One-pagers will be the hit of the 2006!
Oh, well – at least if we don’t count pop-ups, downloadable .PDFs and such… They came in big style this year, and I feel they are going to make their mark in the next season, too.
That cool AJAX thingy ruined everything
The border between pure one-pagers and ones with some form of an AJAX magic is somewhat blurry, but even the site with such feature is contextually much more compact than, say, five-pager – the visitor’s focus stays at this very same page all the time. No need to explore (i.e. to click around forth and back), no need to wonder what else there could be.
Literally, a one-pager is a web site with a single HTML file, but contextually – it’s a one page, where it all happens – no matter if there’s image gallery in Flash, or show/hide portions of the content – a visitor is virtually on the same page. Related to later, here’s an article which explains usability issues of remote scripting – XMLHttpRequest Usability Guidelines.
No content. What to do?
When you’re low on the content provided by the client, plus the copywriter narrows it all down to a few sound, but short sentences, the information designer has no option, than to provide the whole content on one page.
On one-pagers, the content elements/units should be carefully tailored and featured in a way to gently lead the eye toward the intended action – most of the time, it’s making the first contact, downloading a file or purchasing a product.
How to approach?
Speaking of careful tailoring, creating the right balance between more important and less important content is what you should be careful about. More than anywhere else, the thin line between success and the failure of the site is easy to cross. And I’m not talking about overused large typo phenomenon. Others do.
Generally, one should seek for the inspiration in traditional, but proven methods. Especially consider print and TV advertising.
Basically, it’s all about get-in—score—get-out. If you have nothing important to say, in a way of information presented as a pure text, make an impression and make it easy for a visitor to fulfill the goals for the site, whatever that is. Ya know that ole saying – less is more…
Examples
Apart from playing a role of an online flyer for a small business, one time saler or a hit product promo, one-pagers are often used as a new media portfolios, where the accent is on the featured projects with short and straight-forward descriptions. Since they say a picture is worth a thousand words, one might consider this option, too.
Here are a few examples:
- Sinelogic
- Welcome to your beautiful home
- Ljekarne Ricov
- Claresco
- Keegan Jones
- Danilo Dučak Gallery
- Helldesign
- CSS Zen Garden
A fine example of what could have been a one-pager is Emotions by Mike. With a smart remote scripting for the portfolio, it all could have been presented on a single page (Ed: I’m not saying it’d be better web site – it’s just a suitable example for this article… plus a nice portfolio to look at).
So… how do you feel about this concept in general?
Update
Since I wrote the article, a few very nice examples came to my mind. Here they are:
Also feel free to add your examples in the comments.
17 Comments
I’m quite fond of one-pagers, myself. I’ve done a couple of those this year (thnx for linking one of them), because of two reasons: 1) the client provided no content, but a business card, and 2) the client requested a site for a minimum fee.
I agree with you for the most part. It’s all about getting the message accross. A one-pager can very well mean that you will get that message accross quickly and clearly.
Comment (#) by bojan — 22nd December 2005.
You have no idea how timely this article is for me! :)
I have been thinking A LOT about this, only I really never knew there are some in the real world, and that they have a name. ("one-pagers") :)
Živeli!
Comment (#) by Dragan Babić — 22nd December 2005.
Funny I did a “one page” earlier this year for our portfolio
http://www.sideshowcc.com
(Now old portfolio) and it wasn’t received very well. Lot of people contacted me and asked where the is rest of the site etc… Nice to see it coming into fashion, makes me feel a little bit saner.
Comment (#) by Wayne M — 22nd December 2005.
Great article. By the way, nice linklist and happy Christmas to you too!
Comment (#) by Heiko — 22nd December 2005.
Great article!
In my point of view we could all learn something from one-pagers. It is a very good way to quickly provide a prospective buyers with all the relevant information.
Of course, sometimes it is just as useful to back the one-pager up with subsequent pages to really go into details in those cases where it is needed - that is when the user needs it, not marketing :0).
Many of Apple product pages is a really good use of one-pagers with additional sub-pages.
BTW: Here is another good “one-pager” - Microsoft Max
http://www.microsoft.com/max/
Comment (#) by Thomas Baekdal — 22nd December 2005.
Thanks! I totally agree, I think too many people think that their website has to have a ton of stuff on it, to eb interactive, etc… with none of it being an actualy benefit to the user. I’m glad to see “One-Pagers” be recognized as an acceptable type of website.
Comment (#) by Jesse J. Anderson — 22nd December 2005.
Great article!
