Web Design Good and Bad
June 7, 2007 by Jeff Adams
There are many good and bad things you can do when it comes to designing a website. From taking the ‘tinkering’ approach which is to sit at our computer and drop bits here and there – it’s a no brainer and it is doomed for failure. This type of designing is only good for when you want to try out new techniques, not for when you want to create something for a client.
We’ve put together a few ideas of what we consider good and bad things to do when it relates to web design.
- No flashing text – leave these where they already appear and that is in neon signs for seedy bars and clubs.
- No page counters – these do nothing except make your site look amateurish. If you want to know how many people are hitting your site there are server stats you can use, or invisible counters such as that found at www.statcounter.com
- Page titles that make sense – this is what appears at the top of your browser, so have it make sense and related to your site. These days’ users often use tabbed browsing so this is becoming more and more important.
- No frames – We hate them, you hate them and perhaps more importantly the search engines hate them. With today’s technology and with CSS supported in most browsers there is no need for them.
- Chat rooms – there is nothing worse than having chat room on your site, but having it empty. There is no need for them unless you are a popular site with visitors who are wishing to talk to one another.
- Under construction pages – forget about them. If you have links pointing to the pages, disable them. If you must have the page up that’s not finished content-wise use a ‘last updated’ date and make sure you get the content up soon.
- Background music – these are used sometimes to add an aura to the site and its fine if you’re doing a site for a music artist or a promotional site, but having Beethoven in the background when your trying to sell something is a no brainer.
- No Marquee – this is an Internet Explorer tag that lets you have scrolling text.. We’re not talking about tickers, which actually serve a purpose, rather the annoying text that slides across.
- Structure – it is definitely important to have a structure for the site pre-defined, and designers generally stick to what they know works well for them. Keep your pages consistent – if you have a navigational menu then be sure it appears on every site.
- Pop-ups – these are horrible Users hate them so much they even had to create pop-up blockers. There is no use for them at all.
- 800 X 600 – Okay so you may have a monitor the size of a television but as of writing this is still the standard size people have. By all means create your site so that it expands if being viewed on a larger screen, but use this as a minimum.
- Site Map – an under utilised page and it shouldn’t be. Keeping this up to date will enable your visitor to find the pages they want easily, especially if your navigational system is complex or if you have a larger site.