Slashdot Mirror
What Makes a Good Web Design?
Grand Master Math asks: "I'm currently redesigning my website and I have checked out tons of various web sites, gone from link to link, etc...to find the best web design techniques, layouts, and features. Wow Web Designs proved to be a pretty useful site, as it showcased virtually 'the best of the web' in design and creativity. I was wondering what the Slashdot community has to say about web design and what the best web design should implement and address. From browser compatibility, to simplicity and complexity, and customization to user interaction, what should a perfect web design incorporate?"
Too often, people get too gadgety when they design software. Keep it as simple and as direct as the functionality and purpose of the site allows you to. Gimmicks are worthless. The best web designs get out of the way and promote the presentation of their content. Once you've taken into account the structure of your content, half the battle is over.
It seems that web design has changed over the years in order to better accommodate database-driven websites. Text graphics, for example, are pretty much out.
Check out the big boys and see what they've been doing with their sites in order to compensate for massive quantities of content.
I'm biased, but I've got to say that the LDS Church website has done a remarkable job of integrating content and design in an attractive and useful way.
Got Rhinos?
Whats more important?
The "look" of the website, or the "content"?
Glammer up garbage, and its still garbage. Glammer up content and you've got a blockbuster site.
Just a tidbit to think about when redesigning.
BTW - Cliff, you realize that this is a "need hits on my website" article dressed in "AskSlashdot" clothes, right?
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
The key to web design is to design with your target in mind. Asking us what's good for web design would only be useful if you were designing another slashdot site. For example, if you're designing for kids, you wouldn't have to worry so much about supporting Netscape on Unix platforms. Likewise, it wouldn't be appropriate to ask kids how to design a slashdot site :)
<tim><
Good web design is like good music or good writing. It's only good insofar as it meets the desires and expectations of the audience. My wife and I think Son Seals and Koko Taylor are The S**t. The 18 year old young women in our WSD are bored with them. They like (boring, rhytmless, tuneless :-) techno.
Some people LIKE lots of Flash, animated buttons and dancing bologna on the screen. I like clean and simple. Each is appropriate for different tasks.
The question is, as always, "What problem are you trying to solve?"
The man who never alters his opinion is like the stagnant water and breeds Reptiles of the Mind -- William Blake
Yikes, I certainly wouldn't recognize them as an authority. Blue text on brown backgrounds. Black text on dark green. Not the best link to use as an example....
I'm surfing the web looking for content.
...
What is your content? That is why I came to your site.
Can I find and understand it easily?
If I can't figure out the content, the rest is useless.
Focus on your content. Why is your website there? Why am I looking at it?
Flashy == distracting == frustrating == waste of time
... unless your whole purpose is strictly to entertain
O=='=++
...to think about. Or rather, they are, but they should be on the list below usability. That is, if your web site is there to store some actual content or information, as opposed to being primarily a work of art in its own right (in which case you should go nuts and ignore the rest of my message).
For instance, just that front wowwebdesigns.com site you point already makes me grouchy. Why? They shrink the font size below the default font size. With my default setup, the page is completely unreadable. Fortunately, with Mozilla I can bump up the fonts for that page, but good web design would mean the user shouldn't have to do that.
The site is also too busy. Too many sites out there clutter the screen up with packed sidebars on both sides and advertisements and flashing animated images and Flash animations and oh my word.
The pages they list as "good" at may be pretty and eye candy, but unless you're trying to make a gallery piece which is supposed to be thrilling in its own right, they are what I would think of as *bad* web design. To my mind, good web design is a design that doesn't get in the way of your reading and getting to the information you want to find on that web site.
My idea of good web design? www.google.org is near the top. Very clean, simple, straightforward, does its job and is readable.
Clean, readable, not sensory-overload inducing, well-organized: all of these things are far more important for 80-90% of the web sites out there than anything having to do with being visually appealing or using creative and fancy new touches.
-Rob
Don't EVER put music or other noise on your web page that plays without user interaction. There is nothing wrong with a button that says "play" but if you make noise happen as soon as the page loads then your page sucks and I don't care how pretty or useful it is otherwise, I will close it immediately and never load it again.
