Top ten web design mistakes

Ramrod · 04-10-2005, 16:29

link
Interesting reading, may be of use to someone here...

Chris W · 04-10-2005, 16:59

handy

I've spent the last few hours head scratching over why my new site design doesn't look like it should

Halcyon · 04-10-2005, 17:28

Very useful !
The amount of sites I've come accross that are bad is beyond belief !

A few errors that spring to mind...

- Colour clashes. Using colours and backgrounds that are uneasy on the eye.

- No navigation. People want to click less than 3 times to find the information. If they can't, they'l get bored and move on.

- Flash. Ok, it can look good. But you have to think about all users.
No point making a site and sticking in just flash buttons for navigation as if you dont have flash, your navigation is screwed.

**Damien** · 04-10-2005, 17:57

This sites great, we used it a couple of years ago to learn about web design and such

Graham · 04-10-2005, 18:39

Useful. I'm going to post a link to that on Which? Magazine's online forums because, for all their "Consumers Champion" talk, their forums suck.

ADDENDUM: With supreme irony, their website is currently not responding!

Ramrod · 04-10-2005, 19:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Graham

Useful. I'm going to post a link to that on Which? Magazine's online forums because, for all their "Consumers Champion" talk, their forums suck.

ADDENDUM: With supreme irony, their website is currently not responding!

I gave up with which! magazine years ago! They were just too sub-standard.

danielf · 04-10-2005, 19:41

For your information, that site is written by Jakob Nielsen, one of the world's top bods in HCI (Human Computer Interaction). He knows what he is talking about...

makikomi · 04-10-2005, 21:27

I want to see what a website would look like that had all the mistakes listed!

ntl customer · 04-10-2005, 21:52

Quote:

- Flash. Ok, it can look good. But you have to think about all users.
No point making a site and sticking in just flash buttons for navigation as if you dont have flash, your navigation is screwed.

I LOATHE websites written completely in Flash. If I have to wait for some stupid animation to load just to get to the content, or to wait for a word to fade in or something to slide in, I'll usually be off in a flash (pun NOT intended).

The college intranet is a prime example of this. Loads of whizzy animation to get the sub menus to open, and even when you get to the content, it is often out of date by a few years or not complete.

Tip of the day: use Flash sparingly.

Graham M · 04-10-2005, 22:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by makikomi

I want to see what a website would look like that had all the mistakes listed!

www.ca ... no i wont

marky · 04-10-2005, 23:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeph

www.ca ... no i wont

Canadian internet registation authority

Halcyon · 04-10-2005, 23:21

An example of a dodgy site ?
Any on geocities, yahoo, etc that floods you with adverts.
eg. This one:
http://maxpages.com/mypokedex

Terrible !

Stuart · 04-10-2005, 23:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by ntl customer

The college intranet is a prime example of this. Loads of whizzy animation to get the sub menus to open, and even when you get to the content, it is often out of date by a few years or not complete.

Tip of the day: use Flash sparingly.

Our old admin site at work is similar to this (can't provide a link for two reasons, one, the site was deleted, and, two, to allow access to the site would create security problems).

The site used DHTML pop up menus that faded in and out, and looked amazing in IE. It should be noted that you can design good interfaces uses standard HTML, and you can also use standard DHTML to create some absolutely amazing interfaces that do run on all browsers. One springs to mind. I saw a web site (don't know the link) where someone had recreated the Mac OS9 interface in DHTML for his site, and even included a few limited applications (such as a post-it facility).

Even I (despite not being the best web designer in the word) was able to knock up a basic admin interface for a site I was looking to set up, including DHTML pop up menus that worked on all browsers.
Unfortunately, they barely worked in Firefox, and didn't work at all in Opera.

The new site uses a much better menu structure, and uses standard HTML (for the interface anyway, the backend stuff is done withn a variety of languages), looks good and is easy to use in any browser. It even renders quite well using the Small Screen Rendering on Opera Mobile.

Perhaps that guy should add something else to his site: Don't use browser-specific facilities/tags.

Angua · 06-10-2005, 16:42

Another point to remember is colours and the use thereof for those 10% of males who have some form of colour deficiency. Interesting info and some tests here

MJB · 06-10-2005, 22:45

I particularly like the bit about enlarging images - It's so true. You click on it and all that happens is the surrounding text disappears, but the image stays the same size