Re: What not to do on your homepage!

I hate scrolling statusbars as well. Another valid reason for not using them
is CPU load. First when this scrolling status trick came around, every other
site seemed to have one. At the time, I was using a 386 with 4 megs of RAM.
If I entered a page with one of those on it, it slowed the browser down so
much that it was not only difficult to click on the links but often
impossible. Another thing to avoid is too many animated gifs. I remember if
there were 2 or more on a page, it made navigation very difficult also. I
think one animated gif should bring attention to the one thing you consider
to be most important on your homepage. Too many, and you don't know where to
go first, and is also distracting.

This has been said before, but always design for your audience. If you are
designing a page for fans of the latest computer game that requires a
Pentium II and 128 megs of RAM, you can be pretty certain that your audience
will have high-end machines that can handle whatever Javascript icing you
wish to throw at them. However, if you're designing a site that is of
interest to elementary school students, you have to take into account the
vast range of machines that are available in classrooms, from the latest
PowerPCs and Pentiums, and all the way down to 386's and older Macintoshes.
In that case, leave out all the icing, or at least provide an alternative.

Some other things I personally don't like:

1. Spectrum design: Using all the colors in the rainbow on a page seems
tacky, especially for business site. Unless of course, your company is
called Rainbow Carpet Cleaners or something, then go right ahead.

2. Java applets: Does anyone else hate these as much as I do? If you want to
use a Java applet as a visual element- DON'T. If it serves a useful purpose,
use it, but don't use them for merely design purposes. I really don't want
to wait for Java to load for some Star Wars-ish scrolling text.

3. Frames designed for higher resolutions than 640x480: This has to be the
absolute worst. Having an index frame that was designed in higher
resolution, only to have navigation options cut off in 640x480, and the
designer has chosen to turn off automatic scrollbars. Yuck!

4. Contrasty backgrounds: If there's a lot of text on some high contrast
background making it difficult to read, I won't stay. So even if that
tie-dyed background looks groovy, I won't visit if it gives me a migraine
when trying to read the text.

5. Huge aliased type as graphics: Can you say ugly?

This is all IMHO and can be subject to constructive criticism. Thanks. :)

Steve Granter
sgranter(at)glinx.com
(URL coming soon to a web browser near you)



>Robert wrote:
>
>Hello.  I would just like to say that the use of scrolling text in the
>status bar is one of the worst things to do, in my opinion.  That is
>the thing I hate the most.  I like to see where a link takes me and
>without being able to see the staus bar, it's almost impossible.
>There's gotta be another way.

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