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What Makes a Good Web Design?
Posted by
Cliff
on Wed Feb 27, 2002 02:38 PM
from the efficient-and-aesthetic-use-of-(D|X|HT)ML dept.
from the efficient-and-aesthetic-use-of-(D|X|HT)ML dept.
Grand Master Math asks: "I'm currently redesigning my website and I have checked out tons of various web sites, gone from link to link, etc...to find the best web design techniques, layouts, and features. Wow Web Designs proved to be a pretty useful site, as it showcased virtually 'the best of the web' in design and creativity. I was wondering what the Slashdot community has to say about web design and what the best web design should implement and address. From browser compatibility, to simplicity and complexity, and customization to user interaction, what should a perfect web design incorporate?"
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One Facet of good design: Elegance (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:One Facet of good design: Elegance (Score:3, Interesting)
It ends up looking bad, not working, and generally being annoying.
So my ideal web design: no javascript. No java. No proprietary extensions.
Provide the text you want, and arrange it on the page in a nice readable way (with CSS, preferably), and don't bother with anything else. It just gets in the way, makes things unreadable, and makes it very difficult for the data be used in any other way.
Re:One Facet of good design: Elegance (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:One Facet of good design: Elegance (Score:5, Insightful)
flash, etal. has just gotten out of hand... eye candy is cool the first 3 times you see it.. after that it's just a waste of bandwidth.
Parent
Listen to the clever people... (Score:4, Insightful)
From his book, User Interface Design for Programmers: [amazon.com]
Usability is not everything. If usability engineers designed a nightclub, it would be clean, quiet, brightly lit, with lots of places to sit down, plenty of bartenders, menus written in 18-point sans-serif, and easy-to-find bathrooms. But nobody would be there. They would all be down the street at Coyote Ugly pouring beer on each other.
(he also said that on his site in Nov 2000 [joelonsoftware.com].)
Joel's a far more clever guy than I, and is always much more eloquent in expressing ideas. You should listen to him, too.
J.J.
Parent
Re:One Facet of good design: Elegance (Score:3, Funny)
K.I.S.S. (Score:5, Informative)
To the point
Searchable
Flash-non flash versions
no unnecessary plugins
no popups/unders, etc.
two versions of the same website is cool.
Not everyone has a blazing net connection, so remember the little guy sucking on a 33.6 dialup connection.
that's it.
Re:K.I.S.S. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is, just which page is making the noise?
Parent
Re:K.I.S.S. (Score:5, Funny)
One of my favorite web-sites (which shall go link-less, for obvious reasons) states: "This page has been pessimized for Internet Explorer, as those of you listening to William Shatner singing Mr. Tambourine Man have realized."
Parent
Re:waste of time (Score:4, Informative)
If your default design requires Javascript, include a
<noscript>
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;http://server.domain.com/texthome.html
</noscript>
in the HEAD.
This will send all of the folks with no scripting to the page that has none.
The very first thing that should appear on the default page is a link to the text-only version. This is for the benefit of non-sighted users who are using a browser that processes the scripting. This should appear first because you don't want them to have to wait while their screen reader recites the entire page before they get to the one piece they really need to function.
Yes, by all means "know your audience." But, remember that unless you are going to authenticate your entire audience there will be other people coming to your site.
Parent
Re:K.I.S.S. (Score:3, Interesting)
The only reason to maintain two versions is to deal with shitty browsers [netscape.com] that don't implement reasonably current standards, and you're better off using server-parsed HTML or CGI to modify your site on-the-fly to present itself in different browsers. This keeps you from having to maintain two site trees, and it also makes it easier to incorporate common sitewide elements (navigation bars and such) into your design. Browse this site [dyndns.org] with IE, Konqueror, Lynx, Mozilla, and Nutscrape 4.x, and watch how each browser keeps up. (The server generates two types of code: proper HTML 4 and CSS for browsers that can hack it, bastardized HTML for Nutscrape 4.x and earlier. Note that the W3C's HTML 4 and CSS buttons don't show up if you use Nutscrape 4.)
Re:K.I.S.S. (Score:3, Insightful)
Not necessarily. The two sites I maintain are built dynamically (well, at home, then copied statically to the server) from XML sources. All navigation, menus, and content for both the "fancy" and "plain" HTML versions come from the same source tree, and both are pretty much always in synch. Whenever they're not, it's a failure in my site-generation code, not anything to do with whether I've remembered to update both sides.
