I know, it’s hard to hear. It’s probably even harder to accept… but I share this with you because I e-love you. It’s okay… here’s a tissue.
These kinds of lists always get a little controversial. Why? Because they tend to put the onus on the developer when a website fails. I mean, let’s face it – as web developers, we’re entrusted with the responsibility of assisting a client in expanding their marketing online successfully. It’s about more than pretty colors and stock images of blond chicks wearing telephone headsets. If you can’t get the point across effectively, you’re thoroughly wasting your client’s time and money.
Soooooooo… in the process of redesigning my own website, I started scouring the inspiration galleries to get myself in the “mood.” Saw a lot of beautiful work, but I also saw a lot of, um… crap. Not like crap is bad, crap can be perfect in some cases, I suppose. Just not cases where it’s costing someone money by failing to do its job in promoting something. Thus, this list. Ten important reasons why your website, well, sucks.
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Lack of organization: Organization is one of those things that will effectively keep someone out of your website. Don’t forget about the user you’re targeting. Organization needs to be intuitive and follow a logical train of thought. In a web design portfolio, where would you expect to find contact information for the designer? A contact page, perhaps an about page. Don’t stick it in the portfolio and think that’s the only place it needs to be. Someone who’s convinced – after page 1 – that they need to work with you, will be sorely disappointed when they can’t find what they’re looking for. If your clothing store uses unique sizing for its products, your website should make it easy for someone to find out the way your sizing compares to regular standard clothing sizes.
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Failure to brand: The Internet has been around long enough that the people who are most likely to use it can determine the good websites from the bad ones. How do they make this conclusion so fast? Easy. Failure to identify who you and/or your company are is a big giveaway. Look at your favorite websites. All have some form of branding. Nice crisp logos. Similar elements grouped together as a means of helping the visitor identify who you are and what you do. A big part of doing any kind of business online is transparency. The more transparent you are, the more people are drawn to you. The more interested they are in you, the more time that interest gives you to convince them that you deserve their business. Capisce?
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Navigation: Again, this needs to be intuitive. You’ve got to consider what the user is looking for when they go somewhere. When you have a website that has subsections within sections within regions of a website, be considerate of the fact that while a visitor went directly to that subsection, chances are they’re still interested in all other things in that area. The key is to ensure that all of the content of a page is as related as can be. Links, content, features, all that. -
Browser compatibility: I hate this conversation. I mean, every bit of it. It causes even the most savvy of web devs to shed a tear. I know. But why are you complaining about making a site compatible for a browser that your client’s customers seem to love? Why is this an option? Why aren’t you accurately quoting your clients for the time it takes to deal with this issue? I mean, yeah, don’t waste your clients’ time and money, but shoot.. don’t waste yours either! It’s not like websites have to look the same in every browser.
Now, if this is your personal website, then by all means. Go for it. But the notion that you will no longer support IE6 because it’s old is absurd, in my less-than-humble opinion. The thing still dominates. Just accept it. Spend some time coming up with your own unique workarounds, and keep them in your toolbox. That should help lessen the amount of time you spend angry about a Microsoft product.
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Too spammy: This one kind of hurts my heart, but it makes me very thankful for my RSS reader. Some of my favorite websites fall victim to this. I know we all want to make money. It’s why we spent ungodly amounts of hours at our desks and laptops, scratching our heads and beating on our keyboards. But please, for the love of everything pixelated, find a more sophisticated manner of placing advertising on your website.
I shouldn’t have to scroll past two whole big 400px long adsense blocks to get to your content. I shouldn’t have a brand-new website – that I didn’t even click to view, mind you – load on top of the content I want to see, forcing me to click “skip to content” to actually view it. Say what? I have to tell you that I want to skip to the content… to actually view the content that brought me to your website in the first place? Is this kind of crap REALLY making that much money? Better question: are your customers and visitors SO loyal that they tolerate this kind of stuff just to view your content? If you’re not Forbes or ZShare, I’d think long and hard about that.
Now, this thing is telling me that I’m rounding out to almost 1000 words. Trust me, I’m a little angry about that myself. I will save the last five for the next installment, and hopefully they both will be helpful to someone out there who’s website kinda, sorta, probably… well, sucks.
If it makes you feel better, all my studying showed me that my website kinda sucks, too.
Categories: Inspiration • Organization • Web Browsers • Web Design
I do agree that all of your points are the bones of making good websites, and although I agree that not supporting IE6 is absurd, I do not agree that websites shouldn’t look the same across different browsers.
I know they can, but in my humble experience, clients expect them to be exactly the same because that’s what they’re used to. I’m not too sure that proposing different versions for different browsers is a good solution, the workaround library is still where I put my money.
Thanks for pointing these aspects out. You made triple check my upcoming website too see if it, well, you know, sucks.
Wow finally we can form a community and start the buzz about crappy websites! I mean how much does it hurt for me to browse the net and stumble upon these hideous archaic sites that really make the represented company look like they just came out of the mid ages of web design (when was that now? 1990?). Let’s spread the word so people will finaly realize that having a proper, visually compelling web presence is key to the success of your business.
Nicely put!
