Web Design Tips and Tricks

6 Website Design Disasters and How to Avoid Them….

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Let’s face it; the line from A Field of Dreams isn’t the whole truth. There’s more to getting people to come to something than simply building it. Someone built the old run down historical mansion, but hardly anyone visits it (except maybe people you wouldn’t want to run into). People want to find a place online that caters to them, specifically. They want it to be pleasant on the eyes, up-to-date, simple to understand and easy to get around in. But, this isn’t an area where everyone succeeds. And sadly, some of the reasons for failure seem small, almost minute. Below are six website design disasters and simple steps that you can take to avoid them.

1. Sloppy Copy. Despite what you may have read in the latest free e-Book, you can’t just place any words on a page to trick you customers to spend fistfuls of cash on your site. One of the primary reasons people are cruising the net is to find information, and not just the same information over and over and over.

Solution: Your content should be unique, interesting and error free. Anything less will leave your visitors looking for fulfillment elsewhere. There are many opportunities online to find good content and sometimes you can manage to find unique copy at low prices. Or maybe you can work out a trade deal with a freelance writer; you offer free advertising space in exchange for their articles. Try not to use free content from a mass produced website simply because there are probably a lot of other places online where you can find the exact same words. You’ve got to give your visitors something special, something unique that they can’t find anywhere else. Otherwise they will – find it somewhere else.

2. Not Taking Advantage of META-tags. We all know that meta-tags are important, but sometimes we fail to take full advantage of what they have to offer. As important as they are to web designers as free promotion, meta-tags are just as important to potential visitors.

You may have just the product, membership club, newsletter or information that I’m looking for. But if I can’t find you, we can’t ever begin a commercial (or any other kind of) exchange. Since most people come across websites using a search engine, fully optimizing your title and meta-tag keywords will ensure the beginning of a match made in heaven.

Solution: When creating your title and coming up with possible keywords; make sure that you are thinking more like a customer than a website designer. Your title is important because it is the first thing that potential visitors will see when your results show in the search engine. It should be short, compelling and descriptive.

Your description Meta-tags should reiterate what your title has said, but using a new approach and a few more words. Try to limit yourself to a description that is less than 125 characters so that the entire description can be read, instead of being interrupted mid-thought by limited space. For added benefits, try to include a question in your first line of the description, one that the viewer was probably asking themselves before initiating the search. Use this same approach when coming up with your list of keywords. When you’ve come up with your list, go over each one asking yourself, “Is this a keyword used by someone who is a potential customer?” If the answer is no, then don’t include them, you’ll be wasting your time.

3. Outdate Information, Broken Links, and “Under Construction”. There is nothing more frustrating than sifting through out-dated websites when you’re in search of current information. Or clicking on a link that you hope leads to the answer to your question, only to discover that “This Page Cannot Be Displayed” or that the domain name is for sale.

Only slightly less annoying are messages informing you that the page is currently under construction or is “Coming Soon”. If it’s not here yet, don’t waste your visitor’s time leading them down dead ends.

Solution: Schedule at least a day a month scouring your website for outdated information and broken links. You can also include a link on your website that allows visitors to report broken links or outdated information. As far as “Under Construction” messages, instead announce to your visitors any upcoming changes or additions to your website. They’ll be glad to know it without getting their hopes up, clicking a link to much sought after information, and being told it isn’t available yet.

4. Hard to Find Contact Information. It’s hard to understand why any website would fail to make it easy for visitors to get in touch with the people who run it. Offering this simple bit of information will: a. Encourage people to ask for permission before using your content &/or graphics on their own sites. b. Make it easier for people to contact you for promotional reasons. For example, someone may desire to interview you, initiate a contract or simply make an important business contact that you may need in the future. c. Provide people with ways to reach you and your company while they are offline. You can provide them with ways to reach you by telephone, snail mail or possibly even to stop and tour your facilities.

Solution: Simply add a “Contact Us” page and link to your website. Be sure to include pertinent email addresses, phone numbers, names, mailing addresses and (if necessary) driving directions.

5. Not Changing the Color of a Visited Link. While this may not seem like such a big deal, it’s one that has been bugging website traffic for many years. You can take that on the authority of Dr. Jakob Nielsen, the man who’s been called the “guru of Web page usability” by the New York Times.

The purpose of changing link colors is to give your site visitors an idea of where they’ve already been and where they have yet to venture. This is especially important if you have a large site with new pages being added to it often.

Solution: The HTML code is simple: Inside the body tag, add the "vlink" tag and the color code or color name. The code for blue visited link text would look like this: or Replace the code or color name with the color you want. There, you’re done. It’s that simple.

6. Failing to Use Your Website to Emphasize Your U.S.P. Your U.S.P., or Unique Selling Point, is that one (or more than one) thing that your company does do, or doesn’t do; has or doesn’t have, that separates your from the competition. It’s the thing that, in the long term, a person comes back for.

