WikiHow is an online source of information through a collection of how-to guides. The guides assist people in solving problems and learning new skills. WikiHow's target audience is broad and diverse, offering assistance to people of all ages, backgrounds and interests. To cover this broad range, WikiHow ensures that their website is broken down and accessible for everyone.
WikiHow's logo conveys a welcoming and supportive platform that ensures to assist those seeking advice. This green (and a lighter shade) is their house style, associated with a sense of freshness and growth, helping to provide a positive space for their learning. The clean serif text connotes the easy accessibility of the information through a reliable and welcoming source.
Instead of using a conventional main image on the home page, WikiHow consistently uses cartoon style graphics and images. These visuals offer a more appealing and engaging aesthetic of the page, allowing the content to feel more friendly and approachable. For articles, these images play a prominent part in the how-to guides, the cartoons allow the website more customisation to match the purpose they're trying to communicate and makes these actions easier to follow.
Conventionally for an information website, the articles are displayed in a grid structure. This helps to separate the articles into different sections. Despite the amount of articles provided, the grid structure makes them all visible without using additional expansion through arrows to choose to go through the articles.
The pop-up at the bottom to 'Join us in our mission' promotes the ability to fund the website. As a free source of information, WikiHow relies on contributions to fund them, making it essential for them to bring this to light through a pop-up so more attention is paid to it, otherwise the user would be likely to scroll past if it was part of the overall page. The call-to-action 'Let's do this!' keeps up the friendly tone of the website and can redirect the user to customising their contribution instead of providing them a set amount.
The navigation menu under 'Explore' contains a variety of options to find the right article for the user under. A large amount of users are likely to be aware of what they want to find, and therefore will search it up in the search bar available in two different areas of the page (always at the top and one in the middle of the home page). However, for those that don't know the exact article they are looking for, the navigation gives them the opportunity to browse the various options. The layout is structured and the hierarchy is made clear through differences in the copy. The headings are made in bold, with the 'Popular categories' providing a recommendation based on current events and popular searches. This is effective as it keeps the content provided dynamic and relevant, allowing a further breakdown of the categories to cater to the users needs and understanding of what is being offered.
All the articles use a step-by-step format, creating a digestible and manageable breakdown of the tasks to follow. The copy is brief and concise, ensuring the readability of the article so that users don't get bored by unnecessary long paragraphs instead of the essential information. The articles usually contain a table of contents at the beginning, allowing simplified navigation to different parts of the how-to guide. Once clicking on a heading, such as 'Method 1: Analysing your skin tone', the text will bring you to the point of the page this section can be found. This interactive navigation is especially helpful for longer articles.
At the bottom of the how-to guide, there's an opportunity for user engagement as you are able to leave comments, questions or share your own experiences on the topic. This helps to add additional value for the users as the opportunity for interaction may help solve any queries they have that wasn't addressed in the guide.
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