The problem is, just which page is making the noise?
You really can't go wrong if your website follows those three principles. There are hardware concerns, too (make sure your servers and your connection is up to the expected task).
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
1) Do not attempt to control every aspect of the display of the site in the browser of your visitors. This is not the purpose of HTML.
2) Create a site that is standards compliant. Please note that doing this requires adherence to 1.
3) Hypertext is an excellent manner of displaying and linking information. Keep that in mind. Information.
4) Proprietary inclusions such as Flash should be segregated from the main of your site, and identifiable as what they are.
5) There's not much that Javascript does that you really need. Honest.
6) Newspapers use narrow columns for a reason.
7) Sarif fonts are easier to read in column-form than sansarif fonts.
l
I browsed a handful of sites featured on the mentioned 'wowwebdesign' site, and frankly, I think the criteria is in question.
When I go to a website, there are a few things that will immediately piss me off:
If I have to resize my windows to view the page properly... I ration out space on my desktop right down to the pixel... if I have to resize the window to view some big page layout, I usually decide not to look at the page at all
If there is a pop-up anything... pop up ads are infinitely more annoying than banner ads. Why can't people take a lesson from Google, and their text-only ad policy? Also, if I click a link on your page, and you force my browser to launch a new window, I'm outta there. (I've always wondered why my browser can't disable this feature and just replace the current page with the new one ALWAYS)
Sacrifice of useability for artistic masturbation... if you find yourself thinking that you've just GOT to use that flash animation, or animated GIF, or whiz bang javascript, first do everybody a favor and ask yourself if it adds to the useability factor of your site. chances are your visitors are a lot less impressed with those gadjets than your are.
Not only do these things annoy, if you keep things simple you will have more time for content, which is all most of us are really concerned with anyway. Now that I've opened my fat mouth, I'm sure everyone will go visit my site and proceed to rip me a new one about how it could be better *grin* (feel free, btw)
As a web developer, the primary difference for me between designing for the web and designing for any other publishing medium is liquidity. You never really know the size of the browser the user's going to be viewing you in, so you better make damn sure your page flows correctly to fit.
Nothing makes me madder than having to scroll back and forth across a web page because some idiot figured that since the site looked fine in his maximized browser on his 1024x768 display, he could hardcode the tables to be 1000 pixels wide and no one with have any trouble with it. Other than people using too much superfluous flair for its own sake, I think this is probably highest on the list of big problems designers make.
Take steps in the beginning of your design process to avoid the problem. Start using the percentages for widths in your table tags. Start using the ALIGN and VALIGN attributes correctly. Don't rely on FrontPage to position things for you with style properties, instead put them into properly formed table tags with the alignments set right so that the page flows when it's resized.
It really does make a huge difference.
This tagline is umop apisdn.
1. World Wide Web Consortium is thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods.
2. Flash is evil, and of the devil. Flash is blaspemy.
3. Javascript can be useful for on-page functions that don't necessarily require a server call, but remember your page still still fundamentally work with no javascript enabled.
4. Images should be used for illustrative purposes, not to show you found a neat image and *never* as a background.
5. Images should be small and reduced to webpage resolutions.
6. Content shouldn't be laborous to read. Black on white text is the best, but at least always make sure to use contrasting colors.
7. Style sheets should always be used (see number 1) but make sure that necessary style pairings (such as colored tables and the text within) are defined in the same scope. A page-declared table color and text/css file declared table text color could cause problems if your style sheet file doesn't load.
8. Design for non-compliant brower protocols *only* if your business depends on it. Private sites should *always* be written to the HTML specs (see #1) all browsers be damned.
9. Do not covet they neighbors hyperlinks. Links should be used in *context* and not in a random listing. Don't say "you can find a link about greyhound adoption *here*." Instead, write either "There is a lot of information about *greyhound adoption*" or "*Greyhound Puppies Inc* has a lot of information about greyhound adoption." All of this results in a page more useable by non-traditional browsers. (see number 1)
10. If you change the color of links, you should make sure that the default colors (blue, purple, red) will show up on your site. Another reason not to use picture backgrounds. Also, don't ever *ever* reverse the color scheme... cool (blue-like) colors for unvisited links, purple or red-like (hot) colors for visited links.
