Recently we’ve been updating the visual style of the PicNet website. While it’s not a complete redesign, there are significant changes that we predict will affect user behaviour. Naturally, we’ll be watching Mouse Eye Tracking’s output over the coming weeks as more and more people find their way around the new style.

Using the 960 Grid System has enabled us to prototype and build faster, whilst maintaining consistency and neatness in both CSS code and visual layout.

Secondary and Tertiary Navigation Menus

Usability

The site now has an understandable information architecture, with primary menu, secondary menu and tertiary menu items. This enhances navigability and indicates heirarchy, bringing a clearer view of how PicNet’s services and products fit within the overall business. For example, it’s now easy to understand that our new service offerring, “The PicNet Service Desk” is a related branch of our larger, more well established IT Support Services. In addition, breadcrumb navigation at the bottom of each page help the user understand where they are in the site’s structure.

Technical

Refactored HTML – What does that mean? Lighter, more efficient code that is more extensible for future updates. For a more comprehensive understanding, read about it on wikipedia. A major change was moving to the new html5 doctype declaration and shortened script tags, which reduces the complexity and clutter in the head section. Any reductions in code (particularly in the head section) are beneficial for SEO purposes making the site quicker to load and easier for Google to crawl to the content rich body section.