Web Design

In regards to web design, here are some rules I feel strongly about. Most of these mistakes are made by small businesses who don't have time to learn pitfalls of web design. Typically, they outsource the website to somebody and cross their fingers.

General

  • Domain names - wordpress.com offers a domain name and an excellent CMS, with no ads, for $50/yr. Google Apps offers a slightly less featured CMS for $10/yr. Get one, and I mean one, and stick with it. It is THE one place your business lives on the web.
  • What about Facebook and Twitter? They're pretty awesome, for the next 5 years. After that, who knows? Use them effecitvely today, but your site is your home, it will be around as long as you plan on being around.
  • Don't link to your blogger site from your main site. The year is 2011, if you can afford a professionally designed site, pay a little more for it to be a full CMS (e.g. wordpress). Then your whole site is under one roof. Imagine going to the doctor's office but needing to make appointments across the street. One. Stop. Shopping.
  • Thinking long term, most likely, some other company is dealing with your website. By that I mean, the site is most likely not running on a computer that you own. What happens when that company goes out of business? What if it goes out of business suddenly? Will you lose your site and have to start from scratch? Will you be down for a few days while you upload a copy of your site to another hosting company?

Nuts and Bolts

  • No mouse overs - smart phones are too important and they don't have mice. Another reason is that mouse overs require precision maneuvering and can make your site seem finicky or, worse, make me feel incompetent.
  • Navigation bars should provide only one way to get to a page. Why should there be two ways to get to my favorite page from the main navigation bar? Correct answer: there shouldn't be. I understand if there's different ways to get to a page through intra-site linking, but the main navigational bar should only have one link per page. If there are multiple ways it makes me feel unsure if I'm going to the right place and it makes things harder to remember. In the end the I feel dumb.
  • Site search. Please make sure it works and doesn't return garbage. If your site is big enough, use something that ranks results by relevance.
  • All text should be rendered as text and allow copy/paste. That is, don't use images to display text. If I want to share some piece of your website (contact info, directions, important event dates), please make it as easy as possible. Some fancy image/font/etc. doesn't help me share your business.
  • Design to allow extreme resolutions; from Blackberries to Apple cinema displays. If my screen isn't as wide as your web designer's 32", color-calibrated, mega-resolution monitor, I apologize. But don't punish me with some horrible text-wrapping or, worse, content being cutoff.

Content

  • Any "mobile" site must have a easy way to go to the main site with 100% of the content of the normal site. My phone can handle your website, trust me. If you want to give me a better navigation experience with my mobile device (bigger buttons, less decoration) I can appreciate that. However, if content is missing because you assumed my phone couldn't handle it, you are mistaken. At the very least, give me a way to get back to full site. Ideally, you site looks as good on my phone as it does on my laptop.
  • You better have a damned good reason to be using Flash. Video or a cool interactive infographic are acceptable. "Because you want to make your site a multimedia experience" is a really crummy reason. I have to admit it's valid, but as much you want to immerse me in your style, I want to get to the information I'm looking for more. Load times and mobile incompatibility are reason enough to avoid Flash. Try to assume I'm late and in a rush and really need to know what's on your site.
  • You better have a damned good reason for linking to a PDF. "Because I didn't want to convert a document to a nicely formatted web page" is not one of them (I'm look at you, restaurant menu designers). Printable forms should, nay must, be a PDF. 99.9% of all other content should not. E-Books? Offer an ebook format like e-pub.
  • Do not put dates on your front page unless you plan on updating the page. If I see something 6 months old on the frontpage, I know you just don't care about one of the most public faces of your business, I'll know not to come back for at least 6 months, and I'll likely not trust the rest of your information to be up to date. If you're designing a static site, make it timeless. If not, make sure the you have a way of updating it without involving a third-party, or even a second-party. One date that often falls under the radar is the "copyright". Maybe just make it an "Established" date?

Nitpicking

  • No sections that are "coming soon" or "under construction". All the work you just spent making a place for a coming soon sign should have been used to create the thing that's coming soon. In my experience, "coming soon" is "coming never"
Posted: March 23, 2011 | | comments