Top Ten Website Mistakes
By deep study on emotional responses of our targetted audiences we have learned that though other web
designers make good design websites, but Creative Web Solutions have found these top ten mistakes in
thier websites which affect the interest of audiences to such websites and even many times frustrate them
surfing web for thier wants.
1. Many designers slow or break down the back button on thier websites.
The Back button being the most commonly used navigation feature, Users without any regret try anything on
web as they know they can be saved by clicking on the back buttonto return back to familiar territories.
2. Designers target new browser windows when clicked a button of thier site.
Designers open new browser windows with a knowledge that it keeps users on their site. But even
disregarding the user-hostile message implied in taking over the user's machine, the strategy is
self-defeating oneself since it disables the Back button which is the common way users link to previous
sites. Designers often don't notice that a new window has opened, especially if they are using a small
monitor where the windows are maximized to fill up the screen. So a user who tries to link to the origin
will be confused by a grayed out Back button.
3. Many designers make non-standard use of GUI Widgets
Users don't have to worry about what will happen, when things always behave the same as Consistency being
the most powerful usability principle. Infact, they know what will happen based on earlier experience.
The more the users get confident with thier expectations the more they will have control over the systems
and the more they will like it. And the more the system breaks users' expectations, the more they will
feel insecure. Interaction consistency is an additional reason it's wrong to open new browser windows:
the standard result of clicking a link is that the destination page replaces the origination page in the
same browser window.
Today, the worst consistency violations on the Web are found in the use of GUI widgets such as radio
buttons and checkboxes. For example, the rules for radio buttons state that they are used to select one
among a set of options but that the choice of options does not take effect until the user has confirmed
the choice by clicking an OK button. The appropriate behavior of these design elements is defined in the
Windows UI standard, the Macintosh UI standard, and the Java UI standard. Which of these standards to
follow depends on the platform used by the majority of your users (good bet: Windows), but it hardly
matters for the most basic widgets since all the standards have close-to-identical rules.
Unfortunately, I have seen many websites where radio buttons are used as action buttons that have an
immediate result when clicked. Such wanton deviations from accepted interface standards make the Web
harder to use.
4. Designers Lack Biographies
Our two years experience and web study showed that users want to know the people behind information on
the Web. In particular, biographies and photographs of the authors help make the Web a less impersonal
place and increase trust. Yet many sites still don't use columnists and avoid by-lines on their articles.
Even sites with by-lines often forget the link to the author's biography and a way for the user to find
other articles by the same author.
It is looks bad when a by-line is made into a mail to: link instead of a link to the author's biography.
5. Designers lack Archives in thier sites.
It is said that old is gold. Ans so even when new information is more valuable than old information to
readers, there is almost always some value to the old stuff, and it is very bad to keep it online. We
have learned that having archives may add about 10% to the cost of running a site but increase its
usefulness by about 50%. Archives are also necessary as the only way to eliminate linkrot and thus
encourage other sites to link to you.
6. Shifting Pages to New URLs
Anytime a page is shifted to new url, you break any incoming links from other sites. Thus unknowingly you
selfdefeat hits by hurting the people who send you free customer referrals?
7. Many of them give headlines that make no sense out of context
Headlines and other microcontent must be written very differently for the Web than for old media: they
are actionable items that serve as UI elements and should help users navigate.
Headlines are often removed from the context of the full page and used in tables of content (e.g., home
pages or category pages) and in search engine results. In either case the writing needs to be very plain
and meet two goals: tell users what's at the other end of the link with no guesswork required
protect users from following the link if they would not be interested in the destination page (so no
teasers - they may work once or twice to drive up traffic, but in the long run they will make users
abandon the site and reduce its credibility)
8. Jumping at the Latest Internet Buzzword
The web is awash in money and people who proclaim to have found the way to salvation for all the sites
that continue to lose money. Push, community, chat, free email, 3D sitemaps, auctions - you know the
drill.
But there is no magic bullet. Most Internet buzzwords have some substance and might bring small benefits
to those few websites that can use them appropriately. Most of the time, most websites will be hurt by
implementing the latest buzzword. The opportunity cost is high from focusing attention on a fad instead
of spending the time, money, and management bandwidth on improving basic customer service and usability.
There will be a new buzzword next month. Count on it. But don't jump at it just because Jupiter writes a
report about it.
9. Slow Server Response Times
Slow response times are the worst offender against Web usability: in my survey of the original "top-ten"
mistakes, major sites had a truly horrifying 84% violation score with respect to the response time rule.
Bloated graphic design was the original offender in the response time area. Some sites still have too
many graphics or too big graphics; or they use applets where plain or Dynamic HTML would have done the
trick. So I am not giving up my crusade to minimize download times.
The growth in web-based applications, e-commerce, and personalization often means that each page view
must be computed on the fly. As a result, the experienced delay in loading the page is determined not
simply by the download delay (bad as it is) but also by the server performance. Sometimes building a page
also involves connections to back-end mainframes or database servers, slowing down the process even
further.
Users don't care why response times are slow. All they know is that the site doesn't offer good service:
slow response times often translate directly into a reduced level of trust and they always cause a loss
of traffic as users take their business elsewhere. So invest in a fast server and get a performance
expert to review your system architecture and code quality to optimize response times.
10. Your site should not look like Advertising
Targetted Audiences work very powerful, and Web usersHence Web Advertisements doesnt work nowadays.
Unfortunately, users also ignore legitimate design elements that look like prevalent forms of
advertising. After all, when you ignore something, you don't study it in detail to find out what it is.
Therefore, it is best to avoid any designs that look like advertisements.
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