Rambling about a 'good' site design
Posted by Wesley on
This is entirely my opinion on what I think is a good website design.
- Avoid Flash as much as possible
I sometimes come across websites that havethe menus or even the entire layout of the website based entirely on Macromedia Flash. But I seriously doubt if any of these cannot be done with a scripting language or DHTML. Also, Flash poses some limitations on what platform and computer speed it can be run on. One should not assume that a good-looking website can only be done with Flash.
- Avoid Flash as much as possible
I sometimes come across websites that havethe menus or even the entire layout of the website based entirely on Macromedia Flash. But I seriously doubt if any of these cannot be done with a scripting language or DHTML. Also, Flash poses some limitations on what platform and computer speed it can be run on. One should not assume that a good-looking website can only be done with Flash.
- Use appropriately sized picture files in moderation
It is okay to use picture files to form components on a website, but they should have the size optimized and should not be splattered everywhere, so that the visitors have less loading time and the hosting server have less load to deal with. On a related note, posting a raw 1MB digital camera photo on a discussion board or a blog seems... absurd. This might be tolerable in a high-bandwidth country (e.g. Korea) but in other places it might be a good reason to get your back stabbed.
- An entire website in a pop-up is discomforting
I am not just talking about places like CyWorld, but there are websites with contents entirely within a pop-up window. Problem is, depending on how it's generated it might get blocked by a pop-up filter, and the whole thing looks so cramped and discomforting. You could just limit the site dimensions with 'div' or 'table' tags for a similar effect.
- I am not interested in the sound effects or background music
There are websites I visited that blurted out some sound effects or started playing background music all of a sudden, and that was disorienting. Maybe the site owner thinks it's cool and gets the visitors into the mood, but it'd be ideal if the background music comes turned off by default and can be turned on later by the visitor (deal with the copyright issues on your own...).
- Internet Explorer is not the only browser around
My thinking is that a website that requires a specific browser to be able to view its contents has ignored the basics of website development. In Korea, IE has incredibly level of market share, so the web masters don't seem to care much at all, but this creates a vicious cycle that prevents adoption of alternate browsers. If the basic HTML is followed, the CSS is carefully made, and some weird plug-ins are avoided, then the website should not have much problems. Do not turn away the non-IE users away from the door.
The above rambling was written by Wesley, who wrote a dorky book on website creation half a decade ago.
It is okay to use picture files to form components on a website, but they should have the size optimized and should not be splattered everywhere, so that the visitors have less loading time and the hosting server have less load to deal with. On a related note, posting a raw 1MB digital camera photo on a discussion board or a blog seems... absurd. This might be tolerable in a high-bandwidth country (e.g. Korea) but in other places it might be a good reason to get your back stabbed.
- An entire website in a pop-up is discomforting
I am not just talking about places like CyWorld, but there are websites with contents entirely within a pop-up window. Problem is, depending on how it's generated it might get blocked by a pop-up filter, and the whole thing looks so cramped and discomforting. You could just limit the site dimensions with 'div' or 'table' tags for a similar effect.
- I am not interested in the sound effects or background music
There are websites I visited that blurted out some sound effects or started playing background music all of a sudden, and that was disorienting. Maybe the site owner thinks it's cool and gets the visitors into the mood, but it'd be ideal if the background music comes turned off by default and can be turned on later by the visitor (deal with the copyright issues on your own...).
- Internet Explorer is not the only browser around
My thinking is that a website that requires a specific browser to be able to view its contents has ignored the basics of website development. In Korea, IE has incredibly level of market share, so the web masters don't seem to care much at all, but this creates a vicious cycle that prevents adoption of alternate browsers. If the basic HTML is followed, the CSS is carefully made, and some weird plug-ins are avoided, then the website should not have much problems. Do not turn away the non-IE users away from the door.
The above rambling was written by Wesley, who wrote a dorky book on website creation half a decade ago.