Home > Website Developement Tips > Tip 2
How did peeves become pets? Who knows. Doesn't
matter really.
But all of us have our pet peeves when it comes to surfing the net for information
and here are the worst offenders:
Registration
Required to Visit Site
Some sites think their megabytes don't stink. They think
you should register and login to see anything beyond the home page.
In this Internet day and age, a company and site has to build trust before a
random visitor is going to cough up a name and email address.
Slowwww
Loading Pages
If average users have to wait more than 4 or 5 seconds to begin viewing your
site, they are gone
- never to return -
as their search engine gave them a list
of thousands other choices.
If your servers are slow, find a new ISP. If you loaded your pages with Flash,
MIDI, audio, video, or other files that load with the page, dump them.
Put up links instead. Let your visitor choose if they want to read
or watch the video.
Extra
Software Needed to View ANY Site Information
With Viruses running rampant on the internet, most users do not download anything
and will simply look elsewhere...
. NO PDF files, word documents, etc... Web code all possible pages!
Bad
Navigation
Web owners and developers prefer dazzle over function. Function is boring they
think. Who wants a simple text link when a pop up Javascript navigation
bar impresses the client? I do! So
do the search engines! Every web page needs recognizable, underlined
text links on every page, preferably top and bottom. Don't make
me waste my time trying to find the internal page I am really looking for. At
least provide a site map to help them make your website uasable to those who
are lost.
Outdated
Content
One huge advantage of the web is the ability of bloggers to bypass traditional
media and post news online instantly. If you have not updated your
website in 12 months, what does that tell me about your company??? Certainly,
you are less than a modern cutting edge solution for my problem.
Dead
Links
Nothing turns me off faster than finding any link that goes nowhere or brings
up a page not found message.
No
Contact Information
How many sites have you been to where you cannot find a phone number, a street
address, or even an email address? Plenty. I think it's
sweet that you put up an email contact form on your site, but I prefer to use
my default email compose screen. Every web-based email form is different,
and I don't want to waste time learning to use your form when my email
client works just fine. Makes them think......What are
you hiding?
Disabled
"Back" Button or Functions
I don't want a website to dictate how I experience their site. I am a guest
on your site. I don't need to come back to your page when I hit
the back button. That's why I hit the back button in the first
place. You don't have the information I am looking for. I
also don't like to see other right click functions like "view page source"
disabled. I don't need to steal your HTML code, but if I want to, disabling
right click will definately not stop me. I might want to see how
you achieved a certain formatting effect. If I am impressed, you can bet I'll
be back.
Pop
Ups
Pop ups come in many flavors: entry pop ups, exit pop ups, delayed, small, large,
multiple, flying, scrolling, always on top, browser stopping, surf interrupting......
web surfers HATE pop ups except for an occasional squeeze-in
page to get a free ebook or report.
No
Decent Site Search Tool
There is no excuse for this one. If you have a large website with
dozens or hundreds of pages, give me an internal search box to find what I need.
Google and Yahoo! and many others will give you the tool free
to put on your site. Use it. And an updated Site Map
cannot hurt either!
Pet
peeves take many forms online. No list like this is complete. I
have been trained to cover much more.
I look forward to helping you with your website!
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