a web site can crumble down just like a house

Vincent Flanders Presents:

The Biggest Web Design Mistakes of 2004 (Part 1 of 2)

I went through every Daily Sucker for the last year and I've come up with a list of what I think were the biggest web design mistakes.

These mistakes apply only to real sites -- not personal, band, music, art, movie, experimental, fashion, and (some) sports sites.

Some mistakes aren't actually design mistakes in the classical sense -- ugly graphics, bad navigation, etc. -- but serious big picture problems like our Number One Mistake of the Year:

Bambi Tiffani and Candi are laughing at your site because it does not meet their needs

1. Believing people care about you and your web site.

These ladies are laughing at you. Why? You designed your web site for your needs, not their needs. It gets worse. After they stop laughing, they're going to one of your competitors' sites and buy something.

Here's an e-mail I recently received:

Powerhouse is a UK electrical goods retail store. We knew they had a nice bread maker at an even nicer price, so went to their website to see if we could buy it. Because we use Firefox, we weren't allowed in. (They have fixed this problem)

Comet's website worked a treat and they have our money now!

Write these two sentences where you can see them as you're working on your computer:

1. The only reason my web site exists is to solve my customers' problems.

2. What problems does the page I'm looking at solve?

Nobody cares about you or your site. Really. What visitors care about is getting their problems solved. Most people visit a web site to solve one or more of the following three problems.

  1. They want/need information
  2. They want/need to make a purchase / donation.
  3. They want/need to be entertained.

Too many organizations believe that a web site is about opening a new marketing channel or getting donations or to promote a brand. No. It's about solving your customers' problems. Have I said that phrase enough?

Here come the Martians

2. A man from Mars can't figure out what your web site is about in less than 4 seconds.

You should be able to look at the home page of any site and figure out what the site is about within four seconds. If you can't, your site has failed.

People who make Mistake #1 often end up making Mistake #2. A perfect example of a site that fails the Four-Second Test is amp.

If your browser window isn't 1024 x 768, you get "nothing." You don't even see what this company thinks passes for content.

As BrowserCam demonstrates, the home page doesn't get much better when the window is 1024 x 768.

What is this site about? Who knows? Who is going to care enough to stay around and find out?

A final feature of sites that make Mistake #2 is that you can't really figure out what the site is about from their company name and their tagline, "Amp", tells you nothing, but implies something to do with electricity. Their tagline, "Experienced Passion", only makes sense if it's a dating service for seniors.

Non-profit organizations are the worst offenders when it comes to names and taglines (and most everything else). Here's a typical non-profit organization's name and tagline:

Big Hands of Hope
-- It's all about compassion

No. It's all about solving your visitors' problems. Nothing in the name or tagline tells you this organization helps African children

Here's an over-the-top example of a name and tagline that's better:

Save the African Children
-- We keep them from dying a horrible death

Yes, the tagline has to be toned down, but at least you understand the mission of the organization. As an aside, I HATE most names for non-profit organizations because, like "Big Hands of Hope", they don't tell you what they do. (I made up this organization and their tagline.)

the cross of web standards

3. Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability, and tableless CSS.

There is nothing wrong with any of the above except they're being touted by...guess who?...people who offer web design services specializing in...guess what?...Web Standards, Usability, and tableless CSS. These are simply tools. Remember, nobody gets excited about the tools used to build a house ("Please tell me what brand of hammers you used!"). People get excited about how the house looks and performs.

Yes, Web Standards can make your site search engine friendly, reduce bandwidth, etc. Usability is also very important but in a recent interview, usability guru Jared Spool puts everything in perspective :

I learned quickly that business executives didn't care about usability testing or information design. Explaining the importance of these areas didn't get us any more work. Instead, when we're in front of executives, we quickly learned to talk about only five things:

  1. How do we increase revenue?
  2. How do we reduce expenses?
  3. How do we bring in more customers?
  4. How do we get more business out of each existing customer?
  5. How do we increase shareholder value?

