Web page style

Before the Web: Hard to share documents with people who have other operating systems, or who are on other networks, or people with same machine but different applications, or even just different versions of the same application.

Then the Web. HTML defined a common denominator for all machines, and information could be shared like never before.

People who say "Best viewed with Internet Explorer" are trying to return to this primitive, pre-1993 world.

Of course they THINK they are being futuristic, because they want to use snazzy, bleeding-edge special effects to "enhance" their pages. But it's going to get even WORSE for them, as Web TV and the Web on simple mobile phones and palmtops explodes over the coming years.

Your aims

1. Your information is readable on maximum number of machines.
2. It downloads as fast as possible for people on slow connections.
3. It does not crash the user's browser.

If these ARE your aims (and it's OK to admit they are not), then:

Avoid, or use rarely with extreme caution:

1. Page backgrounds (Like, WHY? It's not cool on paper - what makes you think it's different on screen?)

2. "Best viewed with .." icons (Why advertise your lack of understanding of HTML?)
3. "Designed with .." icons (Who cares?)

4. Blink (Please make it stop!)
5. Scrolling marquees
6. Embedded audio (When I want to hear it, I can play it myself!)

7. Push
   • Push Me, Pull You - James Gleick on Push.

8. onMouseOver - takes away the user's ability to see the URL that a link leads to.
   • Every link you click on the Web is already an investment, a big gamble that there is something useful worth waiting half a minute for. You use lots of heuristics to try to guess if the link will be worth your while. One of the few guides we have is the URL, since link titles are so ambiguous. And now some people want to even take that away from you.
   • You could in theory use this tag to make the status line more meaningful, e.g. show the relative link instead of the absolute link, or even comment your links. But of course 90 percent of web designers will simply use it to make the status line as ambiguous and useless as the link title.

9. The FONT tag at all (Let's make it unreadable on millions of browsers.)
   • For example, there are vast numbers of sites who set the tag:   <font size="-2">   Often, I simply click "Back" when I reach one of these sites. Why? Because I cannot read the text. It's too small. I have set my font to a size I can read. You should respect that.

   • Limited use of   <font size="-1">   is acceptable, I think, say for a photo caption. But not for big blocks of text.
   • OK, depending on browser, I can check: "Always use my fonts, overriding document fonts", or I can have a toolbar button to quickly change font. But hitting "Back" is attractive too. There are a lot of other sites out there. No need to spend time on yours if it involves work. You can whine all you like that I should be using Microsoft version 13.342 on Operating System version 2026.01, and your page looks really cool. I will hit "Back".
   • Maybe the browser should allow me disable   <font size="-n">   for n greater than 1. While waiting for that, I will hit "Back".

10. Embedded animation - Much (but not all) use of Flash, Shockwave, Animated GIFs, etc.
    • You don't NEED to "capture attention" on the Web. It's NOT like TV. People don't "Surf". They came to your site for a reason. They're already on your page. Don't force them to sit through a lengthy animation they never asked for, in order to reach the pages they do want.
    • Guidelines for Multimedia on the Web - Jakob Nielsen on animation.

    • Animation is fine for things you have asked for. Macromedia is great for putting together little animations with soundtracks, such as "This Land". But people must have asked for it.
    • In general, bad things:
      • splash screens
      • intro animations you can't turn off

    • Flash: 99% Bad, Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, October 29, 2000.
    • Flash is Evil is interesting not so much for the article itself - which is common sense - as for the hysterical reaction from the Flash devotees, who illustrate everything that is wrong with many web designers - antisocial, arrogant geeks in love with the technology and their own egos, with contempt for users and usability, designing sites for 16 year olds who watch TV and don't read.
      That's fine, but there's a lot more to your company's customers than 16 year olds who watch TV and don't read. Animation is a niche, it's not the future. And it's not a niche I'm interested in, so keep your animated nonsense to yourself. I don't want to see it.

11. Frames
    • Using frames breaks the nice clean, well-understood Web model for usually no good reason, plays havoc with bookmarks and hyperlinks, and wastes half of the already-tiny screen. But hey, maybe your users have not discovered the Back button yet.
    • Why Frames Suck (Most of the Time) - Jakob Nielsen on frames.

    • Frames are useful for:
      • In writing about web sites, where you want to do, say, a side-by-side comparison of 2 different web sites.
      • Constructing a page with information coming from multiple remote sources.

12. Client-side programs that the user hasn't asked for (much use of Java applets and Javascript)
    • Client-side applications are useful for many things, none of them really related just to displaying content, but rather all of them related to user interaction. Remember your users may not want to interact - they may want to choose when they will begin interacting (if ever).

    • Client-side applications good for:
      • If you want to demo in real-time how something changes as a parameter is changed. e.g. Demo of a programming algorithm running, as part of lecture course. Can often be done simpler (and more platform-independent) with a server-side application. Client-side needed when real-time feedback is essential, e.g. 360 degree street scenes.
      • Real-time customer transactions over the Web, e.g. modifying a database, taking part in an auction, real-time chat.
      • The whole future of delivering applications like word processors, spreadsheets etc. down the pipe (rent them rather than buy them), Network Computers (rent the entire OS), etc.

    • But such useful sightings are not the norm. Java applets and Javascript are normally used to annoy you with pointless animation and non-standard menus.

    • The failed promise of Java - platform independence.

    • Animated GIFs could be used to demo something changing, e.g. a program tutorial, without the hassle of having to play a full movie. And I have in fact seen such a sighting! (To make up for the thousand other times that Animated GIFs have simply annoyed me.)

Other bad things

1. In general, sites that only work on (have only been tested on):
   1. IE (latest version)
   2. Windows (latest version)
   3. fast PC
   4. fast connection

2. Unstable URLs.

3. In general, Things that break the Web model.

4. Over-long, complex, cryptic URLs. See URL as UI.

5. URLs where you cannot hack off bits from the RHS to move up a directory.

6. Periodicals not allowing direct browsing of each issue in the archive from its front page, but access only via keyword search.

7. Travel sites where you have to fill in lengthy forms (enter start time, destination, etc.) in order to see the timetable (rather than being able to just browse the entire timetable raw).

Always useful (and so rarely found):

• Content.
• Content.
• Content.

• On University Society websites - A complete and up-to-date list of the Society's meetings and events.
• On Company websites - A complete list of the company's products. With pictures and prices.
• A complete list of the company's offices and locations. With maps and opening times.

Content

Summary: Forget your stupid spinning animations and multimedia junk. Put this stuff on the Web instead:

• Archives of past issues of newspapers and magazines.

• Archives of past Radio and TV programs. - See I'm not against multimedia on the Web at all. Indeed, I can't wait until there are archives of all past radio and TV online, where you can play any program from any date. But in this case you are actively seeking the multimedia data. What I'm in favour of is the original idea of the Web - that the client can control what they see, as opposed to TV, where the server controls what you see. The client should decide when (if ever) they want to see multimedia.

• The complete catalogs of every national and university library.
• Every publication of every academic researcher and student.
• Every out-of-copyright publication in the world.
• Complete and up-to-date bus, train, ship and plane timetables.
• A detailed map of Ireland, where you can link to a placename. I have yet to find one. If anyone can find one, please let me know!
• A street map of Dublin, where you can link to a street. I have yet to find one. If anyone can find one, please let me know!

• Web page style