Frankly, I think you're asking the wrong crowd.
Of all computer users, the Linux crowd is the least qualified to comment about design. Oh sure, there are exceptions, both among Linux users and among Slashdot readers, but just read the comments that have already been posted. The common thread is that people wouldn't want to sacrifice content for a flashy web site, and that just shows their ignorance. These people don't realize that good design does not involve compromizes. Good design is about presenting the content in such a manner that the appearance enhances the content presentation, not distracts from it.
Besides, look at the state of 99% of Linux software, especially the open source stuff. User interfaces are the last concern of the developers. It's obvious to me that the majority of Linux developers and users really don't care, or just don't know anything about, good design. But, I guess I should cut them some slack, since it's very hard to be a good programmer and a good designer. Yet I'm disappointed that most developers don't try to get good design ideas from others.
So yes, Virginia, you can have your cake and eat it too, provided that the web site is designed by a real graphic designer. Such an individual has both training and experience in creating designs that work.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Not to mention that, inevitably, the two versions will go out of sync.
Not necessarily. The two sites I maintain are built dynamically (well, at home, then copied statically to the server) from XML sources. All navigation, menus, and content for both the "fancy" and "plain" HTML versions come from the same source tree, and both are pretty much always in synch. Whenever they're not, it's a failure in my site-generation code, not anything to do with whether I've remembered to update both sides.
Best trick: All the "plain" stuff shows up in the 'No frames' tag, so if you surf to the main site w/lynx, you don't get "clikc here for the plain version," you just get the plain version. Simple, stupid, but something that used to annoy the crap out of me and so I'm quite proud of myself for doing it "right" (or at least "better").
Downside: You gotta make (or find, or buy) an XML-to-multiple-output website generation system. But, then, that's half the fun!
Meaningful content and a good way to search for it is where a site actually makes the grade for me.
If all web sites were text, tables, charts, and pics relevant to the topic at hand, that wouldn't bother me a bit. No JavaScript, flash, Active X, applets, or anything else to slow my connection down.
Plain sites with content may not win web site design awards, but I would certainly visit them way more. Google is a good example of that.
Especially since you NEVER need to use frames
I dispute that: there's a certain very well-defined set of circumstances in which using a frameset is beneficial. Although I agree that 99% of the frameset usage on the web is inappropriate, in certain circumstances framesets can be used for efficient navigation and still look good - the main advantage of frames is that they only need loading once - it's a frivolous waste of bandwidth to put the same graphical navigation bar on each page, for example (not that I'm a huge fan of graphical navbars).
Still, the rule for frames is: If in doubt, don't use them.
n/t
pooptruck
The 'KISS' ("Keep it Simple, stupid!") principle is one that has stood the test of Time very well indeed (NOTE: I'm not saying you're stupid... just quoting from memory).
When I did my web page, I kept the following in mind.
1). Get the message across. Plain, simple, quick. Most people have a pretty short attention span when they're surfing, so I designed the main page to be able to load in less than 20 seconds. Don't do graphics bloat.
2). Keep it readable. Do NOT make the mistake of locking your users into one specific browser, or requiring them to have Java, Javascript, Flash, or any of that bandwidth-wasting crap enabled to use the site. Make the site so that it can be fully read and navigated with anything from Lynx to the most sophisticated graphics-enabled browsers around.
3). Consider your audience! If you must use graphics, use meta-tags describing what the graphic is and (if necessary) its text contents. Here's why: Computer users who are visually impaired or who have no sight depend on text-to-speech software to use their computers. Set your site up so that it is navigable by those who may lack one or more of the senses that too many of us, all too often, take for granted.
Yes, I realize that such guidelines may kill the use of a lot of graphics bloat. And this is a Bad Thing, how?
Good luck.
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
Actually Eric Binna and Lou Montoulli invented the Blink tag at Netscape. It was an easter egg, it was never documented by Netscape, they just used it a couple of times on their Web site. It was actually meant as a joke.