Best trick: All the "plain" stuff shows up in the 'No frames' tag, so if you surf to the main site w/lynx, you don't get "clikc here for the plain version," you just get the plain version. Simple, stupid, but something that used to annoy the crap out of me and so I'm quite proud of myself for doing it "right" (or at least "better").
Downside: You gotta make (or find, or buy) an XML-to-multiple-output website generation system. But, then, that's half the fun!
Re:K.I.S.S. (Score:5, Interesting)
I will STRONGLY disagree with you on that one.
ALWAYS pop up external links into a new window. It pisses the HELL out of me when I click on a link IN THE MIDDLE OF AN ARTICLE and end up LEAVING the site and have to hit back, then select to open the link in a new window. (I end up doing this once on at least every site just in finding out if it opens things up in new windows or not).
For crying out loud, why in the WORLD would I wan to stop in the MIDDLE of an article on your site and go to some place else? Now _THAT_ does not make any sense. I would never get finished with anything if I browsed like that.
Parent
Reverse It (Score:5, Insightful)
To provide the user with choice (which is one of the most important things that a website developer can do), it's important to not force particular UI styles on users. Give them choices. In this case, the only way to do that is by not opening links in a new window.
-Waldo Jaquith
Parent
Simplicity. (Score:5, Insightful)
Information. That's the point of the whole thing, right?
Make it as quick and easy as possible to find the information that is on your site. And if the interface to do so is too complex to use Lynx for, you're suffering from HTML bloat.
--saint
Communication (Score:5, Interesting)
What made slashdot so popular? The comments. That's the point.
Parent
Re:Simplicity. (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Kibo has an example (Score:3, Funny)
C-X C-S
No such thing (Score:4, Interesting)
Or, you could just put all the important stuff in flashing text
Re:No such thing (Score:5, Funny)
Totally! You don't have to worry about how to design the webpage, if you can just design the users. Just make them so they want whatever you're showing them. I connected the pleasure center of my user's brains to the yellow light receptors in their eyes. Then I just made all the backgrounds yellow, and they are ecstatic about it, let me tell you.
Parent
There's no agreement (Score:5, Interesting)
There's the progress camp:
www.webstandards.org [webstandards.org], that wants everyone to upgrade their browsers and live on the bleeding edge of style sheets (how ironic is it that their bleeding edge stance has been replaced with an "under construction" sign).
Then there's the compatibility camp:
anybrowser.org [anybrowser.org] that wants every web page to work in the old browsers.
There are probably a few things everyone can agree on, like Flash being worthless at best and extremely annoying most of the time.
Personally, I say: look at the successful dynamic sites. Google, Yahoo, Slashdot. Light HTML, very light images, strong dynamic backend. Don't get too caught up in the format details; it's the power of what's driving the web page, and the content, that matters.
Not Just Design Anymore (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems that web design has changed over the years in order to better accommodate database-driven websites. Text graphics, for example, are pretty much out.
Check out the big boys and see what they've been doing with their sites in order to compensate for massive quantities of content.
I'm biased, but I've got to say that the LDS Church website [lds.org] has done a remarkable job of integrating content and design in an attractive and useful way.
I have a better question... (Score:5, Insightful)
The "look" of the website, or the "content"?
Glammer up garbage, and its still garbage. Glammer up content and you've got a blockbuster site.
Just a tidbit to think about when redesigning.
BTW - Cliff, you realize that this is a "need hits on my website" article dressed in "AskSlashdot" clothes, right?
Don't Make Me Think (Score:5, Interesting)
Another thing he brings up is usability tests. I admit, I haven't started doing this yet, but I agree with him. Grab a user that isn't a web programmer. Go to their machine and have them load your page. Then ask them to perform some function and watch what they do. Do they struggle when they try to add a user to the list of names? Do they search around for a help button? In some cases, have the user actually speak out loud about what they are doing. Usability tests can really help you learn where your app works well and where it just plain sucks. Hell, I forgot to add a 'save' button to one of mine because I knew how to get it to save without the button (there was a trick to it). I almost put it in to production, but we do quality checks with other people and they caught it (I believe my thoughts were, "Doh!").
Anyway, I'd suggest the book. It's something you could read while sitting in a Barnes and Nobel sipping tea or whatnot.
