My Top-5 Website No-Nos

The other day, I tweeted ranted against audio and/or video that automatically plays when the page loads in the browser – without user control. Much to my satisfaction, some of my fellow Twitterzens agreed!  I find that sometimes it’s necessary to talk a client down from wanting to add something to a site that while may have a neat bell/whistle effect, but really just adds a lot of cost and can actually repel visitors. There’s a few other things that web publishers should “just say no” to….so, without further adieu, here’s my top-5 website & blog no-nos:

1. Auto-play video/audio on page load (as mentioned above). Unless your intent is to assist vision-impaired visitors, you are most likely just annoying ALL of your visitors.

2. Excessive Flash animation – or worse yet, an all-Flash website. Flash effects look cool, but add big buckage to a project’s cost.. and with little payoff.  Flash (unless tastefully and simply deployed on small areas of the page), impedes SEO as well.  In most cases, its not necessary or helpful.

3.  Sticking with the narrow page design conventions of 5 years ago. This is a quick way to have your site look  really dated. A few years back, narrow pages (550 – 650 pixel widths) were a way to stay visible scroll-free with older PCs and low-res monitors. Now, with most newer laptops and monitors in wide-aspect, the super-narrow page just isn’t necessary. Most site owners need the screen real estate that goes with wider page designs.

4. Black or very dark backgrounds (behind text). This is rarely a good idea. Unless you don’t have a lot of text content, or if your site is an art portfolio of some sort, forgo black backgrounds.

5. Keeping the same design untouched for more than 3 years. This is purely my opinion, but having the same design for more than 3 years is stretching it – 3 years is eternity in Internet time. If your budget can’t bear a total  overhaul, consider a layout update or a new color scheme.

Remember – just because you can doesnt mean you should!