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Website Design – What Not To Do!

You don’t have to spend very long surfing the Internet to come up with your own list of things that really annoy you on websites. But what is it that makes a design technique “bad?” Ask ten different people and you’ll probably get ten different answers. Even if you ask ten different web designers the answers will still probably vary at least a little.

At Inspire Consulting, we’ve spent countless hours discussing design issues with clients, so we understand why some people may like these “bad” techniques. However, we have also spent many hours conducting usability testing with users with different levels of technical proficiency and one thing holds true across all the testing we’ve done: Bad design may turn some people off, poor content may turn away others, but if you annoy your users then your website is never going to get the traffic you want, and it will never help you grow your business.

So here is a list of devices and techniques that you may want to think twice about before incorporating into your website.

Frames – Five reasons to avoid them

1. Search engines are not always able to read your content when you use frames. This may not be a problem for you, but if you want your site to feature prominently in search engine results then it is a really good idea to avoid using frames.
2. Using frames may increase the time it takes for your pages to download. That means that your site’s visitors will have extra time to think about all the other things they could be doing instead of sitting at their computer waiting for your page to materialize.
3. Frames are not supported by all browsers, and those that do may display them inconsistently. Your latest creation may look wonderful in Netscape, but not in other browsers.
4. Users may encounter problems bookmarking your site if you use frames. The problem is caused because each frame essentially displays a separate webpage. For instance, one frame may display a page with your navigation, and another may display a page with your content. When a user adds your site to her favorite places, she may only be bookmarking the content. When she later returns to the page, the content will be displayed, but the frame with the navigation in it won’t be.
5. Users of your site may encounter problems when trying to print pages that use frames.

Mystery Meat Navigation

Every one who surfs the Internet with any regularity is familiar with Mystery Meat Navigation even if they aren’t familiar with the term. The term (coined, we believe, by Vincent Flanders who maintains an excellent website focusing on site design issues: www.webpagesthatsuck.com) is a reference to school cafeteria lunches, which always seem to include mystery meat: you know it’s meat, you’re just not sure what it is or where it’s from. Mystery Meat Navigation is a website navigation button that does not clearly tell you what it is or where it will take you until you have either rolled over it with the mouse or clicked on it.

Why is Mystery Meat Navigation bad? It all boils down to usability. If your website is going to be useful to your target audience and thereby help grow your business then it has to be clear, straightforward, and intuitive. Your site’s visitors won’t want to have think too much just to work out how to find the information they’re looking for on your site. Imagine how frustrated you would get if your local book superstore turned the signs that identify the different sections of the store into Mystery Meat so that only when you had walked up to a section would the sign tell you that you what it was. Don’t put your users through the same stress!

For more information on Mystery Meat Navigation, how to fix it, and how to avoid it in the first place, check out Vincent Flanders' website.

Music

We can’t stress this one strongly enough: Music on your website is probably a very, very, very bad idea. Why do we say probably? Well, if you are designing a site for a band or if you own a business with a musical inclination, then music on your site may be entirely appropriate.

I suppose the rule is this: Treat your site’s visitors with respect. If you’re going to use music, make it an option for them to turn on if they want. If you absolutely insist on having it on by default, then make it crystal clear how to turn it off quickly… but don’t be surprised if many of the people who stumble upon your site head for the hills the instant those first ill-chosen notes start streaming out of their speakers.

This site requires [browser name] version n or higher

This message can really annoy some people! Imagine turning on the ABC evening news and seeing a message that said that you needed a new television to watch the news because yours was out of date and no longer supported. Ouch!

It all comes down to your target audience. You may know that they all have a sufficiently up to date browser so this may not be an issue. But it’s good practice to at least try to make your site as widely visible as possible.

JavaScript

Let us start by saying that a statistically significant number of people don’t even enable JavaScript on their computers (reportedly 10% and higher). In other words, many people will be unable to view your site properly if much of it depends on JavaScript. The uses of JavaScript, however, are perhaps important enough to outweigh this. To use JavaScript or not depends entirely on what the purpose of your site is, and who its intended audience is.

If you are using it, however, use it well. We mentioned having respect for your visitors when we discussed music above. Do not use JavaScript to hijack a user’s browser, display unwanted pop-ups and alerts, change the appearance of the scroll bars, or for any other dastardly purposes. Doing so is not particularly difficult, is extremely annoying, and can make your site look very amateur.

The alert message is a great example. Haven’t we all visited a site only to have an alert box pop up as soon as the page has loaded with… drum roll please… “Welcome to my website!” or some other similarly inane message that the designer, for inexplicable reasons known only unto himself, felt the overwhelming urge to tell us? A lot of web design greenhorns specialize in this one because it has them trying out their skills in areas other than straight HTML. If you fit that category then by all means have at it! Just don’t do it if you’re working on a website for your business or for any remotely professional purpose. JavaScript is a very powerful tool. Use it well and you can enhance your users’ experience. Use it poorly and you’ll only annoy them.

Flash

Much of what we said about JavaScript can apply here too. Macromedia Flash is an extremely powerful and useful tool that enables the creation of some visually stunning websites. It can also be abused or misused and result in the creation of some truly diabolical sites!

Whether you use Flash depends on the purpose of the site. Flash content cannot be read by search engines, too much animation will drive your users elsewhere, and up until Flash Player 6 accessibility for visually impaired users was a big problem. These are some of the disadvantages that you’ll need to be aware of when planning your site. There are of course many advantages too. Use it well, use it judiciously, and try to provide alternatives for people who don’t have Flash.

Absolute Font Sizes

Never set your font sizes with absolute values (i.e. 12pt, 15px, etc). Instead, use the relative sizing that HTML supports: +1, -1, etc. or small, x-small, etc. in CSS. Doing this will allow the user to increase or decrease the size at which the text appears in their browser. Users who have poor vision or high-resolution screens will thank you for it.

Splash pages

Splash pages are a waste of time. Generally though, they’re just a waste of the designer’s time and the project sponsor’s money. Most users don’t even look at them and when they come across them, they click past them and into the site in less than a second. If the user bookmarks the site, she’ll bookmark the page past the splash page.

Some splash pages do serve a legitimate purpose. Some, for instance, offer the user a choice between the Flash and non-Flash versions of the site. If you’re including one like that just make sure that the choice is clear. On the other hand, if you’re designing a self-indulgent splash page where your logo turns a panoply of psychedelic colors and text is zipping around the screen, music blaring, and pictures fading in and out, then please at least consider the possibility that your time could be more productively spent working on some effective content for your site, conducting browser compatibility testing, or ensuring that the site meets the requirements of new accessibility legislation.

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