To answer the original question, Web designers should be taught to use as little active code as is necessary. I am fed up with sites that collapse in a mess of poorly debugged Javascript. At least these days Javascript rarely causes the browser to crash, but you can still go to a major site and hit a Jscript bug with a major browser release.
The main design point I think Web Designers need to be taught is allowing the user to decide how to view the site. I really get fed up with sites where the main purpose is to satisfy the Web Designer's ego.
My absolute hate is sites that start to mess arround with the controls on my browser. Especially those that try to disable the back button or fix the window size. At home I have a large LCD display, only i spend a lot of time looking at sites that insist on folding themselves up to a postage stamp size in one corner with 6pt fonts.
Don't ever put 'best viewed in 640x480 on your site, or anything like it. The whole design of HTML was to make that type of thing unnecessary.
IE now allows you to enable javascript on a per site basis. since turning off Jscript by default and only enabling it when necessary the quality of my browsing has improved greatly. A major side benefit is that popup ads no longer work. Now if we can only persuade MSFT to allow Macromedia to be disabled on a site by site basis or provide a button that says 'Never download this application it is a crappy piece of crap whose sole purpose is to bombard me with crappy adverts i don't want to see'.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
The problem I have, is that in some ways I think you must be joking, but in others I think you are actually serious.
Out of interest, I just went to the Ultrashocksite...
For some unfathomable reason, it reminded me of skipintro
Thanks for proving everyone else's point in such an emphatic manner...
Tim
As a designer and geek-by-trade, I'm going to have to side against the majority of Slashtypes here.
The importance weighting of design vs. content can vary by 180 degrees depending on the context of the site.
First off, if it's a shopping site, or "brochureware," design is 50 times more important than the content within. It's the difference between handing a customer a professionally designed brochure and a photocopy. The content on those sites is almost always brochure/catalog spooge.
Design isn't Flash, it isn't animated graphics... it's a polished, useful, easy to navigate user interface that doesn't suck or make them think. (Those are both fantastic books, BTW)
If you're building a community-based site, or an information-based site, then design falls (rightfully) into the back seat.
I guess that the point I'm trying to make is -- establish your priorities when designing the site. Is your primary userbase going to be the Slashcrowd? If so, you better make sure that the site is tolerable in Lynx -- and that crowd is much less likely to avoid a site just because it's ugly.
Joe Sixpack Consumer AOL User or Middle Management Stooge, on the other hand, will be less forgiving.
Bottom line -- if you're selling image or product, design matters a LOT. If you're selling community and ideas, design doesn't matter as much -- but try to make the site easy on the eyes.
And, please know that I'll personally hunt you down and kill you if you require IE5+, Win, or a plug-in to view over 50% of your site.
You've been warned!
Granted: sites need to be content focused, simple, fast, and easy to use.
But your great content will never impress anyone if it isn't painted to do so. Your great back-end and your brilliant navigation will bore people if its not visually appealing.
I like a clean, professional look. Continuous color scheme. Visually balanced pages. Illustration....
Doesn't anyone like pretty webpages?
(My 2 cents)
John
Let me say one thing first, the Wow Web Designs site is NOT a good example of web site design. Look at it in Opera and see for yourself how nice the dark blue links look on the dark brown background. Yuck. Try turning the images off. Almost none of them have alt tags.
Good web site design is subjective. What one person considers good to look at, another won't. Some people actually like those huge flashing animated gifs they put on web sites. Do what you like if its a personal site. If its commercial and you're doing it for a client, then of course do whatever the clients like.
That aside, I know I might be rehashing a lot of other people's comments, but here are a few of the things I keep in mind when designing sites:
- Conforms to the W3C accessibility guidelines and validates (HTML, CSS, etc.) If your site does this, it will cover a lot of the other bases and cut down on problems. Also try running your site through Bobby at http://www.cast.org/Bobby/
- Doesn't use unnecessary graphics or flash. When you have a site about art, movies, or other topics that lend themselves to heavy graphics or when you want to show off something, like a product or your campus - use the images and make sure they're nice ones. In most cases tons of graphics and fancy flash things aren't necessary and just contribute to download time.
