Setting up a corporate Website is truly a juggling act: One tries to balance corporate needs with the ever-changing needs and desires of the seemingly random Webpage visitor. Something that worked perfectly yesterday doesn’t work or is out of fashion today.
Welcome to the wacky and wonderful world of the Web designer -- on top of the world today, but history tomorrow. The tastes of the typical business user are fickle at best.
Still, there are a few basic Website “don’ts” that have stood the test of time. I’ve listed them below, in order from bad (10) to worst (1). Ignore them at your peril: Individually, these are minor annoyances, but put a few together and you’re all but inviting a visitor to your Website to take their checkbook or corporate purchase order elsewhere.
Annoyance #10. Obvious freebie Websites. Get a decent domain name, preferably a .com or .edu site. "Free" might be better for the budget, but it looks cheap.
Annoyance #9: Cookie-cutter Webpage error pages. These look so amateurish! Having a customized Page Not Found/404 error message is professional.
Annoyance #8: Non-affiliated advertising on the Webpage. This looks cheap and tacky. There is no reason to have advertising on a corporate homepage; the page should advertise itself -- and maybe a few corporate products.
Annoyance #7: Discernible dependence on other sites. Email addresses should only have your domain name in the mailto:// URL. Users will notice what comes up in the lower lefthand corner of your browser when the mouse cursor is hanging out over a link. Don’t set yourself up for embarrassment.
Annoyance #6. “Best viewed with…” This notation is a dead giveaway that a site is either very old or lacking in modern accoutrements provided by software such as Microsoft’s Silverlight. Running your Website through a site checker (usually an external application that checks a site for validity before it goes live) is a no-brainer these days.
Annoyance #5: Brain-dead load times. No page on a professional site should ever take more than four seconds to load.
Annoyance #4: Animation or font overkill. Just because a cute graphic sorta looks nice on a page doesn’t mean it belongs there. Webpages needn’t look like ransom notes. And flash animations should be used sparingly, if at all. They can slow page load times to a crawl (see Annoyance #5).
Annoyance #3: Browser-specific JavaScript. Some functions are dependent on browser-specific tags and idiosyncrasies, including the Document Object Model (DOM) and browser-specific Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Running a Webpage through the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) 's HTML and CSS validator would solve over 90 percent of incompatibilities that make a page “browser-specific.”
Annoyance #2: Image links. Call me spoiled, but I’ve grown used to the blue underlining on Webpages showing me all active links. However, it is difficult to show the blue underlining for images. Blame that on bad CSS if you must, but there is no reason to use images for navigation. These are known as “mystery meat” links.
Annoyance #1: Dead links. Clicks resulting in a 404 error code show that the links have not been checked out recently, if at all. Be careful if you have links that go offsite; remember that you can’t control those sites.
Many Website problems can be avoided by making sure your site conforms to specifications of the W3C, which offers an online validation service. Make sure to use the full URL address before submitting. The validator is a very strict site checker letting you know of all violations of a given site.
Try it out for some of your favorite sites… but make sure to hold your nose! Webpage designers have a lot of work to do.
— Ross M. Greenberg is an experienced software author, journalist, technology writer, and online forum and community manager.
I have no idea why you guys have this problem, and nobody else I know does. So apparently, I have designed the Worst Website Ever, but how do these corporate sites compare?
How this issue is argued depends on which side of the screen you are on
if you are a presenter there is the temptation to over-present
if you are a reader you are probably looking for some particular information. An over-done (cluttered) page is frustrating because it wastes your time
I don't know if any studies have been made to determine how much "related" material can be incorporated into a page before the presentation becomes a mash-up and goes into the bit-bucket. it's an interesting area for research though
I like side-bars for related items. i use a wide-screen lcd display now in place of the older rectangular crt and the side bars look a lot better in that format
I agree with all those annoyances, and I could add a volume more. Consider the first hundred years of newspapers, or fifty years of television, and the disparity between formats, technologies, audience, and information. Now twenty years into web development there are rules/standards that the professionals agree on but the pool is full of unprofessionals and corporate yes-men.
Enforcing 'laws of good web development' is impossible within an open system like the Internet. Just ask the W3C.
There is still a disconnect between designer and programmer and client and data. Maybe part of the issue is that "web design" is taught in every department at colleges and universities but most departments do not collaborate closely. So we now have multiple generations of 'web developers' of all disciplines from art to computer science. I have even seen web design classes offered by English departments.
Professionals eventually mature and begin to speak the same languages (XHTML, CSS, SQL, ASP, PHP, AS3, BLAH, BLAH...) however they still see the web very differently and present it differently to the corporate managers.
But honestly, if the bosses' nephew can embed a youtube video on his myspace page that looks cool, why can't Smith Inc. have a A/V presentation as their home page? It's my job as a professional to make that happen on all platforms from newest igadget to big blue with internet explorer.
Click your heals three times, and say - "Separate data from presentation." - and magically everything becomes very scalable and portable.
nas : = "Back in 2001 - some eight years back - When we were designing web sites for organizations, these were the same pitfalls that we advised our designers to avoid. I am actually surprised to see the same items in the list."
it doesn't surprise me in the slightest
the mistakes that computer people make today are the same ones the ACM taught us about back in 1965. Data dependencies. Redundant code. Regression testing.
for whatever reason programmers imagine they do not need to learn from previous generations. sure, technology marches on and with it there is change. but a messy report on a 1403 was just as objectionable as a messy web-site today
Mike, in private communication misprinting is ok, misspelling is not so ok, but still..let's chat.But that is about the web-sites for business.So please, people, hire an editor to check your text, show some respect to the visitors.
RMG : = "I agree with you: to much stuff going on on this webpage by default."
to me the essential difference between presentation over the web and presentation over TV is that over the web i am able to control the pace of the presentation -- to select the material i need to see
i think some web presenters today confuse the web media with television
fortunately, Firefox offers a selection of add-on tools that are pretty good at suppressing un-wanted content. gotta love it!
It started auto for me as well on my clunky work-provided IE6 box.
I occasionally get to teach younger people about computers, the net, basic web site design. The index page should load and display very quickly, then the viewer can play all the links he/she wants. But you are a click away from irrelevancy if your index doesn't load quickly. Not everyone in the world is on a "fat pipe".
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