Notice that the words 'design', 'usability', or 'navigation' never appear in these questions. We found, early on, that the less we talked about usability or design, the bigger our projects got. Today, I'm writing a proposal for a $470,000 project where the word 'usability' isn't mentioned once in the proposal.

When we work with teams, we teach them to follow the money and look for the pain. Somewhere in your organization, someone is feeling pain because they aren't getting the answers they want to one of the questions above.

I'm using these quotes only to show you the silliness of falling in love with web design belief systems. Unfortunately, while this attitude will may get you business, it is still Mistake #1 -- the organization is trying to solve its problems rather than the customers' problems.

There seems to be a cargo cult belief that if we use Web Standards, usability, and tableless CSS, our web sites will make money, we'll be famous (or at least cool), and 0ur sites will look great. It isn't that easy. My home page uses web standards and it's no monument to great design.

4. Using design elements that get in the way of your visitors.

choking the customerWould you do this?

You sell an expensive product or you're a fundraiser getting ready to make the ask for a large sum of money.

You walk into a potential client's office, introduce yourself, and place an information packet in front of the client.

As you start to make your big presentation, the client reaches into the packet, extracts the contract/pledge form you hope he'll sign and grabs a pen.

As the client starts to sign the lucrative, long-term contract/pledge, you reach over across the table, grab the client by the throat, and yell "Not so fast, a**h***, I haven't finished my presentation!!!"

You wouldn't do that, would you? Then why are you using design techniques that keep the visitor from getting to the sale? They're the web equivalent of grabbing someone by the throat. The golden rule of doing business on the Web is "Don't do anything that gets in the way of the sale."

Some of the many techniques that get in the way: splash pages, FlashSplash pages, animations, lack of focal point on the page, too much text, too many pictures, etc. See any of my books for more examples.

Another way design gets in the way is when you confuse web design with sex. I covered this topic in Chapter Four in my book "Son of Web Pages That Suck" and in my article "Don't Confuse Web Design With Sex."

When people arrive at your site it's because they've made a commitment. They've clicked a link or an ad and now they are at your site so foreplay isn't necessary. Let them in your site.

On the other hand, foreplay is necessary when you buy ads on other sites. This is when you have to seduce people to come to your site.

vincent flanders and michael willis are lost

5. Navigational failure.

All web navigation must answer:

Where am I?
Where have I been?
Where can I go next
Where's the Home Page
Where's the Home Home Page

Navigation must be simple and consistent.

Common mistakes include different types of navigation on the same site, a link to the current page on the current page (home page link on home page), poorly worded links so the visitor doesn't know where he'll go if he clicks, no links back to the home page, confusing links to the home page (Seth Godin is a good example), etc.

There are probably 10 million ways to screw up navigation.

High school kids do not like mystery meat for lunch

6. Using Mystery Meat Navigation.

Note: I have a whole section on this topic and lots of live examples of organizations who make this stupid mistake.

While there are 10 million ways to screw up your navigation, the best way is to use Mystery Meat Navigation (MMN). Here's the definition, right out of Chapter Eight of "Son of Web Pages That Suck":

Mystery Meat Navigation occurs when, in order to find specific pages in a site, the user must mouse over unmarked navigational "buttons" -- graphics that are usually blank or don't describe their function. JavaScript code then reveals what the real purpose of the button is and where it leads.

There are certain sites that are allowed to use MMN: music, band, movie, art, experimental, fashion -- sites where making an impression or being cool is mandatory. It's OK because nobody really cares about these sites and their purpose isn't really about making money.

Another exception is what I would call "cult sites" -- sites that are so popular with a specific group that their audience automatically commits the icons to memory. Slashdot immediately comes to mind.

The problem with MMN is it influences designers and companies who aren't smart enough to realize they're not in the music, art, movie, or fashion business. When a manufacturing company starts using MMN, you know the apocalypse can't be too far behind. Here's a university that uses MMN for evil purposes.


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