I was talking to Kyle Boyd recently and we were discussing a website that he was due to revamp. He asked me the question “Guess what they’re using?” and I then rhymed off 10 things that, as web designers, we should try and stay away from. So I thought I’d share the list with you.
1. Frames
We’ve come a long way from the standard frame website. As well as being poor for usability and SEO, they generally look awful too.
2. iFrames
Similar to frames, but these are small embedded frames within the page. If you need something to replicate an iFrame, e.g. a Terms & Conditions box, make use of the overflow:auto declaration in CSS.
3. Tables
If you’re a web designer and you still use HTML tables to layout a page, then you shouldn’t call yourself a web designer. Get yourself a Web Standards/CSS book. Of course using tables to display tabular data is fine.
4. Animated gifs
Really old skool websites used to fire a load of animated gifs on a page (I was one of them 10 years ago when first experimenting with web design). They usually look poor and more than one can mean there’s too much going on. They can still look well though if used tastefully (on occasion).
5. Inline formatting
If you use something like <font size=”12px”> to format the text on your web pages, you’ll have a fun time when the client asks for a slightly larger font (and you’ve got a website with over 1000 pages). Use external CSS files to format your designs and content. One amendment changes all.
6. FrontPage
I used to use FrontPage years ago and I remember it being a really poor environment to work in, that usually added a lot more code to a page than needed. I don’t know if it’s any better now, but in general it still seems to be frowned upon by web designers. Microsoft now has Expression Web, which I haven’t used, but I suspect is much better. I would say Dreamweaver is the industry standard software for web design, but I would recommend learning XHTML from scratch and hand coding.
7. Internet Explorer 6 (or even worse, 5.5)
Non-web designers don’t realise the agro that we go through when we finally get a website looking brand spanking fantastic in one browser (usually Firefox in my case) then we do the inevitable browser test in IE6 and the website is a mess. Remember to check your work in at least Firefox, Safari, IE6, IE7 and Opera. If you’re using Internet Explorer, think about using Firefox instead, or at least make sure you have the latest version of Explorer (7).
8. Pop-up windows
I hate pop-up windows. Pop-up adverts and notices are even worse. If you must insist on a pop-up/fullscreen website, at least offer an alternative link for a normal window or look at Javascript work-a-rounds.
9. New windows
I prefer to have control over how many windows and tabs I have open in my browser, I don’t like the website deciding for me. Using target=”_blank” launches a new window but disrupts the users experience, so try not to use it. I have to admit though that I still use it myself the odd time, if linking to an external website from a clients site (but I’m trying not to).
10. Flash intro pages
This one really depends on your target market and the purpose of the website. If you really want to impress the pants off someone on a one off experience (e.g., a website for a new movie) then you can get away with it. But if you’re looking repeat visits then a flash intro page will most likely turn users away, as it acts like a barrier to the main content (and also poor for SEO). If required, consider including the Flash intro into the homepage of the site, surrounded by the content and navigation, just as Adobe do.
World’s Worst Website
I’m not saying you shouldn’t ever use any of these points,but as a general rule of thumb I think it’s safe to say you should try and stay away from most of them.
Oh, and it turned out they had used FrontPage and FrontPage extensions.
If you’ve any other tips, send them through below.
About the author
Hi I'm Lee, a freelance web designer and masters student from Belfast Northern Ireland. Like this article? Feel free to follow me on Twitter.
Tags: css, Web Design, web standards
I’m glad you didn’t rule Comic Sans out - I’m planning on using it a lot …
@Andy lol I’ll include that in the sequel “10 old skool no-nos for graphic designers”
How about handing a project over to a client and they decide to make changes using Dreamweavers’ ‘design view’ inserting inline CSS styles, break tags etc etc resulting in a bloated page with invalid mark up. This has happened to me
Also those annoying JavaScript web counters that display how many visitors have come to their site. Doh!
