Good Website Design Killed by PDFs
Most website designers think PDFs enhance a website, but the truth is, visitors hate PDFs.
At the San Francisco Usability Week in 2008, a website designer asked Jakob Nielsen (the world’s most well-known website design guru) if she should use PDFs on a corporate website. Jakob’s reply…
“PDFs suck.”
Jakob Nielsen has been testing website designs for years. He found that PDFs kill website design because of the huge negative impact on the person using your website.
Jakob said that website designers don’t realize website visitors hate using PDFs – for many reasons:
- Jarring User Experience – Internet Explorer (and other web browsers) have their own set of commands and tools to print, save, etc. PDFs have a completely different set of tools & rules that confuse people.
- Boring Content – The typical PDF is a document that was meant for print and is full of long, boring content that visitors don’t want to read.
- Broken Flow – You have to wait for Adobe Acrobat to open before you can read the file. After Acrobat opens, you still have to wait for the PDF to download.
Find out why “PDFs are Unfit for Human Consumption”
Does your website designer only care what the website looks like and ignore how real people use your site?
Talk to me about designing a website for your small business – that people will love to use – and like the way it looks.
Main photo credit: A.M. Kuchling
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