Tips for Avoiding Bad Web Design

Hold on a minute! I know you're all excited about that new Web site you're creating, and you can't wait to publish it so that I and all the other humans on the planet can discover your organization on the World Wide Web. And we want you out there. We also want to enjoy our visit to your site. That's why I'd like to offer a few tips on mistakes you can avoid -- mistakes that have been known to drive visitors away and discourage their return.

1. Words, words, words: On a Web page, less is more. Usability studies show that, on average, a person can read about 25 percent as much text on a monitor as on a printed page. Choose your words carefully. Make your most important point first. If you have lots to say on a topic, give your visitor a synopsis, then link to your full article on a separate page. Break up big blocks of text with "white space," blank areas on your page.
2. Unreadable text: Reading text on a monitor is hard enough already. Don't make it harder by using a tiny font size, or by selecting a color for your text that is close to, or clashes with, the background color.
   
   Can you read this?
   How about this?
   Ouch!
   Nope.
3. Huge pictures and graphics: Why avoid large images? Download time, my friend. While visitors love graphics and color, they won't stick around for a slow-loading page (unless it's your mom or your best friend). Use a graphic-optimizing program to downsize your graphics, not just the width and height attributes of the HTML tag. Sure, sizing a 1000x1000 pixel GIF image to 100x100 pixels will make it look smaller on the page, but your browser still has to download all 1,000,000 pixels before it can shrink your image. There are a number of graphic-optimizing programs available, and they're getting better all the time. Get one and use it.
4. Long pages: Usability studies demonstrate greater comprehension and memory in readers presented with one or two screens of material in a page. Organize your longer articles into screen-sized blocks, then use "next" and "previous" links to guide your visitor through the pages. Sometimes, though, you may have a collection of relatively small chunks of information that are loosely related, like a glossary or a FAQ. It does make sense to put these all in one page, regardless of the length, if you provide some basic navigational elements. At the top of the page, list each topic in your glossary with a hyperlink to the full item. At the end of each item, provide a "back to top" link. This will enable your visitor to easily find what something, assuming it is indeed on the page.
5. Blinking, twinkling, twirling images in garish colors: Exercise some restraint with animated images. Animations can be really fun for some people, and hideously annoying to others. Know your audience. Remember that images are information, and movement is information, too. Ask yourself if the movement works with the image to convey your idea.