Oct 18 2006 at 3:00pm
Great Websites: EnvironmentalDefense.org
I came across Environmental Defense the other night when I was looking for lists of safe fish to eat as recommended by Marion Nesle‘s book What to Eat. But that’s besides the point. I was immediately struck by how engaging this site is. At first glance it’s nothing special – basic web site, mostly text, conservative, partially table-based layout. Nothing special, right?
Well, maybe not. I found myself increasingly drawn in to the site. I wanted to explore. There were many items on the page I wanted to click on, and more interesting articles as I went deeper into the site.
Why was that? What makes this site so engaging? The design, although simple, is engaging. The colours are bright and energetic, with a strong contrast between blue and orange (on opposite sides of the colour wheel). The friendly character on the front page immediately gave me a good feeling about the site. Here they are using a friendly, encouraging message to prompt change (rather than using scare tactics or scolding). The other pictures on the page are bright and interesting, yet don’t detract from the central message. There is a lot of content on the page to suck you in.
When I started to take a closer look I realized that it wasn’t just the design that was drawing me in. It was the writing. Almost every piece of text on the front page is an attention grabber. It draws you in and makes you want to take the next step. Calculate now. Get list of best fish. Take a survey. Watch the ads. There is stuff to do here.
As I went through the site I noticed more and more examples of great writing. It’s succinct and clear, but also friendly and engaging. The key text (links and headlines) are written in a way that tells you exactly what is there and makes you want to go to the next step.
We can all learn from sites like this, even if it might not be worthy of a CSS gallery. They’ve also got a partner site on the fishing issue, Ocean’s Alive. This site has a really fun and engaging flash game (… although I’m not convinced it’s a good idea to put it on the front page!).
Ed the Editor October 23rd, 2006 at 1:32 am
From an informatve point of view it is indeed an interesting site and as a webmaster of sorts, I can see now, thanks to your observations, how you can pull visitors inside your site with a variety of hooks.
Also it is quite clever how there is so much information going on, yet you can read it all. Well, I can, maybe my old man would have trouble.
I have done some critiques at the pisstakers, as part of our brief to rip into web stuff that deserves to be ripped into. However, I won’t be saying anything derogatory about that site. It is cool and I hope they do well. In fact, I spotted their donation link too, and another idea came to mind.