- Looks acceptable on as many browsers as possible. It might not look identical on all, but there isn't anything that's illegible on an older or non-traditional version. Try a site like Any Browser's Site Viewerthat will show you what your site looks like on using other browsers, or older versions of HTML support.
- Dynamic Content is important if you want to bring visitors back. They come to your site once, find what they want and never come back again unless your content changes. On the same note, when they get there the content must be up to date on things that are timely, like events information
- Make sure the site downloads fast - most importantly the front page. I now have a 24kbps connection at home and realize just how important this one is.
I guess those are my main ones. I won't get into all the others because so many people have covered them on here already.
This site - Any Browser and this site Software QA Test have testing tools that may be of some use to you.
I'd give you some examples of my work, but I really can't afford for for any of my sites to be slashdotted right now.
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
The difference is that you can make links open in a new windows by control-clicking (or whatever) on them. But if the developer forces all links to open in a new window, how do I (who doesn't want a new window) make it not open in a new window? I can't -- the developer has overridden that option.
To provide the user with choice (which is one of the most important things that a website developer can do), it's important to not force particular UI styles on users. Give them choices. In this case, the only way to do that is by not opening links in a new window.
-Waldo Jaquith
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Content
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Animations
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Valid HTML
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HTML is not a typesetting language
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<NOSCRIPT> tags
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Remember about other browsers than yours
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Remember about people with disabilities
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Colors
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Fonts
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User defaults
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Accept-Language
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See good websites and learn from them
- debian.org
- gnu.org
- google.com
- dmoz.org
- w3.org
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Try to learn from the good old books
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Hire an expert, like
me
This is everything what I can think about right now. I'm sure many of you have already said the same things (I do hope so!) because I started writing this comment when there were only few other comments posted. Those are, in my opinion, the most important things about a good web design, so it's worth being a little redundant. Forgive me any typos, it's quite a long comment and I'm very tired (and very lazy).If you don't have anything interesting to say, don't even bother.
Do not use any animations or blinking text on a page, when there's any text to read, especially if they can't be turned off by simply pressing Escape or clicking Stop. I don't mind ads, as long as they don't interfere with reading, and animations do interfere.
Don't publish invalid HTML. Always use W3C HTML Validator and CSS Validator on your pages online. Always use HTML Tidy before your new pages are online. If you don't write HTML but you use a WYSIWYG Web authoring tool instead, and its output gives any errors or warnings when tested with HTML Validator, complain to the vendor of this tool you use asking to remove the bugs.
HTML or XHTML are for the logical informations about your document. CSS is for defining the look and feel.
The <NOSCRIPT> tag is not for writing "Your browser is bad, come back when you install better" but for providing the same functionality for browser without JavaScript or with JavaScript turned off.
(By the way, texts like "If you can see this text, that means you have no JavaScript" are as stupid as "If you can see this text, that means you have a kernel panic")
If your website is unusable without JavaScript, it needs a redesign. Don't use <a href="javascript:..."> links if you don't have equivalent <a href="http:..."> links inside a <NOSCRIPT>.
If your website is best viewed with any specific browser, or in any specific resolution, you're not a good web designer and worst of all, you don't understand what the Web is all about. See the Any Browser Campaign. Install Lynx (a text-mode browser) and see how your website looks like. If it's unusable, it's poorly designed. Remember to always use ALT property in IMG tags, aspecially in navigation buttons.
See the Web Accessibility Initiative and always try to meet the Triple-A, Double-A or at least Level A Conformance. Use Web Accessibility Initiative logos on your website, or just a text information about your level of conformance.
"The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect." - Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web
People may access your website using Braille terminals or voice synthesis. Testing your website with Lynx is always a good idea.
Remember that 10% of your visitors are color-blind in some degree. Remember that black text on white background is the best combination for any text longer than few lines. Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.
Remember that the best font for text longer than few lines is a serif, variable width font, like Times. Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.
