Recurring Problems With Web Design
Over a decade ago, Jacob Nielsen, one of the most prolific researchers into Human-Computer Interaction, listed ten pinnacle mistakes not unusual to websites. Unfortunately, despite a wealth of studies and documentation, many of these top ten mistakes remain when you consider that. Here, we look at Jacob’s unique listing and touch upon what happened in Web Design 2009.
1. Using Frames
Splitting a page into frames is very puzzling for users because frames wreck the fundamental consumer version of the net page. Suddenly, you can not bookmark the modern page and go back to it because it will point to the containing frameset now, not the simple frames loaded, URLs stop working, and printouts become hard. To make subjects even worse, the predictability of user interaction with the website disappears hastily. Today, framed web pages nonetheless abound, even though now not as high-quality an extent as earlier. One prior use of this type of record was social networking, in which an element of a page changed and refreshed frequently to pick out if there had been any new messages for users. Nowadays, identical functionality may be carried out using Ajax technology without the want for frames.
2. Gratuitous Use of Bleeding-Edge Technology
This changed into a time when many well-known professional net developers included modern-day gizmos into their websites online, possibly because of the idea it becomes cool and also because they may. However, a touchdown on a site wherein you have to download more plug-ins is one sure way of having users click their ‘back button.’ Customers are more suspicious of downloading more software to interact with a website due to the fear of viruses or other exploits.
3. Scrolling Text, Marquees, and Constantly Running Animations
Do you need to distract your customers with lively banners, little spangly bits that go with the flow throughout the screen, or an overly lengthy mouse path? However, it’s miles a laugh for only about 0.02ms. If you need your internet site users to study the textual content on your web page genuinely, provide them some peace and pass over the animation.
4. Complicated URLs
Appearing at the pinnacle in the address bar of every net browser is the URL of the present-day web page. Some people have said that this shouldn’t be the case as its very presence causes users to try to deduce the website’s online structure from this unmarried line of textual content. Until this deal with the bar is ditched (it can show up!), the URL should be human-readable and mirror the web page’s perspectives and the facts space where it is placed. Good web designers will take note of the layout of URLs so that customers can also make a knowledgeable guess for a document or can effortlessly not forget the URL of the web page they’re on. But how frequently do web designers pay attention to the design of URLs?
5. Orphan Pages
This, thankfully, does no longer occur as often as before. Maybe it’s introducing extra template-driven websites that ensure every page has a navigation bar that is causing the difference. However, the times of arriving at a web page that has no onward links appear to be passing.
6. Long Scrolling Pages
In the mid-’90s, the most effective 10% of users scroll beyond the data. This is visible on the display screen when a web page comes up, demanding that all essential content and navigation alternatives be at the top. However, internet website customers are getting extra used to utilizing the scroll bar on the right-hand side of the display, and the discern nowadays is not as terrible as then. However, it is nonetheless first-rate to vicinity the crucial stuff at the pinnacle of the web page that’s available and visible without delay after the web page has completed rendering.
Many net designers (not limited to Brighton) get acquainted with a way to discover matters on the website they created. They don’t think about the person’s capacity to find things. This is an attitude that is very difficult to get over. The quality place to begin is to provoke the design with excellent information on the shape of the facts area and be conscious of communicating this structure explicitly to the consumer. Providing a domain map and breadcrumbs will allow users to recognize where they are, where they have been, and where they can cross. Finally, get your grandmother to check the website to see if she will locate things – it works!
8. Non-Standard Link Colours on a website
We ought to all realize the default shades of visited and unvisited links; however, many web designers hate them and change them to something unfamiliar. Remember Unfamiliar Bad, Familiar Good. By default, links to pages that have not been seen via the person are blue; hyperlinks to formerly visible pages are colored red or crimson. Don’t mess with these colorings if you are a clever web dressmaker. Understanding what hyperlinks had been observed is one of the few navigational aids that is standard in most net browsers. As with other web design troubles, the key phrases on this are consistency and familiarity. Don’t oppose the conference (you would not force on the other aspect of the street after all; would you just be distinct).