This is tied in closely with another Web Design no-no: not offering any information about your company’s products, services, employees, etc. This is YOUR Website. Don’t be afraid to toot your own horn. Because, really, who else is going to do it?

Solution: Whether it means you need to sit down and better identify your target market, or maybe try to discover new ways to market to them, try to look at your website with eyes undimmed by cancelled orders, constant interruptions, or other distractions. Take the time to look at your website as a customer would, as a tool. Ask yourself, “If I was a customer, why would I be here?” As you come across these answers, make note of them, and any others that they may suggest.

Create an about us page, offering news updates, press releases, employee of the month biographies, etc. In the long run, customers always appreciate transparency. And I’ll let you into a little secret: they don’t mind being led around. If fact, they rely upon.

You’ll notice that I didn’t mention anything about the command. Or flashing, moving, or magically glittering icon trailers. Or sites hosted on free servers. That’s because most people have already beat those subjects black and blue. But, that doesn’t mean that you should disregard them. They aren’t Capri pants, sneaking back into style. For about the safest bet, just consider the Golden Rule; if it would give you a headache, make you shake your head in frustration, cause you to get up and walk away from the computer or any other negative reactions – just say no! Exercise a little restraint. Better yet, if you’re not a professional, consider hiring one. When it comes to customer satisfaction, an experienced web design specialist can make or break your business.

This post was originally published on May 13th, 2004. As others are writing about the topic, I thought bringing it out of the archives would be worthwhile.

A little recap

The idea of placing multiple states of buttons and other elements that are used in background images took its roots, I believe, from Pixy's Fast Rollovers. The CSS Zen Master extended this to another purpose in CSS Sprites: Image Slicing’s Kiss of Death. Didier Hilhorst came up with a nice application of this method, and I worked it backwards in Responsible CSS - Recycle your background images.

The idea behind the 'sprites' method can obviously be extended to any html element, and there are tangible benefits for doing this, just as long as the designer does his or her usual homework.

Benfits of using the 'sprites' method

What are the possible the benefits of using this method? Essentially it lies in faster download times for your web content.

Readers of Andy Kings book, Speed Up Your Site: Web Site Optimization will notice that this method reduces http requests and makes more efficient use of the data packets used to transfer files to the users computer, and that that is a good thing.

Packet size and http requests

From Web Page Design and Download Time, by Jing Zhi of Keynote Systems (seen here - pdf), cited in Andy's book:

The basic performance principle is therefore to make fewer requests and transmit fewer packets. From this principle, we can derive two basic design rules for wellperforming Web pages. First, reduce the overall size of the page, thereby reducing the number of bytes (and packets) to be transferred over the Internet. Second, limit the number of embedded objects on the page, such as images, each of which must be requested and transferred separately from server to browser.

They also found that it was the number of packets and not necessarily the overall size of the page that was important. If a packet could hold 1460 bytes (the figure given in the article) and your object was 1600 bytes, it would require two packets. They found that this object would transfer at the same speed as another object that was greater in size but still fit in two packets.

Potential payoff

The potential payoff for using this method versus individual images, then, is a faster download time due to reduced number of packets and fewer http requests.

Reducing http requests is easy. One file instead of two or three etc. is simple. But packet requests? That depends...

An example

The number of packets sent will depend on the size of the file and the users internet connection.

As an example, lets look at the fiftyfoureleven.com logo at the top of the page. When this design was first being coded, that link consisted of two 3.34kb images, one for the link state and one for the hover state. Now, by using one image that contains both states and simply bumping it back and forth depending on the hover state, that has been reduced to one 5.35 kb image. Right there is a savings of 1.33 kb. Good news.

Now, for arguments sake lets say that a packet can hold 1460 bytes (packet size for connections greater than 128kb/s = 1500 bytes -40bytes for tcp/ip headers). The two image method used 6 packets, 3 for each image (3.34/1.46, rounded up). The single image method uses 4 packets (5.34/1.46, rounded up).

Things are looking good.

How to optimize

In his alistapart article, Dave refers to the image that holds all of the sprites as his 'master image'. The key to benefitting from this method is to ensure that the file size of your master image isn't a bloated equivalent versus the sum of its pieces.

Conclusion

Great benefits can be realized when combining a master image from slices that fall well below the size of one packet, as that unused packet space goes wasted.

After doing a little more research, it seems that packet size can vary depending on the connection rate. That being said, it may be rather difficult to come up with a firm rule here. To play it smart and safe, try and:

• build master images that are smaller then the sum of their collective slices (by combining images of similar colors, for example) or
• rather than use a different distinct image for a certain element, reuse one that you already plan on using elsewhere.

This isn't exactly groundbreaking advice, however having seen the results acheived with the logo on this page, it can be seen that using the sprite method versus individual images at minimum does reduce http requests and even further it can reduce file size which in turn can reduce the number of packets sent.

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