Myspace Design.ca

Having a Myspace page that keeps your visitors coming back is not at all hard to achieve with the right insight. Here, in no particular order are some steps you can take to ensure a pleasant user experience and increase your visitor loyalty.

1. DECLUTTER THOSE WIDGETS! If your profile contains more than five widgets or apps, you may want to rethink their purpose. The more “stuff” you have on your profile, the more likely it is that visitors will leave your page dissatisfied. Why? Flash widgets take longer to load. For users with slower internet connections, it’s not enjoyable staring at a blank screen while waiting for them to download. They can even cause browser freezing if you have an excessive amount. Keep your widgets to a minimum. Do you really need those 4 rotating slideshows when there’s already a perfectly good user-friendly Myspace photo album page?

2. RESIZE THOSE HUGE PICTURES! I cannot count the times I’ve visited a profile that displays an enormous high resolution photograph which in turn stretches out the entire layout. Horizontal scrollbars along the bottom of your browser are a big no-no. How is a visitor supposed to view all of your content when they can’t even find it without scrolling past the browser area? Most users stick photos in the “Band Bio” or “About Me” section and sometimes even in the “General Info” or “Band Members” columns. Photos placed in those areas should be no larger than the maximum width Myspace has set for each. The right hand column (About Me, Band Bio) is 435 pixels wide. The left column’s editable areas (General Info, Band Members) are set at 175 pixels wide. Your photos (and widgets) should not exceed these widths unless you are adamant on frustrating your viewers.

3. TURN OFF AUTO-PLAY! A page with multiple videos and songs loading simultaneously is only good for one thing: making visitors scramble through you profile in search of STOP buttons. You can turn off auto-play in the embed code by simply setting the line that reads “autostart” or something similar to “false”. Some widgets may have slightly different ways of doing this, so be sure to check the HTML embed code before pasting it into your page.

4. REMOVE ANYTHING UNNECESSARY! This is slightly the same idea as #1, only we’re talking about the page as a whole now. Visitors don’t want to have to scroll down a vertically-never-ending page for 15 minutes trying to find that valuable content. Remove anything that might not be necessary, such as those dozens of photos or “news & updates” text from a year ago. I’ve so often noticed that bands have a habit of leaving tour posters on their pages for months past the event… which brings us to #5:

5. UPDATE THAT PROFILE! Keep your page current, with ever-changing content and you’ll see a rise in return visitors. Bands, individuals, and companies who keep their profile content up-to-date are showing the visitor that they are not only still alive, but care about the content they’re sharing with the world. It gives the visitor a sense of interactivity knowing what you’re up to.

6. THINK ABOUT COLORS! If your profile content is difficult to read, hard on the eyes, or just plain UGLY it can really affect the visitor’s mood when viewing your profile. Text colors should stand apart from the background and be large enough for everyone to read comfortably. Red on blue or blue on red is another huge no-no. It might sound a little particular, but those color combinations are very straining and hard on the eyes.

7. MODERATE THOSE COMMENTS! So commonly does it go unnoticed that a visitor has posted a comment that screws up your whole profile, which takes us back to the topic about horizontal scrollbars. These comments usually include large photographs or unwrapped lines of text (such as a link with no spaces to break it, or extended teeeeeeeeexttttttttttttt liiiiiiiiiiiiikeeeee thisssssssssss) that force the comment box to extrude outside of the given area. Get rid of those annoying comments and put an image resize code in your style sheet. You can find these on Google! Remove those comments about friend trains or links to spam sites. Doing this will show the user you care about the content on your page.

8. UPDATE YOUR BLOG! It’s as easy as that. Your blog is the visitor’s look into your life… and everyone loves a little dose of reality! If you’re a band, your blog is a great way to stay in touch with your fans and update them with news. It’s the easiest way to stay current with your visitors. Did you know that Myspace blogs are RSS compatible? This also means that visitors can subscribe to your RSS feeds through their desired feed reader by using the RSS link at the top of your blog. RSS enables a viewer to read your content from multiple places!

9. DON’T SPAM YOUR FRIENDS! This one’s kind of obvious, but many view “spamming” differently. Sending spam messages does not only apply to third-party links or strange emails about Viagra. Sending your friends constant messages or comments about new songs/pictures you have posted or upcoming events may seem like a great promotional tool for you, but may seem like more of a nuisance to the visitor. Instead of gaining a visitor to your page, you might have just lost a handful by the click of the Block button. To add to that, including your band’s music player in people’s comments is not only annoying, but it’s against Myspace’s Terms of Service. Keep your promoting to your own profile or the Bulletin page or think about putting a Mailing List sign-up form on your profile so visitors can opt to join your spam-fest or not.

10. THINK ABOUT DESIGN! Being a designer, this one comes naturally… but it is so commonly overlooked by many. You don’t have to be a great designer or have the know-how to create an amazing page. It can be as simple as changing colors and fonts and positioning your content cleanly. Using these above steps, you should be able to minimize some of the clutter and clean up your page a bit. No one wants to visit a page that looks like it was created by a 4 year old (unless of course that’s the style you’re trying to portray!). Don’t go overboard with profile generators. Using some basic CSS or HTML codes to spruce up your page, such as applying background colors or changing font faces, can really liven up the look. You can find these basic codes online, or if you want to go all out there’s always the professional design service we recommend so much!

With these hints and tricks, your profile will become a user-friendly environment.