitioners to argue that homepages are less important than most people think.<ref name=20100915sixrevisions>{{citation|title=10 Usability Tips Based on Research Studies|url=http://sixrevisions.com/usabilityaccessibility/10-usability-tips-based-on-research-studies/|first=Cameron|last=Chapman|date=15 September 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130902031226/http://sixrevisions.com/usabilityaccessibility/10-usability-tips-based-on-research-studies/ |archive-date=2 September 2013|publisher=Six Revisions}}</ref><ref name=uxmyths717779908>{{citation|url=http://uxmyths.com/post/717779908/myth-the-homepage-is-your-most-important-page|title=Myth #17: The homepage is your most important page|first=Zoltán|last=Gócza|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130602172028/http://uxmyths.com/post/717779908/myth-the-homepage-is-your-most-important-page |archive-date=2 June 2013}}</ref><ref name=20100418giraffeforum-the>{{citation|url=http://giraffeforum.com/wordpress/2010/04/18/the-decline-of-the-homepage/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130524221238/http://giraffeforum.com/wordpress/2010/04/18/the-decline-of-the-homepage/ |archive-date=24 May 2013|title=The decline of the homepage|first=Gerry|last=McGovern|date=18 April 2010}}</ref><ref>{{citation|title=Prioritizing Design Time: A Long Tail Approach|first=Joshua|last=Porter|date=24 April 2006|publisher=User Interface Engineering|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130514075119/http://www.uie.com/articles/prioritizing_design_time/ |archive-date=14 May 2013|url=http://www.uie.com/articles/prioritizing_design_time/}}</ref> Jared Spool argued in 2007 that a site's homepage was actually the least important page on a website.<ref name=20070806uie-usability>{{citation|url=http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2007/08/06/usability-tools-podcast-home-page-design/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130429113949/http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2007/08/06/usability-tools-podcast-home-page-design/ |archive-date=29 April 2013|first=Jared|last=Spool|date=6 August 2007|title=Usability Tools Podcast: Home Page Design}}</ref>

In 2012 and 2013, carousels (also called 'sliders' and 'rotating banners') have become an extremely popular design element on homepages, often used to showcase featured or recent content in a confined space.<ref name=Messner2013>{{citation|url=http://www.usability.gov/get-involved/blog/2013/04/image-carousels.html |title=Image Carousels: Getting Control of the Merry-Go-Round|first=Katie|last=Messner|publisher=Usability.gov|date=22 April 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131010094459/http://www.usability.gov/get-involved/blog/2013/04/image-carousels.html |archive-date=10 October 2013}}</ref> Many practitioners argue that carousels are an ineffective design element and hurt a website's search engine optimisation and usability.<ref name=Messner2013/><ref name=searchengineland163496>{{citation|url=http://searchengineland.com/homepage-sliders-are-bad-for-seo-usability-163496|archive-date=22 November 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131122031942/http://searchengineland.com/homepage-sliders-are-bad-for-seo-usability-163496 |title=Homepage Sliders: Bad For SEO, Bad For Usability|first=Harrison|last=Jones|date=19 June 2013}}</ref><ref name=20190608cxl>{{citation|url=https://cxl.com/blog/dont-use-automatic-image-sliders-or-carousels/|title=Image Carousels and Sliders? Don't Use Them. (Here's why.)|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191210184941/https://cxl.com/blog/dont-use-automatic-image-sliders-or-carousels/ |archive-date=10 December 2019|first=Peep|last=Laja|date=8 June 2019|publisher=CXL}}</ref>