| Free Adobe Photoshop website templates by Colorifer.com. Web design articles | |
|
|
|
|
My Top Ten List Of Extremely Annoying Web Page Design Elements!
Easy navigation and usability are one of the most important aspects of creating a "user friendly" website. However, there are still a "plethora" of web-sites out there that are, to be politically correct, "functionally challenged." Does your website keep people captivated, or does it send them fleeing as soon as they get to the first page? Do you offend your visitors by employing these ten web design faux pau's? 1) Music, or any voice recording that automatically plays when you enter a site, without giving me the option of turning it off. Yes, there are still website owners who think that putting their Midi version of "Play That Funky Music Whiteboy," will some how impress their visitors. Always give people the option of listening to any recorded information you have on your website. Don't automatically assume that your visitors will be captivated by your voice, or your music. 2) Spinning or animated GIF's of any type. Floating cursors that follow me around while I am visiting your site. If you want to distract me from viewing your information, then incorporate this "flotation device" into your design repertoire! It is like having a security guard follow me around in a retail store to make sure that I'm not stealing! Oversize font that takes up the whole landing page, and web pages that do not fit in my viewing screen. If you are not sure how your website looks on other browsers, then use this free tool called Browsersizer.. ApplyThis.com/Browsersizer http://www.applythis.com/browsersizer/ It helps web developers check to see how their web pages look on different screen resolutions. Slow loading web pages. Compress, or eliminate large lumbering graphics. Your landing page should load in 10 seconds or less. Here is a website that will analyze your load times: Websiteoptimization.com http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/ Web-sites that are "Under Construction." Don't promote what you don't have. It is almost guaranteed that once I see that logo on your site, I will not visit again to see if your construction is finished. Web-sites that don't not allow me to use the "back button." Eliminating my ability to move out of, or through your website, has me looking for the X button. If you want people to visit much, and often, then make your site with the dynamic content that will persuade people to add your site to their favorites file. 3) Any website that looks like it resembles Times Square in New York City. Multitudes of "flashing" or "blinking" banner ads shoved in my face as soon as I reach your landing page will send me running. Flashing banner ads are the equivalent of a carnival barker trying to lure people into his sideshow! You don't need to shout to people to get you message heard on the Internet. Keep you banner ad's limited, and your content abundant! 4) Website owners that make it too hard to navigate their site. If I have to jump through "link hoops" to get to your information I am outta there. Make your product, price, or service, clear, precise, and easy to find. The "about us," or "frequently asked questions" section of some web-sites, leaves me with more questions than answers. Design your content so that even elementary school children can understand the purpose of your website. 5) Pop-Ups..Pop-Ups...Pop-Ups..I don't mind one, or even a few. But, if I have to close multiple pop-ups to get to your website, I will flee the scene. I have encountered some sites that had so many pop-ups they froze my computer screen, even with blocking software. The same applies for any of those "fly-in" or "hover ads" that bounce across my computer screen. If you have to use anything, incorporate a pop-up that loads when a visitor leaves, not before, or during my visit to your site. 6) A page full of dead links and constant "Page Not Found" error messages. Keep your links up to date and take down the links that are no longer active. 7) Cursing or using worn out phrases like "Kick Butt," or "Kick Ass." (Example: "Kick Ass Copy-Writing Service," "Kick Butt Web Marketing"). I can't exit fast enough when I see anyone using that phrase in website advertising copy. It maybe an excellent marketing headline, but for me, it is a total turn-off. Impress your visitors with intelligent, informative, advertising copy and content. 8) AND SOMEONE-ANYONE-PLEASE! Stop the "ultra" dark background accented with an equally dark font! I have discovered many a website in which the background, and the text fonts are indistinguishable from each other! It looks like your are staring into a black hole! Lighten things up a bit, and don't make me turn the brightness controls on my monitor to full! And no, I don't want to highlight the text so I can read the information on your website! 9) While I love Marcomedia's Flash, I think it should be used sparingly. Unless you have a film site, or a product that requires a detailed visual description, just forget about using flash for e-commerce. There is a majority of people out there who still use those pokey dial-up modems (me being one of them) and I "hate the wait!" Even when I use the skip feature it still takes to long for the page to load. While doing research for The Ultimate Guide To Products For Resale: http://www.productsforresale.com I noticed that some designer clothing wholesalers where using flash to sell their product. The same applied to retail sellers of designer shoes, designer handbags, and designer clothing. My question is why? If you are using your site to sell a product, just stick with high quality, fast loading photos, followed up with good creative descriptions of each item. If you have to make people wait to buy your product, people will buy your product somewhere else! If you absolutely, positively, must use Flash, then make your files as fast loading as possible, especially if you are selling a product. 10) Solid blocks of text with no breaks between paragraphs. The only industry that gets away with that format is newspaper, book, and magazine publishers. The Internet is a different world altogether. People not only want their information quick, but they also want to read it in smaller, "bit size" portions of content. I like to skim over articles for the main points. If I have to "slog" through content that looks like a rambling diatribe with no paragraph breaks, I'm gone! Make your content clear and concise. Break up your paragraphs, and use plenty of "white space" when possible. So there they are. My "Top Ten" pet peeves of dysfunctional design! Do any of them apply to you? Remember, you only get one chance to make a good impression. There literally billions of web sites out there, and you need to capture your visitors attention within seconds. Make your site neat and ready to greet! For more information about how to make your site user friendly, go to Jakob Nielsen's Usability Site: http://www.useit.com/ site for tips on better website design. Robert C. Potter is a wholesale and retail surplus products specialist. He is the author of "The Ultimate Guide To Products For Resale!" Over 300 Wholesale & Surplus Supply Sources For Ebay Auction Sellers, E-Commerce Websites, Flea Market Vendors, and Retail Store Owners! You can find his 160 page ebook at: http://www.productsforresale.com.
