Common faults

• Entrance Tunnel (a flashy page before you are allowed to see the homepage) - even for a useful purpose such as to choose a language, there has got to be a better way of doing this.

   

• Compulsory Music or video - before having the visitor download music or video, please ask his permission. And if he doesn't want it, provide a text alternative

   

• Scrolling Text - Either the text is important enough to be read properly, or it as just eye-candy and is an unnecessary distraction. See also Flashing Things (below)

   

• Frames on the Homepage - frames will confuse the search engines and slow up the loading. It is easy to give the same effect with tables if that is what you need.

   

• Frames generally - it is difficult to print the content, difficult to page back, impossible to bookmark, and confuse voice browsers. And often there is not enough space in the content area to give useful information. They may be useful if there is a range of short sharp messages, perhaps for the names and addresses of branches, but even then I doubt it.

   

• Complex Forms - the rule should be to ask the minimum amount of information necessary for the immediate objective. Ask a lot of questions and many visitors will give up.

   

• Adverts and Pop-ups - avoid unless they are really paying you a lot of money. Particularly flashing adverts. Or pop-up windows whether adverts or any other.

   

• Flashing things - play havoc with the peripheral vision for many users, a significant amount of mental effort has to be devoted to seeing the content round the flashing.

   

• Compulsory plug-ins - very few visitors are going to take the time to download a plug-in. Perhaps you could offer this on a page within the site if really necessary.

   

• Large images - only justified on an art page, and even then a small thumbnail would probably be better, with the big picture only on request.

   

• Millions of Colours - some people have browsers set for only 256 colours. Some images look awful when viewed this way. Key images such as navigation should not have complex colours.

   

• Unnecessary images - a picture is worth a thousand words, but only if it contributes to the content.

   

• Required images - some visitors will surf with images turned off to speed up the access. It would be nice if they can get the flavour of the site when they do this.

   

• Images as links - using images maps or Javascript for links, you should also have text links perhaps at the bottom of the page. This will help the search engines and also visitors who are not using images or Javascript.

   

• Unsized images - if an image does not have the height and width, then the text will either jump when the image is loaded, or the text will not display until all the images in that area have been loaded.

   

• Useless ALT= tags - All images should have ALT= tags so the visitors can see what they are waiting for. But the ALT= information should be meaningful and give useful information.

   

• Fussy backgrounds - if you use background images they should be less than 8K, and contrast well with the colour of the text. Some printers can be set to ignore backgrounds, so check that the text can be read without the background.

   

• Unnecessary Javascript - it is possible to all sorts of things with DHTML and JavaScript. But it takes time to load, and often conceals vital information if the visitor decides not to allow such things.

   

• Browser Upgrade Warnings - 'best viewed with' is a common message. But what browser the visitor has is his own decision. He will not take kindly to being told he should upgrade. You website should allow the pages to degrade elegantly when used with other browsers.

   

• 640 display problems - Some webpages have fixed width and are truncated or require a horizontal scroll when used with displays or display windows of less than the design width, or when printed. Text should contract to cater for smaller windows.

   

• Broken Links - external links do disappear and that is a pity. But all internal links should work - if you drop a page or change its name, leave the old page there with an automatic transfer to a new page. And avoid spelling mistakes please.

   

• Under Construction or Watch this Space - if a page is not ready to be seen then do not link to it.

   

• Text as images - images cannot be copied, searched, referenced by search engine spiders, read by voice browsers. And it takes too much time to load.

   

• Inconsistent Styles - every page should have the same look and feel, consistent navigation, consistent branding, consistent colours and fonts.

   

• Centred Text - OK for some headings, but visitors expect content text lines to begin at a left margin.

   

• Deep Pages - enough is enough. Start a new page for each new topic. If it must be a long page, then at least provide lots of sub-headings, and links to those headings in a list of contents.