The clearest website I ever audited was mine.
Clear to me. To nobody else.
You know, it's in our nature that we already know the context: you present one page, but you have information that's spread on five other pages in your head that's behind that single page. And you are surprised that no one understands your message Just you.
You see, nobody sees five pages. They see one, and they decide from it.
This took me longest to accept. Your visitor's mind never counts what's missing. It takes whatever sits on the screen, builds the best story it can from that, and quietly treats the story as the whole truth. No small voice says "there's probably more on another page."
Now add that confidence in the decision or opinion the visitor has formulated doesn't come from enough information. It comes from the pieces fitting together. A thin page can leave someone more certain, not less. Fewer pieces, less to contradict.
For example: A prospect lands on your pricing page from a search. No proof on it, no sense of who else pays this. Nobody goes hunting for the case studies you left on another page. He concludes expensive, unproven, and leaves sure of it.
He wasn't judging your company. He judged the fragment, and the fragment felt finished.
Featured image: La condition humaine 1935
René Magritte (1898–1967)
Norfolk Museums Service
