Go Back   DN Lodge Webmaster Forums > Web Design and Development > Web Design Discussion


Reply
 
LinkBack Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old 09-27-05, 08:38 PM
Brandon's Avatar
DNL Founder/Moderator
DNLodge Staff
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: USA
Posts: 5,131
DNL Trust: (0)
Send a message via AIM to Brandon Send a message via MSN to Brandon Send a message via Skype™ to Brandon
Brandon is making his way to the top
Default Top Design Flaws

Here is an interesting article I found that says the top 6 design flaws newbies make.

Source: http://www.macosx.com/articles/6-Des...Make-Fool.html



Article -----------------> 6 Design Flaws Newbie Web Designers Make: Fool Everyone Into Thinking You Know What You're Doing

Even if you’re not an accomplished webmaster you can still have a professional looking website. You may be like I was five years ago—you’re teaching yourself web design and you’re starting to catch on to that HTML stuff. You’re so excited about your new bag of tricks—but slow down partner, sometimes less is more. In fact the only time more is more is when it concerns chocolate cheesecake or something like that. (I can never get enough chocolate!)

You’ve worked hard to get the traffic—now don’t drive them away.

1. Fatal Flaw One—Bouncing, Wiggling Animated Clip Art

This one is really annoying to website visitors, and a sure sign you don’t know what you’re doing, especially if you have them all over the place. Just because they’re free, doesn’t mean you should use them.

SOLUTION—You’re probably not a graphics designer if you resort to using clip art, so don’t worry about your weakness, just choose a nice color scheme instead in your tables. (More on that later.) Colors don’t take extra time to download either.

2. Fatal Flaw Two—Embedded Music Clips

Good grief. Don’t do this. I don’t care how catchy your elevator tune is. No one wants to hear it. Sometimes speakers are turned up and a sudden blare of music will scare the heck out of your visitors. They’ll probably leave!

SOLUTION—If you have a site that sells music, then people will expect to hear it sometime somewhere at your site. Make your music links clickable—a choice that visitors can make to listen!

3. Fatal Flaw Three—Unstructured Text

I can’t stand it when I land on a site that I have to read from each side of my screen to the other left and right as well as up and down. Even if you want to write one long sales letter—which obviously works fine for hundreds of rich webmasters, you still need to format it into a legible width.

SOLUTION—Put your text in one single data cell of a simple table. Center your table. Voila.

4. Fatal Flaw Four—Out of Control Scroll

Similar to number three, is the out of control scroll. This is when you have to scroll text left to right as well as up and down. This happens when newbies design their websites larger than 800 pixels wide.

SOLUTION—Most people view resolution at 800x600. Set your table widths around 750 and everyone will be able to look at your site without using a bottom scrollbar.

5. Fatal Flaw Five—Gargantuan Images

This is when newbies take photos directly off their scanner or digital camera without resizing and without compressing. And nothings worse than landing on a page that has an image taking over the whole screen, taking forever to download.

SOLUTION—Using a photo program like Paint Shop, Photo Shop or other, resize images to fit in the table you intend to put it in. (Usually under 500 pixels wide.) Compress to 72 dots per inch. (DPI) Photos scanned or taken for print are large and usually at 300 dpi—no one wants to wait on those!

6. Fatal Flaw Six—Nonsense Affiliate Links

This is the same as “sites with no value.” There’s nothing that looks more like a newbie did it than a page full of banners, buttons, and text links taking visitors away from the Newbie’s site.

SOLUTION—At least publish free articles on the topic of your affiliate program. For example, let’s say you’ve signed up for a “make money selling traffic” idea. There are thousands of free articles that you can publish on getting more website traffic. Put your affiliate link at the bottom, top, or middle of the page the article is published on. Not only will having content make your site more interesting, it will also make your site more valuable to search engines.

These are just 6 little mistakes. But if you can at least change these, you are well on your way to having a more saleable site!
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
Want to remove these ads? Register for your free account here.