One-pagers are truly something we could all learn from. It is a good way to quickly and efficiently inform our prospective buyers what a product is about. Even in cases where sub-page are needed (for varies reasons), the first page could benefit from the one-pager philosophy.
Another good One-pager (for your collection) is:
http://www.microsoft.com/max/
Comment (#) by Thomas Baekdal — 22nd December 2005.
a really good example of a one page website would be MooFx (http://moofx.mad4milk.net/). the sliding effect along with minimal, targeted content really gets the message across…and it also shows the potential of their product.
Comment (#) by jinesh — 23rd December 2005.
I think they are perfectly acceptable.
On the one hand you always want to build your site around the content available to you, so if you receive little content, such an approach is ideal.
On the other hand, you may have sufficient content, but it could be that a one-pager is the preffered option for lets say marketing a specific product/service if the idea is to deliver a short succint message to people.
So imo, it can work both ways.
Nice write-up.
And … Sretan Bozic i novu 2006
Comment (#) by Medo — 23rd December 2005.
we redesigned our 50 page site to a one-pager earlier this year (wow..could we actually be on the cusp of something instead of behind for a change!?!) The benefits have been great; easier to manage, highly focused, and more fun to do. I recommend them!!!
Comment (#) by Rick Moore — 24th December 2005.
AJAX is just plain stupid. I turn off JS in my browser, suddenly nothing works on the o-so-fancy pages. Just like this.
No JS, no background, for example. Can’t read a thing. Webpages should retain a minimal usability after JS is switched off.
Did you EVER happen to think about visually impaired people using JAWS? Well, they won’t be able to see a thing of whatever you do with JS. As a matter of fact, JAWS gets confused by AJAX.
So I stick by unobstrusive JS and even that, I use it minimally. Hiding content and using other fancy dohickys is out of question for me.
Look at the download numbers for the NoScript extension for Firefox. You’ll be surprised. I use it too. And I like it. Sites, that don’t work without JS rarely get the chance of me switching JS on. Mostly, I just leave them.
So, can you, or in most cases, your client really afford to lose a significant percentage (1-5%, maybe) of your visitors just for the luxury of using one page and JS-loading content into it instead of doing some server-side work?
Of course, most clients don’t know, or even if they do, they don’t care. Visually impaired or blind people seem insignificant. But they ARE important and so are the search engines. I never heard of a SE parsing JS code…
Comment (#) by Proclub — 24th December 2005.
When we discuss about AJAX, it’s assumed that there is adequate substitute for non-JS user agents. Don’t blame the technology, blame the one who uses it improperly.
Comment (#) by marko — 25th December 2005.
I believe that properly used Ajax could eliminate refreshing from any page in the future. So far web development was all about links that, when clicked, return the same page, remixed plus some new content in the middle. Same header, navigation, footer… Only the classes for faux links changed and the content in the middle. So much reduntant downloads… Proper Ajax could sure fix that effectively reducing bandwidth costs, speed up the site and add to general user experience.
That said it is clear that I believe one pagers will not only be popular in the future, but that they will be the future.
Comment (#) by Mislav — 25th December 2005.
Well, this page is a really good demonstration, how JS should NOT be used. Try viewing it with JS off…
AJAX is the future? I’m not so sure about that. I don’t like JS. Well, partially, because how it is used. But there is also that nagging problem of browser security.
I turned it off for a reason. And so did 193301 other people (NoScript downloads as until today). And as long as there are people willing to exploit browser security holes, this is not going to change. There will allways be systems and browsers, that do not support fancy technology.
I for one, don’t want to lose customers just to do some fancy stuff I could also do with server side scripting and a little rethinking.
Maybe, AJAX will finally win, but definitely not next season. Maybe webmasters will use this new hype and claim their page is cool, because all that moving and interactive stuff, but a webpages quality is determined by it’s criticists. And those will be the people not able to view AJAX pages.
Comment (#) by ProClub — 25th December 2005.
@ProClub: Chill out, man… You went a little bit off topic and claim things without arguments.
Comment (#) by marko — 25th December 2005.
I think the seo issue is an important one. Search engines like sites with multiple pages. Also i think screenreaders and the people who use them are important and I agree that graceful degradation is a priority. As far as turning off javascript? Umm no. I think I will live dangerously and surf with javascript on.
Comment (#) by ward — 27th December 2005.
Usually, you shouldn’t offer a web site if you don’t have any content - but that business card style seems to be appropriate if you just want to provide basic and contact information. Using it myself for erde/drei Web Development and Consulting. Yet another one-pager.
Comment (#) by Jens Meiert — 29th December 2005.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time, but if you have anything to say, please send me a message.