Re:Don't Make Me Think (Score:5, Informative)
You misunderstand. The book advocates a way to design websites so that it's easy to use and you don't have to waste your time trying to figure out how things work.
Imagine that the reply button on /. was at the very bottom of the page and you had to enter the number of the comment you were replying to.
Or think of doors, where you have to stop and figure out whether you need to push or pull to open it (sometimes instructions are taped to the door to make this task easier).
If you are interested in good user interfaces, I recomend this book.
Parent
What do you want? (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people LIKE lots of Flash, animated buttons and dancing bologna on the screen. I like clean and simple. Each is appropriate for different tasks.
The question is, as always, "What problem are you trying to solve?"
Here's what not to do... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/ [webpagesthatsuck.com]
Content first - flashy last (Score:3, Insightful)
What is your content? That is why I came to your site.
Can I find and understand it easily?
If I can't figure out the content, the rest is useless.
Focus on your content. Why is your website there? Why am I looking at it?
Flashy == distracting == frustrating == waste of time
... unless your whole purpose is strictly to entertain
Everything you want to know is here... (Score:4, Funny)
Design and Creativity are the wrong things... (Score:3, Insightful)
...to think about. Or rather, they are, but they should be on the list below usability. That is, if your web site is there to store some actual content or information, as opposed to being primarily a work of art in its own right (in which case you should go nuts and ignore the rest of my message).
For instance, just that front wowwebdesigns.com site you point already makes me grouchy. Why? They shrink the font size below the default font size. With my default setup, the page is completely unreadable. Fortunately, with Mozilla I can bump up the fonts for that page, but good web design would mean the user shouldn't have to do that.
The site is also too busy. Too many sites out there clutter the screen up with packed sidebars on both sides and advertisements and flashing animated images and Flash animations and oh my word.
The pages they list as "good" at may be pretty and eye candy, but unless you're trying to make a gallery piece which is supposed to be thrilling in its own right, they are what I would think of as *bad* web design. To my mind, good web design is a design that doesn't get in the way of your reading and getting to the information you want to find on that web site.
My idea of good web design? www.google.org is near the top. Very clean, simple, straightforward, does its job and is readable.
Clean, readable, not sensory-overload inducing, well-organized: all of these things are far more important for 80-90% of the web sites out there than anything having to do with being visually appealing or using creative and fancy new touches.
-Rob
Most Important Criteria (Score:5, Insightful)
You really can't go wrong if your website follows those three principles. There are hardware concerns, too (make sure your servers and your connection is up to the expected task).
Check out Jakob Nielsen's website (Score:5, Informative)
Slow news day, huh? (Score:3, Funny)
Personally, I like Slash [slashcode.com]. What's that? You say your website isn't an interactive forum? Oh, dear.
It depends on your audience (Score:3, Informative)
It really depends on who you're targeting, and on what your content is. A personal homepage with a bunch of family pictures is going to have different requirements than a site where you're trying to show off your Flash skills in hopes of landing a new job.
Jakob Nielsen's useit.com [useit.com] is a highly regarded source of information on what makes people's browsing experiences enjoyable and worthwhile. Generally speaking, Jakob advocates designing sites so as to make the user's experience as painless and "friction-free" as possible; some specific recommendations would be to try and design your site so that it doesn't require specific browsers, resolutions, or plug-ins to operate properly. If you want to keep people's interest, page loading times should be under 10 seconds, which places limits on how big your graphics will be and how many of them you'll have on a page (somebody has already mentioned remembering people on 33.6 dialup connections).
On the other hand, I've seen some amazing sites that were pure eye-candy. In that case, having a specific browser and/or plugin (usually some version of Flash) was an absolute prerequisite, and nobody minds because the animations on such sites push the envelope of what can be done with current technology, so it's understood that the "latest-and-greatest" stuff is required to view them. Few if any of them are practical; they're just fun, so it's OK to break the rules.
Good luck!
Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd suggest reading Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox [useit.com] on web design, not only the current columns but past ones, too. Some columns like The Top Ten New Mistakes of Web Design [useit.com] are definitely worth reading. It's a couple years old, but people still make those same mistakes.
Besides not falling into the trap of flash without substance (pun intended; Flash is frequently useless for most web sites), keep in mind that people have come to expect certain things from how web pages work. It's nice to have an inovative design, but if it's so far outside the norm that no one can figure it out, people aren't going to use it.
