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I'm thinking of making my future project a single page website. It's not going to be something simple. I want to include membership, comments and views in the same page or in modal windows mostly using jquery . I wanted to ask your opinion on single page websites and if regular non experienced users like them (keeping in mind that i will try to make the interface as easy as possible to use). It might be a problem for mobile devices though. My strong point will be that once the user made an account he can customize his single page to his needs so while at first it may be more stuffed in the end he won't need the second page a lot like the facebook front page

I simply want personal opinions.

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  • Are you going for a single page design, just in order to allow customizations?
    – Dan Barak
    Oct 10, 2010 at 15:31
  • Kind of a vague question unless you describe what kind of single page website you're looking at. If you try to put a complicated web app on a single page, then no. If you're trying to do something like 37signals.com/draft, then yes.
    – Rahul
    Oct 10, 2010 at 18:20

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Six Revisions had a great article on this subject this week. It talks about the (dis)advantages, examples and techniques.

http://sixrevisions.com/web_design/the-science-behind-a-single-page-website/

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  • Great reference, although I think they focus mainly on "brochure" sites.
    – Dan Barak
    Oct 10, 2010 at 15:30
  • @Dan Barak, yes i agree. I would like to know if somehow my visitors will enjoy the one page experience or would simply not take the website seriously . I'm looking for simplicity in ui i find one page website to be half the answer
    – andrei
    Oct 10, 2010 at 19:11
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Without knowing the domain it's hard to say. Some single page sites I like. Some I don't. Depends if they're useful.

One thing to consider with single-page sites is SEO and discovery. For example:

  • If you have different kinds of content on one page the keywords are going to be about different things, which makes it less likely that it'll appear high in search results for queries on one particular area of that content.

  • If you're pulling in content from other places with ajax then Google won't see that content.

Also remember that some of the time you save in not having multiple page loads you lose by having a longer initial page load.

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It depends by website's goal.

There're a lot of web applications (expecially mac applications) websites that use this design solution. I does it very well in this case.

First, define your target and goals. Then take your design decision.

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  • Well yes I've considered my goals and the purpose of my website that's why I'm considering the one page solution. I wanted personal opinions on these types of websites . I liked the idea because there are not a lot of them out there (so it would be somehow different from the rest) and it would greatly reduce the number of pageviews -> faster results
    – andrei
    Oct 11, 2010 at 11:43
  • Well, I see that you're planning to include some features (linke membership) which make it more complex. Try creating two prototypes for each design solutio (one page, classic) then test it.
    – zetareticoli
    Oct 11, 2010 at 14:38
  • hm yes.. could i post the links here ? for testing purposes ? i don't think it could be considered advertising.
    – andrei
    Oct 11, 2010 at 18:06
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I think it's far better to fit a small amount of information on a single page under headings, and maybe a bit of snazzy anchorage navigation, than to split those headings/topics up into multiple pages. Not only is it more engaging than waiting for several small pages to load, presenting all your information up-front almost ensures the user won't miss any important info.

That being said, there is a fine line between having everything elegantly in one place, and the SCROLL OF DEATH.

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  • lol @scroll of death . i was thinking of dynamically changing the content instead of changing the page
    – andrei
    Oct 12, 2010 at 12:10

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