Signed Couples
Survey Reveals What People Hate About Websites
What makes you want to hit the escape button before you read the first word on a website? For me, it is tasteless music with no way to turn it off.
Signs of Webmaster Newbies
All of us have been “newbies” at one point in our webmastering lives. We scoured the javascript sites, the dhtml sites and graphics sites for cool stuff that we thought would make our sites look impressive.
First timer’s websites are easily spotted with their smorgasboard of javascripts, animated gifs, sounds and other components. The problem is, this makes a site look amateur.
Creating an Amateur Image
You might have a brick and mortar business that’s been around for the last decade, with tons of satisfied customers.On the Internet, your visitors are meeting you for the first time.A professional online image will create trust. When designing your website, here are some things to avoid so that your business does not look amateur or like a fly-by-night operation:
- Dark, heavy backgrounds with hard-to-read fonts – For a business website, it’s best to use a plain white background and black text so that your visitors can read it easily. Some first timers are tempted to have “fancy” backgrounds with different colored text. Not only is this hard to read, but if you have a product line, it is difficult to make pictures of your product line blend in with the background.
- Pages that are larger than the browser screen – There’s nothing more irritating that trying to read a web page that scrolls across the screen. Generally, web users use 1024 x 768 as their desktop resolution. Try to remain within those confines.
- Sound effects – Everyone has different tastes when it comes to music, but even if you discovered music that appeals to every single person alive, don’t make it automatically load on your site. With a music site, there are scripts that allow the user to click play and listen at his or her free will. This goes with audio advertisements or other background sound effects — provide a way to pause the sound or shut it off.
- “Cool” effects – About 8 or 9 years ago, it was real “cool” to have a flash presentation on the index page. Almost everyone was doing this. This does not help establish your online reputation. Flash introductions take forever to create and many of them are just downright stupid. These intros can take a long time to load and most people will not wait around to view them. Page fading effects, animated images and scrolling text are things that beginners seem to think are cool. I added these types of things when I first started out, thinking it made me look talented. However, the cold, hard reality is that these effects are a turnoff and waste of time. I’ve seen some sites, designed by supposed design specialists, where the links scroll by really fast and you have to “aim and shoot” just to be able to click a link. Don’t waste your time adding in these effects. People who are visiting your site are looking for specific information or products and not design components that will give them a headache.
- No clear navigation scheme – Many people enter a website by the interior pages, not at the home page. You need to provide them a way to easily navigate through your site. Left and top menus are the most popular and are therefore familiar to your visitors. The key is that you keep your menu in the exact location throughout your site so that it is consistent. A surefire indicator of an amateur web design is the absense of a navigation menu.
- No search feature – Particularly if you have a large product line that you are selling or if you have a content rich site, always include a search box to help your visitors. Google’s fre search box is a tool that you can use if you don’t know how to include a search feature.This makes your site “user friendly” and demonstrates that you care about your visit’rs experience.
- “Secret” prices - If you’re selling products, include the price. Don’t try to force your potential customer into the shopping cart just to find out what the price is — it’s rude and many will not do it.
- Policies – An amateur site will not include privacy policies, terms of use and, when selling products or services, returns and shipping policies. It’s a good idea to provide contact information, particularly if you are selling products or services.
- Under construction pages – “Under construction” or “coming soon” pages are a surefire way to announce that you’re an amateur. Do not bother linking to pages under construction. Once the page is completed and uploaded, then you can add a link to your menu and sitemap.
- No online shopping cart – If you are selling a product, provide a way for people to purchase your product online. When people are looking to buy something online, they usually intend to buy it immediately. Generally, they do not want to mail a check or money order. Paypal is a good option if you don’t have a merchant account and if you’re selling digital products, services like Clickbank are worth considering. There are other quality shopping carts available for people who already have a merchant account, such as Mals-e.com, which also provides an affiliate program option.
What’s Your Beef?
Newbie or pro, you can voice your opinion about what makes a stinking website at the NotGuru’s survey about poor website design.If you’re looking for giveaways, software and tips to help your fledgling online business, the Not Guru blog delivers plenty of resources every day.Take the site design survey and feel free to voice your pet peeve in the comments – the results are quite interesting.
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