You forgot scrolling text marquees, it’s on the forefront of my mind as I have a client wanting 3 of these on one page. I’m in the process of trying to redirect him away from the idea before he cripples what should be potentially a nice site.
@Johnny lol yes, the counters that everyone always starts at 10,000 so people think they’re popular
@Dave Yikes! It’s one of those situations where you try to educate the client or just give in to what they want. Don’t give in Dave!
Ha Ha. Takes me back to the early days of web design, when sites were full of animated gif’s.
Frontpage and Frontpage extensions - what a headache they were.
Hit counters were also abundant!
actually you could fix a problem with good ol’ find + replace…
but of course style sheets are much, much better
I once took a contract job where the requirement was to know Dreamweaver since the guy thought that’s what one was supposed to use and know. I subsequently opened up Notepad++ and rewrote all the code.
And I have rewritten whole websites that were created in Frontpage. I can honestly say that I have never used Frontpage in my 12+ years of web development. That might be a feat in and of itself.
Overall it’s an alright list, but some of these are not valid points.
Since when should developers not use target=”_blank”? Are you kidding me? You should use this almost anytime you are sending a user away from your site. I don’t think it has ever been logical to actually push a visitor somewhere else unless you’re using the target=”_blank”.
Developers should not use target=”_blank” since pop-up blockers were invented.
A better way around that is onclick=”window.open(this.href);return false;”
Works great. However, you should always warn users that the link opens in a new window.
@Ulf: I have to disagree. I believe the user should be in control of their browsing experience and forcing websites to open in new windows doesn’t offer this.
Of course there are exceptions, e.g. during a checkout process, but I wouldn’t just put target=”_blank” on any outgoing link.
Now I have to admit with browser tabs it isn’t as bad now, but a whole new browser window is very annoying. There’s a good article on the topic here. http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/07/01/should-links-open-in-new-windows/
Old old “skool”! Front page what a nightmare!
i agree with ulf, off site links should open in a new window using _blank
You know, I’m a developer and not a designer. Yet I tell you, there is nothing more frustrating than using DIV’s for layout. This piece of junky idea called DIV, will not go and stay any direction I want it to go.
Try create a bordered DIV container filling a page 100% that changes with the browser re-size. Wow! What a complex piece of engineering that is. You need a rocket scientist as the W3C luminaries cannot provide a workable solution. Try also find a hack online and you are going to spend hours and hours. Try understand CSS layout and you need a degree.
I am telling you, layout concepts are so trivial in the desktop side is not even funny to compare.
Or maybe you tell me I have no ability to LEARN CSS layout. Yep. That must be it.
Using tables for layout is JUST FINE. Get over this purist nonsense.
@Florin: Rather than pulling your hair out over Divs and CSS you should probably be working along side a designer who can help design the templates for you.
There are so many advantages to CSS/divs over table based design. Accessibility, SEO, maintainability, file size, faster loading time and cross platform compatibility (e.g. mobile browsers) to name a few.
To be honest I didn’t think this was debatable anymore. CSS is just all around goodness. A book like Web Standards Solutions is a good place to start or soon to be released Web Standardistas
@florin - i agree w lee.. i’m a developer too (ruby) and often work with a designer on projects.. split up the sections with DIVs and let the designer worry about placing them.
lee, there’s no reason at all why the ‘x’ in XHTML should be lowercase like you have it on #6.
@lowell: Thanks for pointing that out lowell, it should be XHTML. Fixed.
Yep. I pretty much agree with everything in this list except maybe the Internet Explorer one. I personally hate that we’re still supporting an old browser (IE6 or 5.5), but I suppose you have to when you do it professionally.
I got my first start making webpages using Frontpage before I finally looked under the hood and realized what a mess it was making. Then I forced myself to learn real HTML and CSS and I’ve never looked back.
Plus, who didn’t have a website full of “Under Construction” gifs on their website in the late 90’s? Good times, good times
Unfortunately you will still find so many old-skool sites using tables.. That’s not good