For example, for web commerce, you may not like Amazon, but their site has become the standard for how people expect to shop on the web.
Good Web Design (Score:3, Insightful)
2) Create a site that is standards compliant. Please note that doing this requires adherence to 1.
3) Hypertext is an excellent manner of displaying and linking information. Keep that in mind. Information.
4) Proprietary inclusions such as Flash should be segregated from the main of your site, and identifiable as what they are.
5) There's not much that Javascript does that you really need. Honest.
6) Newspapers use narrow columns for a reason.
7) Sarif fonts are easier to read in column-form than sansarif fonts.
l
Nice Art Design != Good Web Design (IMHO) (Score:3, Insightful)
When I go to a website, there are a few things that will immediately piss me off:
If I have to resize my windows to view the page properly... I ration out space on my desktop right down to the pixel... if I have to resize the window to view some big page layout, I usually decide not to look at the page at all
If there is a pop-up anything... pop up ads are infinitely more annoying than banner ads. Why can't people take a lesson from Google, and their text-only ad policy? Also, if I click a link on your page, and you force my browser to launch a new window, I'm outta there. (I've always wondered why my browser can't disable this feature and just replace the current page with the new one ALWAYS)
Sacrifice of useability for artistic masturbation... if you find yourself thinking that you've just GOT to use that flash animation, or animated GIF, or whiz bang javascript, first do everybody a favor and ask yourself if it adds to the useability factor of your site. chances are your visitors are a lot less impressed with those gadjets than your are.
Not only do these things annoy, if you keep things simple you will have more time for content, which is all most of us are really concerned with anyway. Now that I've opened my fat mouth, I'm sure everyone will go visit my site and proceed to rip me a new one about how it could be better *grin* (feel free, btw)
The only design that works... (Score:5, Funny)
[] A teal color scheme
[] Black text on a white background
[]
[] A plethora of spelling and grammatical errors; otherwise, it will look like some type of machine is running the site rather than a genuine dumb human being
[] The ability to add users
[] At least 40% of all users must troll
[] Allow them to have a
[] Commenting capabilities
[] Comments must be rated as an integer value with 5 being the highest and -1 being the lowest. In special cases, incessantly naughty trolls can be bitchslapped into a -2 blackhole.
[] First post is life, the rest is just details
[] Moderating capabilites
[] Posts may be moderated an infinite number of times. Even if every rating is used a handful of times on the same comment, it should be rated as whatever adjective the last moderator thought it deserved.
[] Ultimate goal: build a large enough user base so that you can post links to sites you yourself hate on the front page and watch those sites' servers go up in smoke in a little under five minutes
This is meant as a joke. I love
:-)
Ask yourself this question (Score:4, Informative)
If you are selling a product, keep it simple. Flashy shit, while nice as eyecandy, inevitably will cause problems with SOMEONE's browser out there if they don't have installed/activated the plugin that you require and then you've alienated a potential customer.
Also, make good use of the title tags. Put the page name AND COMPANY OR PRODUCT NAME in it, and not "Home" or, worse, "Untitled Document". Think of how you want your bookmark in their list to look.
Liquidity (Score:3, Insightful)
Nothing makes me madder than having to scroll back and forth across a web page because some idiot figured that since the site looked fine in his maximized browser on his 1024x768 display, he could hardcode the tables to be 1000 pixels wide and no one with have any trouble with it. Other than people using too much superfluous flair for its own sake, I think this is probably highest on the list of big problems designers make.
Take steps in the beginning of your design process to avoid the problem. Start using the percentages for widths in your table tags. Start using the ALIGN and VALIGN attributes correctly. Don't rely on FrontPage to position things for you with style properties, instead put them into properly formed table tags with the alignments set right so that the page flows when it's resized.
It really does make a huge difference.
10 Commandments (I use) (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Flash is evil, and of the devil. Flash is blaspemy.
3. Javascript can be useful for on-page functions that don't necessarily require a server call, but remember your page still still fundamentally work with no javascript enabled.
4. Images should be used for illustrative purposes, not to show you found a neat image and *never* as a background.
5. Images should be small and reduced to webpage resolutions.
6. Content shouldn't be laborous to read. Black on white text is the best, but at least always make sure to use contrasting colors.
