How Not to Build a Site
I haunt several forums on a regular basis and have found some interesting information on pet peeves people have about websites. Here are the ones seen most often.
Music
People don’t like music automatically played upon visiting a website. First, not everyone’s taste in music is the same. Don’t think that just because you like a song everyone visiting your site will, too! Secondly, many people have multiple windows or tabs open at the same time. If all play audio, the resulting overlapping sound is horrendous. I’m such a person, and I have to keep my speakers off because of this.
Music or any other audio isn’t bad; just don’t make it start automatically when the visitor arrives. Make it his choice whether or not to turn on the sound. This goes for speaking audio/video, too. Let them press play; don’t force it on everyone.
Pop-Ups
People hate pop-ups! That’s why pop-up blocking software is a big seller. Even most browsers can be set to eliminate most or all pop-ups. One pop-up might be acceptable, but multiple pop-ups are especially loathsome. I’ve tried to leave sites that had five pop-ups in a row trying to stop me! I thought I’d never get out of there! Even if I had some interest in the site before that, I would never visit it again. In fact, I’d go buy the product from a competitor who didn’t waste my time with all those stupid pop-ups! You don’t want to anger your visitors like that, do you?
Resolution and Browsers
A good web design will be attractive no matter what browser a person is using and no matter what his screen resolution is set to.
Browsers aren’t equal. They don’t all show the same code in the same way. Therefore, you need to test your website by looking at it through at least Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Firefox, the two most popular web browsers. Between these two, you’ll see what 90% of your visitors are seeing.
You can also check your website through different browsers at Browser Shots, a very handy site for web programmers.
The new wide screen monitors are great and becoming more popular. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t still an awful lot of people using the older 1024×768 resolution, or even 800×600. Look at your site using this setting if you’re normally in the wide screen settings. It could be absolutely unreadable, cutting the amount of visitors substantially.
Other Notable No-No’s
- Not allowing login until all the ads load.
- Disabling the browser’s “back” button.
- Day-Glo colors or hard-to-read color combinations.
- Anything that takes more than 5 seconds to load.
- Poor site navigation.
Your “To Do” List
If any of the above plague your own websites, try removing them and see what it does to your traffic levels, the average length of time people stay, and your conversion rates if your site is e-commerce. If any or all of these improve, you’ll know that these annoying items do more harm than good.
