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?"

Comments

No such thing

[q2k]

There is no such thing as good web design. There is only good user design. Who are you users? What do they want to accomplish by visiting your site? What do you want them to accomplish on your site? Once you answer those questions you'll be in a position to make some decisions about a design that compliments your goals.

Or, you could just put all the important stuff in flashing text ;)

There's no agreement

[Starship Trooper]

There's a huge split. If you ask the "Slashdot Community" what makes good web design, you'll hear... a lot of noise.

There's the progress camp:
www.webstandards.org, that wants everyone to upgrade their browsers and live on the bleeding edge of style sheets (how ironic is it that their bleeding edge stance has been replaced with an "under construction" sign).

Then there's the compatibility camp:
anybrowser.org that wants every web page to work in the old browsers.

There are probably a few things everyone can agree on, like Flash being worthless at best and extremely annoying most of the time.

Personally, I say: look at the successful dynamic sites. Google, Yahoo, Slashdot. Light HTML, very light images, strong dynamic backend. Don't get too caught up in the format details; it's the power of what's driving the web page, and the content, that matters.

Don't Make Me Think

[Frijoles]

I'm in the process of reading the book "Don't make me think!" by Steve Krug. It's a very easy read, very short, big pictures etc. One of the main points he brings up which I think you should keep in mind is exactly what his title suggests.. don't make the user think. If the user has to think about using your page, "Gee, where's that search button? Is that the product I want?" etc, well, who knows how long they'll stick around. Don't make the user think.

Another thing he brings up is usability tests. I admit, I haven't started doing this yet, but I agree with him. Grab a user that isn't a web programmer. Go to their machine and have them load your page. Then ask them to perform some function and watch what they do. Do they struggle when they try to add a user to the list of names? Do they search around for a help button? In some cases, have the user actually speak out loud about what they are doing. Usability tests can really help you learn where your app works well and where it just plain sucks. Hell, I forgot to add a 'save' button to one of mine because I knew how to get it to save without the button (there was a trick to it). I almost put it in to production, but we do quality checks with other people and they caught it (I believe my thoughts were, "Doh!").

Anyway, I'd suggest the book. It's something you could read while sitting in a Barnes and Nobel sipping tea or whatnot.

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox

[NaturePhotog]

I'd suggest reading Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox on web design, not only the current columns but past ones, too. Some columns like The Top Ten New Mistakes of Web Design are definitely worth reading. It's a couple years old, but people still make those same mistakes.

Besides not falling into the trap of flash without substance (pun intended; Flash is frequently useless for most web sites), keep in mind that people have come to expect certain things from how web pages work. It's nice to have an inovative design, but if it's so far outside the norm that no one can figure it out, people aren't going to use it.

For example, for web commerce, you may not like Amazon, but their site has become the standard for how people expect to shop on the web.

Re:target platform/browser - Windows/IE

[Arandir]

Making your page look good on every browser and platform is impossible. It will take too much work and you probably don't have all the systems

Bullshit!

Making a page that looks good on every browser is as simple as using standard W3C approved HTML. Once you start using advanced CSS you'll run into a few problems, but they're managable. But once you start using scripts, animations, frames and proprietary plugins, you'll never get it to look decent on any browser but they one you're coding for.

We've got a new guy at work who used to be a web developer. I had a long discussion with him about why websites were designed for specific browsers. Why use all these proprietary plugins and scripts redirecting browsers to appropriate versions, instead of just using the standards that are out there. The answer was surprising to me. "The requirement and specifications that come from marketing demand that the website look *identical* to every viewer."

He was serious. His former company was paying testers to measure stuff on the screen, to verify that a box in NS wasn't two pixels taller than it was under IE. They even had some pages on the site that were 100% Flash. If more browsers could handle embedded PDF, they'd use that instead. Ridiculous.

Use FRAMES and Images maps if you need it.

Good idea. Especially since you NEVER need to use frames, and should ALWAYS accompany image maps with standard text navigation.

Sheesh, I bet you're one of these guys that doesn't even use alt tags.

Flash and Shockwave when necessary

And just when are Flash and Shockwave ever necessary?

Re:K.I.S.S.

[Com2Kid]

"- Finally (my personal biggest gripe) is DO NOT OPEN NEW WINDOWS when I click on a link. EVER. Not when I'm going to a new section of your site, and certainly not when I click on a link away from your site. If I wanted to open a new window to follow the link, I would have myself."

I will STRONGLY disagree with you on that one.

ALWAYS pop up external links into a new window. It pisses the HELL out of me when I click on a link IN THE MIDDLE OF AN ARTICLE and end up LEAVING the site and have to hit back, then select to open the link in a new window. (I end up doing this once on at least every site just in finding out if it opens things up in new windows or not).

For crying out loud, why in the WORLD would I wan to stop in the MIDDLE of an article on your site and go to some place else? Now _THAT_ does not make any sense. I would never get finished with anything if I browsed like that.

a few key things to remember

[HaggiZ]

basically you will need to keep a few things in mind:

• people dont read crts/lcds like they do a piece of paper. it's pointless to simply put up an online version of a brochure like many companies do, you can spot it straight away. people scan a screen. namely due to the way we perceive things, and reflected light(paper & ink) is much easier on our eyes than direct light (monitors). kinda why "digital paper" hasn't taken off to date and why we aren't all reading the newspaper on our pdas.
  
• try to keep scrolling to a minimum. horizontal scrolling is a definite no-no
  
• contrary to microsoft and several other window managers beliefs, we naturally scan left to right from the top for things. so navigation and commonly accessed items should be along the top or the bottom
  
• yes it may be pretty to remove underlines and other features, but (un)fortunately people have become accustomed to these signifying links. see you probably think this is a link, dont confuse users uneccesarily.
  
• your use of colours is extremely important, and I suggest you read up on it. they will elict different emotions from the user and drasically effect readability
  
• capital letters are more difficult to read than lowercase, use them sparingly and dont use them to highlight items... it will have the inverse effect
  

all these are of course simple usability thoughts. you still need to consider file sizes/image optimisation, cross-browser issues, etc. key to all of these though is knowing your target market. if I'm making a site for other designers it's doubtful it would need to support anything less than 32bit colour 1024x768, a higher than usual bandwidth and slightly more patience to see some eyecandy. however cross-browser compatibility becomes a key issue.

thats all for now, i may follow this up a little more if people want it at a later date.