7. Style sheets should always be used (see number 1) but make sure that necessary style pairings (such as colored tables and the text within) are defined in the same scope. A page-declared table color and text/css file declared table text color could cause problems if your style sheet file doesn't load.
8. Design for non-compliant brower protocols *only* if your business depends on it. Private sites should *always* be written to the HTML specs (see #1) all browsers be damned.
9. Do not covet they neighbors hyperlinks. Links should be used in *context* and not in a random listing. Don't say "you can find a link about greyhound adoption *here*." Instead, write either "There is a lot of information about *greyhound adoption*" or "*Greyhound Puppies Inc* has a lot of information about greyhound adoption." All of this results in a page more useable by non-traditional browsers. (see number 1)
10. If you change the color of links, you should make sure that the default colors (blue, purple, red) will show up on your site. Another reason not to use picture backgrounds. Also, don't ever *ever* reverse the color scheme... cool (blue-like) colors for unvisited links, purple or red-like (hot) colors for visited links.
Re:10 Commandments (I use) (Score:4, Funny)
- is not presented in an ordered list (<ol>)
- repeatedly uses asterisks rather than mark-up to indicate emphasis
- makes several external references but does not hyperlink any of them
- violates its own sixth commandment?
Some decent insight, but perhaps the ultimate lesson is that there's more than one way to close an <HTML> tagParent
You're asking the wrong crowd (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, I think you're asking the wrong crowd.
Of all computer users, the Linux crowd is the least qualified to comment about design. Oh sure, there are exceptions, both among Linux users and among Slashdot readers, but just read the comments that have already been posted. The common thread is that people wouldn't want to sacrifice content for a flashy web site, and that just shows their ignorance. These people don't realize that good design does not involve compromizes. Good design is about presenting the content in such a manner that the appearance enhances the content presentation, not distracts from it.
Besides, look at the state of 99% of Linux software, especially the open source stuff. User interfaces are the last concern of the developers. It's obvious to me that the majority of Linux developers and users really don't care, or just don't know anything about, good design. But, I guess I should cut them some slack, since it's very hard to be a good programmer and a good designer. Yet I'm disappointed that most developers don't try to get good design ideas from others.
So yes, Virginia, you can have your cake and eat it too, provided that the web site is designed by a real graphic designer. Such an individual has both training and experience in creating designs that work.
Re:You're asking the wrong crowd (Score:4, Insightful)
Why?
Because they have no idea what "filesize" is.
Every single web site I've seen that's been done by a graphic designer is basicly that: a graphic.
Need a menu bar? JPG.
Need a background? 300K JPG
Need a next button? JPG
Need text? JPG
Everything is an image. Why? Because Graphic Designers can't handle the fact that web pages look different for different people. The only way they can controll this is by using lots and lots and lots of images.
Not only should programmers not be allowed to design web pages but neither should graphic designers.
Parent
Here is a step by step plan (Score:3, Informative)
1) Start with your users. Who are they? Can they be categorized? i.e. Business Men, Students, Computer geeks. Rank them in order of importance.
2) Figure out what each group wants from your site and what characteristics about them make them that way.
3) Organize the hierarchy of the site based on what each group wants, giving priority to the category of users declared most important. Organize your content based on user goals and not the other way around.
4) Design the pretty web pages to fit the hierarchy, choose the interface tools that fit the data best.
This is not the place to innovate too much (Score:4, Insightful)
I do web programming for a living, and we get into some very interesting conversations when we're designing a site. Occasionally, I get some very wierd requests for new and novel interfaces. This is a bad idea.
Although the web is fairly new. almost everybody is expecting to see a few things.
- A navigation bar on the left
- A breadcrumb, like on Yahoo!
- Navigation at the very top
You do anything different, and you risk confusing the hell out of your users.You can argue all you want about why your interface is better,but unless you can hard data from usability testing, don't break tradition without a very good reason.I may be heavily biased, since that is what I do all day, but make absolutely sure your code is valid HTML, and leave out all the kruft. Pretty much all WYSIWYG design interfaces by default don't put out valid html, so don't use them. [Emacs |VI] will perform admirably, produce clean code, and if you use a server side scripting language and hide most of your code in templates, will be as fast or faster than Dreamweaver or Frontpage. (You are using PHP/Coldfusion/CGI/ASP, Right?)