You should always use the default font face and default font size for the normal text content on your website. Just don't define the face and size, and it'll be ok. Remember that when you use size "-2" for the whole text on your page it means: "For the text on this page, use the font two levels smaller than what the user has chosen as his/her default and favorite size of font".
Use your own font faces, sizes and colors other than black on white, only for logos, headers etc., but not for the main text to read, longer than few lines and especially longer than a paragraph. Soemone has set a bigger size as a default for a reason - maybe he/she has a small screen, maybe he/she has problems with eyes, maybe he/she just likes big fonts - respect this decision.
If your site is multilingual, use the Accept-Language HTTP header. My browser sends Accept-Language in every single request and it's stupid that I have to click English version links, after I've already told it in my HTTP request. See the RFC 1945 - HTTP/1.0 (May 1996)
It's nearly 6 years old feature, still most of people don't use it. RFC 2616 - HTTP/1.1 (June 1999) defines much richer Accept-Language header (See section 14.4), but please, use HTTP/1.0 functionality at least. See www.debian.org which is a great example of this feature functionality.Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.
Contact me and I'll fix your broken website or supervise your webmasters for very affordable prices.
~shiny
WILL HACK FOR $$$
Standards, Standards, Standards!
I spent hours getting my site to validate as XHTML 1.1, and CSS, and it renders correctly in modern Netscape browsers, and modern versions of IE. Standards should be the way of the future (and should have been in the past).
Anyway, other that that:
Content! Don't let the design get in the way! KEY EXAMPLE: The new site for The Matrix, awful, design makes it very hard to access information.
"We shall show mercy, but we shall not ask for it" -- Winston Churchill
Look at google. Google has one of the best website designs in the world. It is simple and loads quickly. The website looks clean and is easily navigated. Go for the minimalist approach on a website. It will probably save you money and bandwith when there are thousands of people who want to see your website every because it is so great.
I do web programming for a living, and we get into some very interesting conversations when we're designing a site. Occasionally, I get some very wierd requests for new and novel interfaces. This is a bad idea.
Although the web is fairly new. almost everybody is expecting to see a few things.
- A navigation bar on the left
- A breadcrumb, like on Yahoo!
- Navigation at the very top
You do anything different, and you risk confusing the hell out of your users.You can argue all you want about why your interface is better,but unless you can hard data from usability testing, don't break tradition without a very good reason.I may be heavily biased, since that is what I do all day, but make absolutely sure your code is valid HTML, and leave out all the kruft. Pretty much all WYSIWYG design interfaces by default don't put out valid html, so don't use them. [Emacs |VI] will perform admirably, produce clean code, and if you use a server side scripting language and hide most of your code in templates, will be as fast or faster than Dreamweaver or Frontpage. (You are using PHP/Coldfusion/CGI/ASP, Right?)
For the Love of (insert your choice of deity here), don't make a site all flash unless you have an extremely good reason to. As of yet, I have never heard of a good reason to do so, but they might, in theory, exist. Anything that you put into a web page, be it Javascript, Flash, Shockwave, audio, video, and massive, massive graphics, slows down the site, makes it harder to load, and will turn people away. I'm not saying to use NO graphics. I use quite a few at work, but keep them small, and realise that users very well may have images, stylesheets, or browser-supplied fonts turned off.
Finally, remember what HTML is designed to do. HTML is a markup language designed to format text. All the nifty graphics and such are good, and they have their place, but they weren't invisioned when HTML was designed, and in a sense, they are foriegn to the medium. Use them with caution.
Whoever mentioned the book Don't Make Me Think has a very good point. That one sentence tells you more about User Interfaces than many books ever will.
Back when I did this for a living we had an ancient machine running win95 (bleh) with IE and NS, running in 640x480 @ 256 colors. We tested every web page on this machine under both browsers. Our rules were simple.
First, the user should NEVER have to scroll horizontally. Never. Period. Second, we used GIFs as often as possible, optimized to a web palette (and therefore look acceptable under 256 colors). Note that obviously for photographs we didn't use gifs--just logos, maps, and other miscellaneous decoration.
