Web Design Mistakes

1
Web Design Mistakes

• Making your web pages
• easier for visitors to use

2
V I P Concept

• Technical issues can undermine good web sites

3
Navigation

• Determines the look feel of the site
• Consistent navigation options are vital
• Dont depend on Back Button
• Avoid next and previous
• Are there multiple ways into a document?
• Follow established standards, e.g.
• Home page graphic links to home page
• Use of bread crumbsor cascaded menus
• Consistent placement of navigation buttons / links

4
Link Colors

• One of few standards on WWW
• Tracks ones journey
• If you must change them
• Be consistent
• Use a light/dark color combination
• Consider VERY carefully first

5
Slow Download Times

• Be considerate of user bandwidth
• Avoid unnecessarily large media files
• Thumbnail links to large graphics
• Test pages on different connections
• DW estimates
• Edit gt Preferences gt Status Bar
• Consider hybrid development
• People only patiently wait 8-10 sec

6
Orphan Pages

• Dead links, 404 errors, linkrot
• Confuses novice users
• Requires diligence to avoid them
• How often to check?
• Put up only as large a site as you can manage.

7
Scrolling Text Looping Animations

• Just because you can doesnt mean you should.
• Does it look like advertising?
• Visitors may ignore it.
• Requires additional bandwidthon the network

8
Complex URLs

• Too hard to type accurately
• Even once
• Must remember to save (Favorites)
• Good navigation tools minimize
• One main menu
• Register your own domain

9
Scrolling pages

• Users dont scroll past first page
• Key features on first screen
• Including navigation
• Structure pages for easy, quick reading
• Lots of white space (tables can help)
• 800 words max (?)
• Use Anchors for long pages
• Multiple files better

10
Accessibility

• Alt Text for all graphics
• Text captions for audio and video
• Text understanding not color-based
• Navigate without a mouse?
• Avoid frames
• Text only page option?
• Test with a screen reader
• Can be a legal issue

11
Bleeding Edge Technology

• One JavaScript error exit
• Need for unusual plug-ins
• Browsers support for the feature?
• Have you tried to download a browser update with
  a 56k modem?
• Support for end user with problems?
• Bandwidth requirements?
• Simple is often better!

12
Reference

• Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design
• Top Ten Mistakes Revisited Three Years Later
• Auerback, Sarah (Jan, 1999) Site Unseen Keeping
  blind students in mind will make you a better WBT
  designer, Inside Technology and Training