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Avoid Error not Design
From Last few months I am on close watch of Web Designing
work in my organization. There are various mistakes we do
while designing and I would like to bring them in notification so
my other friends who are in web designing or in related domain
can actually avoid mistakes and have better ROI. There are
certain point which may very as per the situation, so i try to
collect all of them. Some of them may fit your bunch to avoid
errors.
1. Attention Please : A user must able to figure what your
site is about in few seconds, if he do sent understand he will
probably move to somewhere else. Your site must speak why
user spend time there.
2. Sort and Simple : Avoid large blocks of text. With the fast
moving internet world user demand specific information in
minimal time. So our focus should be that, where user can
scan through the entire content. Use Bullet points, headers,
sub headers, lists. Anything that will help the reader filter
what he is looking for.
3. Fashion Trail : Strictly avoid using fancy fonts. As they
are difficult to read and user lose interest early.
4. Standardization : Do not use tiny fonts as they are
difficult to read and more important that your website follow
the standard font size.
5. New browser windows: Do not open new browser
windows on external link. Let the user control where he wants
the links to open.
6. Resize user’s browser windows: Do not re-size the
user’s browser windows as user should be in control of his
browser. If you re-size it you will risk to mess things up on
his side, and what is worse you might lose your credibility in
front of him.
7. Unnecessary Registration : Do not force visitor to register
up and leave email address and other details unless it is
absolutely necessary for business.
8. Automatic Subscription : Do not automatically subscribe
a visitor to newsletters when he registers up, unwanted mails
to users can bring your credibility low. Sending unsolicited
emails around is not the best way to make friends.
9. Flash : Using flash on your website is always helpful to
increasing the load time of your website. excessive usage of
Flash might also annoy the visitors. Use it only if you must
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offer features that are not supported by static pages.
10. Music On Visitor Gone : Please do not play background
Music on your website.
11. Music on Demand : If you like to play Music than let the
visitor choose and play as per the convenience.
12. Website with badges: Badges of networks and
communities make a site look very unprofessional. Even if we
are talking about awards and recognition badges you should
place them on the “About Us” page.
13. Not Everything On Homepage : Let the user surf your
website, do not try to put everything on homepage only.
14. Contact Detail : Using “forms” to contact is a good
medium but please mention direct contact details like Phone
No., Address etc as every visitor might not be comfortable
with filling forms. He might like to call directly and proceed
business.
15. Blink : Avoid using blinking text on website.
16. Avoid complex URL structures: a simple,
keyword-based URL structure will not only improve your
search engine rankings, but it will also make it easier for the
reader to identify the content of your pages before visiting
them.
17. Site Map : Must be provided to ease visitor surfing your
website.
18. “Back” button: Do not break the “Back” button under
any circumstance. Opening new browser windows will break
it, for instance, and some Javascript links might also break
them.
19. Use CSS over HTML tables: HTML tables were used to
create page layouts. With the advent of CSS, however, there
is no reason to stick to them. CSS is faster, more reliable and
it offers many more features.
20. Minimize “drop down” – Untill its required avoid using
drop down menus, try to simplify the surfing by using
navigation options straight way.
21. Use text navigation: text navigation is not only faster but
it is also more reliable.
22. PDF linking - Make sure to explicit links pointing to PDF
files so that users can handle them properly. As many times
when user clicked on a link only to see your browser freezing
while Acrobat Reader launches to open that (unrequested)
23. Visitor Confusion : Do not confuse the visitor with many
versions, avoid confusing the visitor with too many versions
of your website. For example:-what bandwidth do I prefer?
56Kbps? 128Kbps? Flash or HTML? Hold ON J, just give me
the content!
24. Advertisement Ethics ; Do not blend advertising inside
the content as some of the NEW portal do so and till the time
they realized Visitor gone away. Blending advertising like
Adsense units inside your content might increase your click-
through rate on the short term. Over the long run, however,
this will reduce your readership base.