  #2  
Old 09-28-05, 07:01 PM
DNL Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 42
DNL Trust: (0)
BestCoder is a pretty decent person
Default

Nice article, now i can stop making my self look like a newbie with my site designs!! woooh!
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old 10-01-05, 08:26 AM
Brandon's Avatar
DNL Founder/Moderator
DNLodge Staff
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: USA
Posts: 5,131
DNL Trust: (0)
Send a message via AIM to Brandon Send a message via MSN to Brandon Send a message via Skype™ to Brandon
Brandon is making his way to the top
Default

Now i can look like a proffessional!
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old 10-01-05, 09:10 AM
DNL Newbie
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 3
DNL Trust: (0)
roof620 is a pretty decent person
Default Official

So where can i find the origional? B)
__________________
Canada Dating
Poker Odds
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old 10-01-05, 05:29 PM
Brandon's Avatar
DNL Founder/Moderator
DNLodge Staff
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: USA
Posts: 5,131
DNL Trust: (0)
Send a message via AIM to Brandon Send a message via MSN to Brandon Send a message via Skype™ to Brandon
Brandon is making his way to the top
Default

The srouce of the article is stated at the top of the original post.
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #6  
Old 10-05-05, 09:20 AM
jaswinder_rana's Avatar
DNL Professional
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Canada
Posts: 590
DNL Trust: (0)
Send a message via MSN to jaswinder_rana
jaswinder_rana is a pretty decent person
Default

a funny thing, but the website which has this article has no alt attribute for the image links it has. i mean they are writing article about correct web design, but they are not following it properly.

and i agree not many people might be using text browsers today, but still its always recomended to use it.
__________________
---------------------------
www.rattanpal.com
Get Firefox!
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #7  
Old 10-05-05, 03:48 PM
DNL Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Rochester, NY
Posts: 51
DNL Trust: (0)
Send a message via AIM to MaxLax44 Send a message via MSN to MaxLax44
MaxLax44 is a pretty decent person
Default

I get so angry when sites are like that...grrrrrrrr.
__________________
I make things O_o !



AIM:pbMaxLax44
MSN:pbMaxLax@yahoo.com
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #8  
Old 10-05-05, 04:55 PM
Brandon's Avatar
DNL Founder/Moderator
DNLodge Staff
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: USA
Posts: 5,131
DNL Trust: (0)
Send a message via AIM to Brandon Send a message via MSN to Brandon Send a message via Skype™ to Brandon
Brandon is making his way to the top
Default

When sites dont use alt tags Max Lax? Or.. am I getting you wrong, lol.
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #9  
Old 02-15-06, 01:55 AM
angisson's Avatar
DNL Enthusiast
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 201
DNL Trust: (0)
angisson is a pretty decent person
Default Re: Top Design Flaws

Nice, Thx for posting
__________________
http://www.4teensonly.com/ - It's a cool place to chat, play games, and meet cool people come check us out!!!
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #10  
Old 03-02-06, 10:19 AM
DNL Enthusiast
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 193
DNL Trust: (0)
MicroGeak is a pretty decent person
Default Re: Top Design Flaws

Thanks for posting. I'll be sure to never use unstructured text again!!
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #11  
Old 03-04-06, 09:00 AM
DNL Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 15
DNL Trust: (0)
FactSupply is a pretty decent person
Default Re: Top Design Flaws

I hate seeing so much animation. Happy faces grinning, little worms doing flips, its crazy!
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #12  
Old 03-05-06, 01:31 PM
DNL Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 15
DNL Trust: (0)
Jarrell is a pretty decent person
Default Re: Top Design Flaws

Nice tips, too bad no one knew them in 1996 on Geocities rofl
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #13  
Old 07-12-06, 12:38 PM
Gareth_Boyd's Avatar
Neanix Web Hosting
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 1,138
DNL Trust: (0)
Send a message via AIM to Gareth_Boyd Send a message via MSN to Gareth_Boyd Send a message via Skype™ to Gareth_Boyd
Gareth_Boyd is a pretty decent person
Default Re: Top Design Flaws

Man that site is a classic OS X site!
__________________
Finance Blog - Gareth Boyd - Techniques, Tips and Guides.
Neanix Cheap Web Hosting - Shared and Reseller.
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
Reply

Bookmarks

Tags
design, flaws, top


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Domain + design for sale! niceprice kenny Sites & Domains For Sale 3 07-12-06 06:52 PM
[Ended] Forum Competition - Top Conversation Starter, January Brandon DNL Contests & Competitions 33 03-06-06 03:03 PM
No Frills Website Design Company Joseph Promotion Techniques 0 01-19-06 01:04 AM
Simple Tools To Design Your Website Joseph Web Development Discussion 0 11-13-05 08:11 PM
Site design bunced Graphic Designing 10 11-10-05 07:32 AM


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 12:16 AM.



Copyright © 2005-2009 DNLodge.com.
vBulletin, © 2000-2009, Jelsoft Enterprises Limited.
SEO by vBSEO.
Advertising |  About Us |  Contact Us |  RSS |  Privacy Policy |  Back to Top