Don't Make Your Website User-UNfriendly!

By: William Hanke
Submitted: 2007-01-17 14:59:03
Print this article | Tell a friend | For publisher | Social Bookmarking
Rating:
 

Web Design is a very subjective process. Your idea of what looks good may differ from the next person's. While wild backgrounds and flashing text were once considered 'cool', unwritten standards have evolved into every web designers inventory.

In the following examples I intend to convey a few of those user-unfriendly examples to you. My purpose is only to get you thinking about the layout and performance of your website. If you have one of these examples on your site, and you like it, by all means - leave it there! These are just examples.

1. Page Counters Five years ago, every site had a page counter. They proudly displayed how popular a site had become. The problem is, as many site owners started to find out, is that these counters can be easily manipulated. They can start at any number (not just 1), and they can produce vastly over-inflated numbers. On the other hand, if your site is not a high-traffic area, do you really want customers to know that?

2. Javascript Text Scrolling I remember when this first came out. In fact, I had it on my home page. Do you remember visiting a website and all the scrolling text across the bottom? These were usually put in your status bar along the bottom edge of your browser window. They have become a big no-no in web design. Users like to see their status bar, or, if they don't, they turn it off. Either way, this is a useless tool.

3. Excessive Animated .GIF's In the mid 90's when the Internet boom hit, everyone was getting a home page. Sites and ISP's would give you FREE space to put up your information. Soon, webmaster wannabe's everywhere were over populating the web with crazy animations and bright (obnoxious!) colors. Today very few sites use these files. They are now considered a waste of bandwidth. Since most companies pay for their hosting by how much bandwidth is used, animated GIF's went by the wayside.

4. Under Construction Signs There used to be (and probably still are) pages and pages of different 'under construction' graphics for webmasters to use. Why is this a problem? Well, isn't the Internet just a big construction site anyway? Are you and your friends, clients, and other businesses constantly updating and upgrading their information online? It also conveys a sense of incompleteness. No business wants their customers to think they are running on a low budget or producing an incomplete website. The construction graphic is extinct!

5. Page Fades We've all seen those fancy pages that fade in and out, from circles to spirals and even window-shades. They fall in the category with the scrolling text - obsolete! Most Internet users are looking for INFORMATION, not fancy graphics and page transitions.

Will Hanke is owner of Lighthouse Technologies, http://www.techlh.com a web design, programming and hosting company. He is also author of several software applications in use by companies across the US.

Article source: Expert Articles

Most Recent Articles in Web Design category

  • Understand Social Networks better for Effective Business promotion - By: Jonathan Mac
    Social networking is a big buzz in today's world of Internet marketers. Social networking can be said to be virtually started (introduced) by My Space and facebook. Today, these two giant social networking websites are the ones most visited by people. Many of the Internet marketers have found charming opportunities to market their products through these social networking websites.
  • Here Are The Thumb Rules To Create An Effective Website To Win The Virtual Market - By: Anne Catherine
    Doing business in the web sounds bit a strange for new to this gizmos world. But understanding the e-commerce concept is very easy where you just need to replace a shop by website.....
  • Five Essential Factors That Make A Website Powerful! - By: Jagmohan Gusain
    There are some basic norms that are essential to keep in mind while designing a site. Designing a site is not a one person job. Equal contribution must be made by the web or graphic designer and content developer.
  • How to Find The Right Web Design Company? - By: Anne Catherine
    A website is an important part of any business enterprise today. The size and kind of business is immaterial. The Internet is so very popular and everybody expects a company to have its very own web site and the one's that don't have are looked down upon. Is it good enough to just.......
  • How to get your business off the ground with online website marketing - By: Alice Shown
    Many people think that getting a website on the internet is an automatic ticket to fame, increased traffic and three-fold increase in sales figures.
  • Authorize Ecommerce Software - By: Alice Shown
    Basically Authorize Ecommerce Software helps you to make electronic payment check of your account transactions, for e commerce.
  • Important things to remember when creating an ecommerce website - By: Alice Shown
    One can say without a shadow of doubt that the internet has truly made business global.
  • Tips for Design SEO Friendly Website - By: KAVITA SHARMA
    One method of thinking about designing a latest website is to use a mind mapping process, or to draw up a spider diagram. Designing Your Directory Structure - The first step in implementing a website is to design the directory structure. Although there are certain things which you would love to see on your website, there are other things that you need to take into consideration when you go through website designing. This will also help you while creating and designing your T-Shirts and shop/website to suit your target audience, go to www.master-web-graphics.com The most excellent web designing company in your area helps to design & develop your website with the best of your knowledge and they have completed the website designing in couple of days so that your website becomes ready to host on a server
  • Website Designing- specifically what the goal of the website! - By: Kirti Sabharwal
    Start, designing or building a website they need to decide specifically what the goal of the website is. If you are designing or maintaining your website then learn about Meta tags. This could be because when you are designing a website, you are concentrating so intently on the smaller details that you forget to step back and look at the big picture. Roper web design is not a difficult task; go to www.master-web-graphics.com it is just a matter of designing your website from a viewer's point of view.
  • Tips For A Webpage Design And Attraction Of Web Traffic - By: Anne Catherine
    Web pages are getting popular day by day. A good web page should have an attractive layout and design. It should look great and be pleasant and easy to use even for the first time web......