DATE: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 08:27:20
From: "Brent Eades"
To: web-consultants@just4u.com
I wrote the following a couple of months ago, but for some
reason never sent it to the list. Well, now I am.
**********
I see a lot of calls for help from novice Web designers here
on the list, and examine a lot of fledgling page-design
efforts as a result. In that process I've arrived at some
basic rules that all novice designers should pay close heed
to, in my not-always humble opinion. Here are those rules,
with explanations following:
SEVEN CARDINAL RULES FOR NOVICE WEB DESIGNERS
1. If you have no aptitude for -- or especially experience in
-- graphic design, DON'T try to provide such services to your
clients.
2. If you're not an experienced writer -- ideally in
documentation, marketing or journalism -- DON'T write or edit
copy for clients.
4. Well-structured, concise and useful content, together with
good navigation, are by far the most important components of a
successful site. Spiffy graphics and gadgets come a very
distant third. DON'T spend more time on superficial gimcracks
than on content development and organization.
5. If you can't be rigorously self-honest about your
weaknesses and limitations, DON'T get into this field in the
first place.
6. DON'T use proprietary WYSIWYG editors such as FrontPage as
your principal development tools. If you can't code a cross-
platform Web page by hand, you're in the wrong line of work.
7. If you're not prepared to spend hours every week simply
learning more about HTML, CSS, XML, servers, browsers, graphic
design, writing, industry news, Javascript, CGI, search
engines, software and marketing -- you're still in the wrong
line of work.
Now for a little meat on the above bones.
1. Graphic Design.
Both I and 98% of your users would far rather see a clean text-
based page than a garish mess of distracting background
graphics, animated GIFs and ill-chosen typefaces. If you
don't have strong and proven skills in basic graphic design,
then work within your limitations. (Take a cue from Yahoo:
the fellows who founded it are worth over a billion bucks, and
they use almost no graphics on their hugely successful site.
Users go there for the well-organized content, not for pretty
pictures.)
Instead, concentrate on laying out your text in clean, orderly
sections, perhaps making some sparing use of browser-safe
colors for titles and headers. If you have professional-
calibre graphics for your site created by others then use
them, but cautiously and only when relevant.
Graphic design -- even such "simple" matters as choosing
colors and fonts for a page -- is a difficult and subtle art,
which takes years to acquire real competence in. Although I
get compliments on the "look" of sites I design, I know full
well what my limitations are; I often spend hours deciding on
the exact color, face and placement of a single button or
title graphic.
I use graphics sparingly on my sites, because I know that
design is not my strongest suit. I do have a college night
course on the subject under my belt, and fifteen years'
experience in the publishing and communications business, but
I still consider myself a design novice. It's not what I'm
best at.
2. Writing.
Again: users go to your site for the content, not the
graphics. Content which is ungrammatical, vague or unduly
wordy undermines the credibility of the entire site, no matter
how useful it may potentially be. If you're not an
experienced and skilled writer, hire someone who is.
This applies especially to the "microcontent" of your site:
navigational text, descriptive captions, section summaries and
so on. The clarity and persuasiveness of a five-word link can
have a great impact on whether or not a user follows it --
obviously those words must be chosen with care and skill.
3. Java, CGI, etc.
There are *always* implications you probably never thought of
to implementing CGI, Javascript and especially Java on your
site.
CGI scripts are generally the most cross-platform-efficient,
and the least likely to crash browsers or function
unpredictably. But poorly or maliciously designed scripts can
cause havoc on some Web servers. If you're a novice, this
will probably not be your own server. It will probably belong
to your ISP, who will most surely be very very unhappy about
your choice of script. If you don't know how CGI works, never
install a script without running it past an expert first.
Javascript is fun, but often does not translate well from one
browser to the next. What works in Netscape might not in
Explorer, and vice versa. Ensure that any Javascript you
install is designed to work properly on all the major browser
versions.
ASP (Active Server Pages) can cause problems for users of
browsers other than MSIE, and should be avoided unless you
thoroughly know what you're doing.
Java applets should not be used either. Their defects are
well documented, and many users turn off Java support in their
browsers as a result. (For example, my major client has
16,000 employees, and not one of them will ever see a Java
applet in operation at work. Because departmental policy
demands that it be disabled.)
4. Navigation and Content.
I just spent three months creating an intranet for a
government department. Of that time, about eight hours were
devoted to creating graphics. The other thousand or so were
spent on organizing and rewriting content, devising navigation
schemes, and writing routines that allow users to pick their
*own* colours and graphics. (Or to disable them entirely.)
OK, so this ratio is a little skewed, 1000:8. Intranets by
definition are short on flash and long on ease of use, because
users are on them all day, every day. But the axiom remains:
Content is King.
Far too many sites (both novice and "professional") look as if
navigation and structure were fleeting afterthoughts, imposed
quickly after the bulk of time was invested in finding
particularly annoying background images and animated GIFs.
But in fact navigation and structure are your first and by far
most important priorities. If you haven't spent a *lot* of
time deciding how to organize and link the content on your
site, it is doomed. Period. No amount of gadgets will save
it.
5. Know Your Weaknesses.
This really is the theme of this entire post. No single
consultant can be highly skilled at every component of site
design, because the skills and aptitudes for different areas
are so diverse. A brilliant programmer just will not be a
great graphic designer too, or vice versa. So if a project
emphasizes certain skills that you're not strong on, be
prepared to sub-contract those parts out. Or turn it down.
6. WYSIWYG Editors.
What's wrong with them exactly? OK, how's this... they
produce proprietary gimmicks that break some browsers.
They generate huge rafts of terrible HTML that bloat your
pages and crash browsers.
They lull you into thinking that because a page looks a
certain way on your system, it'll look that way on others. It
won't.
They hide the logic and intricacies of HTML coding from you,
so that you don't learn how to fix broken code when you don't
have your trusty WYSIWYG editor handy.
They perpetuate the myth that HTML is a page-description
language like PostScript. It isn't.
7. Learn Learn Learn.
I spend a lot of my time in a state of partial panic just
contemplating the mushrooming growth of the Web and the many
technologies and techniques a designer must be familiar with
to stay current. I spend a minimum of two hours a day just
reading, examining code, testing new software and specs, and
generally trying to stay abreast of the field.
You can never assume that because something worked a certain
way six months ago, it still does now. Whole new draft specs
can appear at w3.org overnight, for languages or protocols
you've likely never even heard of. On it goes. You must
devote time, and lots of it, every week to staying informed.
Complacency will kill you.
-----------
Brent Eades, Almonte, Ontario
E-mail: webmaster@almonte.com
webmaster@bank-banque-canada.ca
Web: http://www.almonte.com/
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