MORE RESOURCES:
Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
6 Reasons Why Using Flash is a BIG Mistake Most web designers and web design companies will try to convince you that if you want your business to have the best site possible that you MUST have a flash site. Flash, for those of you who are newbies, is a software program that can create really cool special effects and animations. How To Shop for a Web Design Firm? While few companies can boast as we do that our first ten clients are still with us today, many companies often change Web design firms to get a new perspective on how their Web presence could look and perform. The following paragraphs serve as a Buyer's Guide to use when shopping for a new Web design company. Secrets to Using Color on Your Website and Common Pitfalls to Avoid Colors have long been known to have psychological affects on mood and interpretation. So, when you are designing your website, you should keep in mind the influence color might have on your visitors. 11 Steps to Sticky Web Site! An attractive and user-friendly Web site is crucial to attracting prospects and holding their interest. Seems obvious, yet poor design and even more poorly written content clutter the Web. Increase Your Credibility With Web Site Awards Web Site Awards are given from other sites to reward your site for a specific reason. They will usually give you an award graphic or text link to include on your site if you win. Discover 7 Proven Shopping Cart Enhancements to Increase Your Sales For online businesses with their main goal of selling products, shopping cart abandonment can mean the difference between profitability and loss. But since recent surveys suggest that less than 50% of retailers know their shopping cart abandonment rate, let's review what it is and why it is important to know. Why Should You Care About Your Web Site Colors? **How Colors are Used in web design:**Demarcates screen elements into groups- You can pu a blue background for your navagational bar and white for rest of your page. This tells the visitor that the blue area has different elements and grabs his attention. Ten Basic Steps For Building A Web Site That Works 1. Assemble a web site development plan that is integrated with your overall marketing processes; the content should be consistent with offline materials, the graphics/images don't have to be identical with traditional media, but should be consistent with your overall branding, style guide, usage of colors etc. Size Does Matter! In this article we will be looking at why you should keep your web page size small.As any good webmaster knows you should keep the web page size small, but why? It's really simple, both spiders and visitors hate web pages that take forever to load because it's harder to spider the web page or for the visitor they just don't have time to wait for your web page to come up, after all most web sites are not that great, so why wait if your the visitor?You should keep images down in size, the best way to do this is with image compressors. Why Web Pages Appear in the Wrong Location after Uploading to my Website? If your are a new web designer, you may face a common problem after uploading your web page to your web server. The problem is that the web page appear in the wrong location on your website, and will not be accessible when you type its address in the browser address box. Choosing the Right Web Designer Creating your web site can be a tricky process. Choosing the best web design company for your site is extremely important. Imitation, The Smartest Form Of Flattery Unless you are an inventor, most likely you are selling a product or service that is being offered by someone else, somewhere, at some time. The first person to start your type of business would have gone through a lot of trial and error. Why Hire a Professional to Design Your Web Site? Creating an appealing, functional, and effective Web site is much harder than it looks. It's not simply a matter of taking a company brochure or catalog, converting the text to HTML, and throwing in a few pictures (although many sites seem to have been created using this technique!). Flash - To Use Or Not To Use? Out there in the WWW there are thousands sites using flash for their needs. But the majority sites are not in this list. Web Advertising: 10 Little Known Tricks To Help Convert Your Traffics To Buying Customers You may not believe it, but people still judge things by their appearances.How does your website look?The appearance of your web site text can actually increase or decrease your sales. 10 Ways Web Site Text Can Impact Your Readers Buying Decision 10 Ways Web Site Text Can Impact Your Reader's Buying DecisionThe appearance of your web site text can actually increase or decrease your sales. The size, font, style and color of your text can easily affect your reader's buying decision. Appropriate Key Words Choice What do the key words represent?Key words - these are the words that the users enter in a given search engine to find services or products you offer. It is extremely important to know what key words they will use. How To Boost Your Sales Dramatically Using Dynamic Back-end Strategies Getting a customer is not easy.Getting a visitor to decide that he or she wants to buy the product or service you're offering, getting out their credit card and giving you their hard-earned money is not a piece of cake. Selling Multiple Products? Avoid These Top Blunders When your web site sells more than a dozen items, you may face a fierce challenge of helping shoppers find what they are looking for. You'll need to classify products into categories, but these will serve as obstacles and even deal killers if those categories do not match those in the heads of shoppers. Differences between XP Icons and MAC Icons The icons in an application are the soul of the application; they give it the modern and dynamic look the application has. Also, if the icons are intuitive - the end user will easily remember the task behind the icon - easy to memorize then the end users will definitely choose the respective application against one with clogged and strange icons.
|
|
2007-2008 © Copyright colorifer.com. All Rights Reserved. Free Adobe Photoshop templates. Web Design Articles | Site Map | Terms of Use 
|