These days, I'd probably include Konqueror, Mozilla, NS 4.x, IE, and Opera at a minimum. 640x480 is a bit restrictive these days, so I might be inclined to optimize for 800x600. On the other hand, I know plenty of people (usually older individuals with poor vision) who run in 640x480--even on a 21" monitor.
No God damned Java! No ActiveX! No Javascript! No CSS! Nobody supports ANY of these properly. I'm sick of NS, Moz, and Konqueror hanging on every other web page I view. If I can't view it the first time without changing options, I will NOT go out of my way to view it unless it is absolutely vital information.
If you MUST run with the flock and use Javascript, don't design a site that is unusuable without it. I'll never come back.
Don't write a site entirely in Flash. Yeah, it's pretty. But the functionality sucks. I can't copy text or save pages this way. Forget it.
Don't pop up another window for ANYTHING unless the link says it will do so. Offer it as an option rather than the only choice.
Don't pop your site into a preset size window and disable the tool bars and such. That's just downright cheap and highly annoying. I won't do business with you either.
Don't use named fonts. Just change the sizes, but don't rely on them either--some of us love 1600x1200 on a 21" monitor, but have no choice but the override font sizes so we can see damned sites like Office Depot, GoGoCity.com, or others. No more of this 6pt text nonsense.
Don't link an entire damned sentence.
Okay, I'm just rambling now. Obviously there are a LOT of pet peeves over stuff like this. Deal with it, and you'll find a lot more people hitting your site.
And pair the real graphic designer, who
knows the difference between good a bad looks, with a usability specialist. Just as good desingers are not good copy writers and visa-versa, so designers and copy writers usaually work in pairs. Designers have learned a lot about design, and a little about usability. So with the designer + usability specialist + copy writer, it'll give the engineering team a lot to do. A good designer can whittle 25 possible approaches down to four that look good, and the usability specialist can help whittle those possibilities down to two that look good and work well for the target user. Then toss in the marketing and brand managment... (Brand managment is the type of stuff people do so that the FSU web site has a FSU "look and feel" and the U of F web site has a U of F "look and feel" - they're the guys who keep track of what the "look and feel" is).
I don't want to sound high-handed, but a good designer knows what looks good, a good copywriter knows what readable and effective text is, and a usability specialist knows good usability. There ain't enough time in the day for someone to be good at all. There are exceptions, but there aren't enough of these superheros to go around.
The designers I work with don't like/listen to Nielson - they think he relies to heavily on standardizing the user experience. That don't sit well with the creative types looking for a more appropriate way to do it given the objectives at hand.
{begin rant}Designers ought to write 100%-valid html, period. I think the idea of coming up with a design, then spending weeks getting it to work in IE (all versions), Netscape (ditto), and the minor browsers (I'm not knocking Konquerer, just trying to make a point) is utter foolishness. Graphics are nice added touches, but having to depend upon them for your site to work is lame. Same thing for flash, javascript, etc.. If the browser can't or won't run these extras, the site ought to remain usable (i.e. degrade gracefully).{end rant}
Need a Linux consultant in New Orleans?
Listen to the clever people. Not me, but Joel Spolsky.
From his book, User Interface Design for Programmers:
Usability is not everything. If usability engineers designed a nightclub, it would be clean, quiet, brightly lit, with lots of places to sit down, plenty of bartenders, menus written in 18-point sans-serif, and easy-to-find bathrooms. But nobody would be there. They would all be down the street at Coyote Ugly pouring beer on each other.
(he also said that on his site in Nov 2000.)
Joel's a far more clever guy than I, and is always much more eloquent in expressing ideas. You should listen to him, too.
J.J.
Web site design needs a lot of different things, Information architecture & usability, HTML & XHTML, CSS & implementation bugs, search engine ideas and keyword research, Web server techniques & content management, deeziner discussion & tech discussion, good practices & sucky practices.
/. home page is a good start.
I could go on. My point is that you can either be a half-hearted jack-of-all-trades, or do the Web a favour and pick something, learn to understand it and collaborate with people who have complimentary skills.
Of course a Web site is no use if no one visits it. A link from the
Calum