For the Love of (insert your choice of deity here), don't make a site all flash unless you have an extremely good reason to. As of yet, I have never heard of a good reason to do so, but they might, in theory, exist. Anything that you put into a web page, be it Javascript, Flash, Shockwave, audio, video, and massive, massive graphics, slows down the site, makes it harder to load, and will turn people away. I'm not saying to use NO graphics. I use quite a few at work, but keep them small, and realise that users very well may have images, stylesheets, or browser-supplied fonts turned off.
Finally, remember what HTML is designed to do. HTML is a markup language designed to format text. All the nifty graphics and such are good, and they have their place, but they weren't invisioned when HTML was designed, and in a sense, they are foriegn to the medium. Use them with caution.
Whoever mentioned the book Don't Make Me Think has a very good point. That one sentence tells you more about User Interfaces than many books ever will.
a few key things to remember (Score:4, Interesting)
all these are of course simple usability thoughts. you still need to consider file sizes/image optimisation, cross-browser issues, etc. key to all of these though is knowing your target market. if I'm making a site for other designers it's doubtful it would need to support anything less than 32bit colour 1024x768, a higher than usual bandwidth and slightly more patience to see some eyecandy. however cross-browser compatibility becomes a key issue.
thats all for now, i may follow this up a little more if people want it at a later date.
Re:target platform/browser - Windows/IE (Score:4, Interesting)
Bullshit!
Making a page that looks good on every browser is as simple as using standard W3C approved HTML. Once you start using advanced CSS you'll run into a few problems, but they're managable. But once you start using scripts, animations, frames and proprietary plugins, you'll never get it to look decent on any browser but they one you're coding for.
We've got a new guy at work who used to be a web developer. I had a long discussion with him about why websites were designed for specific browsers. Why use all these proprietary plugins and scripts redirecting browsers to appropriate versions, instead of just using the standards that are out there. The answer was surprising to me. "The requirement and specifications that come from marketing demand that the website look *identical* to every viewer."
He was serious. His former company was paying testers to measure stuff on the screen, to verify that a box in NS wasn't two pixels taller than it was under IE. They even had some pages on the site that were 100% Flash. If more browsers could handle embedded PDF, they'd use that instead. Ridiculous.
Use FRAMES and Images maps if you need it.
Good idea. Especially since you NEVER need to use frames, and should ALWAYS accompany image maps with standard text navigation.
Sheesh, I bet you're one of these guys that doesn't even use alt tags.
Flash and Shockwave when necessary
And just when are Flash and Shockwave ever necessary?
Parent
Re:target platform/browser - Windows/IE (Score:5, Insightful)
I dispute that: there's a certain very well-defined set of circumstances in which using a frameset is beneficial. Although I agree that 99% of the frameset usage on the web is inappropriate, in certain circumstances framesets can be used for efficient navigation and still look good - the main advantage of frames is that they only need loading once - it's a frivolous waste of bandwidth to put the same graphical navigation bar on each page, for example (not that I'm a huge fan of graphical navbars).
Still, the rule for frames is: If in doubt, don't use them.
Parent
Re:Uh (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually Eric Binna and Lou Montoulli invented the Blink tag at Netscape. It was an easter egg, it was never documented by Netscape, they just used it a couple of times on their Web site. It was actually meant as a joke.
To answer the original question, Web designers should be taught to use as little active code as is necessary. I am fed up with sites that collapse in a mess of poorly debugged Javascript. At least these days Javascript rarely causes the browser to crash, but you can still go to a major site and hit a Jscript bug with a major browser release.
The main design point I think Web Designers need to be taught is allowing the user to decide how to view the site. I really get fed up with sites where the main purpose is to satisfy the Web Designer's ego.
My absolute hate is sites that start to mess arround with the controls on my browser. Especially those that try to disable the back button or fix the window size. At home I have a large LCD display, only i spend a lot of time looking at sites that insist on folding themselves up to a postage stamp size in one corner with 6pt fonts.
Don't ever put 'best viewed in 640x480 on your site, or anything like it. The whole design of HTML was to make that type of thing unnecessary.
IE now allows you to enable javascript on a per site basis. since turning off Jscript by default and only enabling it when necessary the quality of my browsing has improved greatly. A major side benefit is that popup ads no longer work. Now if we can only persuade MSFT to allow Macromedia to be disabled on a site by site basis or provide a button that says 'Never download this application it is a crappy piece of crap whose sole purpose is to bombard me with crappy adverts i don't want to see'.
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