25 Simplicity the Best : Using simple navigation will deliver
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25. Simplicity the Best : Using simple navigation will deliver
more.
26. Forceful Introduction : do not force the user to watch or
read something before he can access to the real content. This
is plain annoying, and he will stay only if what you have to
offer is really unique.
27. FrontPage the Old Page : Appear to make web design
easier, the output will be a poorly crafted code, incompatible
with different browsers and with several bugs.
28. Cross-browser compatible: Make your website
compatible with the most used browsers on the market, else
you will lose readers over the long term.
29. Anchor Text : Make sure to include a relevant anchor
text on your links. It will ensure that the reader knows where
he is going to if he clicks the link, and it will also create SEO
benefits for the external site where the link is pointing.
30. Avoid cloak links : If you cloak your links (either
because they are affiliate ones or due to other reasons) your
site will lose credibility.
31. Visible Linking : Make sure all links are properly visible
to avoid any mis understanding.
32. Underline or Color normal text: Please do not underline
normal text unless absolutely necessary. Just as users need to
recognize links easily, they should not get the idea that
something is clickable when in reality it is not.
33. Change Color : Clickable link must change color so
visitor will not in confusion whether he click the link earlier or
not.
34. Animated GIF’s : Strictly avoid using animated GIF files
unless you have advertising banners that require. They make a
site look unprofessional and detract the attention from the
content.
35. Make sure to use the ALT and TITLE attributes for
images: apart from having SEO benefits the ALT and TITLE
attributes for images will play an important role for blind
users.
36. No Harsh Color : Using harsh color will kill the user
interest. Always use good color scheme to keep the user
interest.
37. Pop Ups the Block Ups: If pop is so useful most of the
browser does not provide “BLOCK POP UP”.
38. Avoid Javascript links: those links execute a small
Javascript when the user clicks on them. Stay away from them
since they often create problems for the user.
39. Footer : Always use functional links in footer. A more
professional approach.
40. Long Page : Avoid using long page and Improve
navigation.
41. Horizontal Scrolling : There should be no Horizontal
scrolling. The most used screen resolution nowadays is 1024
x 768 pixels, so make sure that your website fits inside it.
42. Spell Check : No spelling mistake in your website to
keep the credibility and quality of your work high.
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p y q y y g
43. CAPTCHA: If you are using CAPTCHA than make
sure letters are readable.
44. Contact Form : Please ask minimum required
information from Visitor. Do not try to get the complete Bio
data of the visitor.
45. Hidden Things : Do not use Hidden Links or hidden
Text, even from SEO point this is not a good practice.
46. Linking : Do not link the content or picture from any
banned site or irrelevant site which has no relevancy with your
website.
47. Website Theme : Always carry a proper theme for your
website and do not alter the theme in MIDWAY.
48. Blog : Adding blog to your website is good if you can put
fresh content on regular basis.
49. Plugging : Do not use unnecessary plugings as it increase
the load time of your website.
50. Font Adjustment : When possible use ‘em’ instead of
‘px’ or % as a measure in your CSS. It grows (or shrinks)
proportionally if your user increases (or decreases) his
browser’s font sizes. That’s because em’s size is relative to
the font size of parent elements while pixels and percentages
are relative to screen’s size.
51. Mobile Compatible : As now a day’s use of smart
phones are very high. Website must have mobile version to
reach more visitors.
52. Visitor Counters : Don’t use visitor counters. Instead,
use an invisible tracking system like Google Analytics. Why
should I care that I am visitor number xxxxxxxxx.
53. Tables or CSS : Don’t use tables to layout your web
pages. Use CSS instead. Table layouts bloat your code and in
some cases will change your code to content ratio to the point
that Google will penalize your site for it.
54. Don’t use frames : Search engines and screen readers
have a big problem trying to read the contents of frames and it
will also affect your code to content ratio.
Happy Designing !
Nitin Chauhan | nitin@maximumhit.com |
www.maximumhit.com
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