Week Four Reading;

Things a site needs to have:
Site Identity and Mission Statement: The Home page has to tell me what site this is and what it’s for—and if possible, why I should be here and not at some other site.
Site Hierarchy: The Home page has to give an overview of what the site has to offer—both content and features—and how it’s all organized. This is usually handled by the persistent navigation.
Search: Prominently displayed search bar
Teasers: Site needs to entice me to go deeper just like a book or magazine cover
Timely Content: Content is updated regularly to avoid the site becoming a bore.
A site's home page needs to answer the four main questions, What is this?, What do they have here?, What can I do here?, Why should I be here instead of somewhere else?
Some common excuses for confusing home pages are the creator thinking that what they are conveying is obvious and they don't need to include it. Thinking that reading a site explanation once is enough and seeing it any more times would be considered bothersome. Also thinking that the viewers will understand the site because they wanted to go to it in the first place, which is not true at all.
One of the most valuable bits of real estate is the space right next to the Site ID. When we see a phrase that’s visually connected to the ID, weknow it’s meant to be a tagline, and so we read it as a description of the whole site. Some sites such as Ebay, CNN and the Smithsonian don't have a tagline because they are so well known, they don't need one.
Keeping a balance of space is also important, not too much but never too little rendering it cluttered and not worthy of staying for more than a couple seconds.