Good stuff! I like the website: http://dowebsitesneedtolookexactlythesameineverybrowser.com/
I have never seen that before.
@Alan: You are lucky to have clients who know that there is more than one browser.
OTOH I hope our web sites have an audience of more than just the client. That’s why I think Erika’s article is significant, anyway.
@Sari: The first web site went online in August 1991[1]. So 1990s were more like infancy.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee
#11. ) Websites with a tiny font that makes it incredibly hard to read the other 10 reasons why my website kinda sucks.
Thanks for the support, y’all!
@ Alan, the interesting thing – at least, in my mind – about browser compatibility and clients is that they rarely ask for it. It’s generally expected that the product that you deliver them is already automatically compatible across every platform because they don’t understand the problems with the box model… or the fact that IE6 can be a real pain in the you-know-what. So when you deliver a product and they get a customer complaint, the question will be why you didn’t make the website compatible for an important part of their market? In the end, it’s really about quality control for you.
@ Sari – It hurts me to the depths of my soul, as well. But just as David Walsh said, I do have to thank the web designer. LOL.
@ Vin – DoWebsitesNeed… is a great website – I learned about it in my .Net magazine from a few months back. It’s specifically coded to show differently in different websites, but the primary goal is that it makes it clear that one of the beauties of CSS and clever stylesheeting is that you can make the same primary point without having to strive to get exact looks in every browser. I think that’s important, so I’m glad it got through to you.
@ David – Thanks for the clarification… I would’ve had to make wikipedia my best friend to clear that up myself, so I appreciate that.
@ Urban – Hey, well I hope you cranked out your magnifying glass and enjoyed the post anyway. I would’ve loved to hear you say something with a little more substance.
Great article! I agree with you almost everything, except for the browser compatibility thing. I’m a bit torn on that with IE6 being the cause of so much frustration for web designers.
As a web designer you tend to focus on design, but all in all it’s about getting an image, an idea, the information, .. across. I don’t think it’s necessary do whatever it takes to make a website lokk the same in every browser.
When I talk to people who tend to use IE6 (haven’t come across those for two years), I go IE6 first. Other browsers are a peace of cake afterwards..
In all other cases I start with a REAL browser and when someone wants IE6 support I stess rthe fact that full IE6 experience is an extra. They pay it, they get it.
Totally agree on your IE6 perspective. From a business, a commercial site has to ask how many sales does it take to economically support IE6. Probably not that many sales. In fact, just bouncing people not only loses sales by slamming the door you would also lose every bit of goodwill and referral. Imagine if Threadless did that tomorrow! Bye bye threadless.
Even on blogs, to be honest. There’s a bit of luck involved in becoming a popular blog and sometimes people are arrogant enough to believe they are the feature – insert popstar, idol, moviestar. I’ve been bounced from a few blogs with this treatment in the past and all I can say is that they’d better get on DIGG with something very cool to get me back again.
IE6 is a developers issue. It should never be flicked back at the user as their problem. They have the cash / attention / feedback we’re all begging for.
Anyway, just provide IE6 with a slightly lesser but adequate experience. Andy Clarke’s site, or BBC.co.uk might be good examples. That differentiates quality from budget IMO. A craftsman cares about the user experience rather than the effort it takes to make the perfect corner joint.
Just my 2 cents.
Ill admit, I was in a rush so I could have gone more into depth. But here’s my take on the whole IE6 thing.
I attended An Event Apart a few months back in San Francisco. Dan Cederholm gave a demo on browser compatibility. He used a sample site he created called: http://icedorhot.com/
Apparently, it’s down now, but the idea was using css rounded corners via webkit and moz-border-radius. Certain elements made use of these properties while obviously, IE6 doesn’t. But did it look bad in IE6, 7, 8? No, not at all. The corners simply just squared off and it worked fine.
You’ll see where I’m going with this..
Now on to using IE6 for business purposes etc. As designers / developers we have the ability to promote a better environment for ourselves and users by abandoning IE6. But most of us don’t do it because of the whole web standards movement. The funny thing is, IE6 is not a standards compliant browser. I’m not saying IE7 or 8 are gifts from the heavens either…but they are indeed better.
Basically, I’m of the belief if it works in ie6 great! If not, don’t go out of your way if it’s going to harm deadlines. Instead, provide your users with a way to upgrade so we can all benefit.
I know this sounds horrible on my part and you may think I am crazy. But that’s my take
Haha, e-love your article! Well done.
I totally agree with it. Also the ie6 issue… I’m struggling with it almost every day… I’d love to stop supporting it but I don’t think it’s time yet. Although I’m being less precise with it nowadays. A site needs to be functional in ie6. When I can’t get some detail to work… deal with it…
one day…
@ Everyone – Thank you so much for speaking your minds! I keep trying to simplify a comment in response to you guys but I guess that I’m too long winded for all that. I’ll interrupt this discussion of why our websites suck to share my thoughts on this, lol.
You are so right about #ii – a website without an identity will fail to make an impact. Who wants to deal with a ‘website’? Though the internet is a virtual world, and we don’t really know the personal behind the screen, we formed perception and feeling about the site owner. If there’s no emotion involved, we won’t buy in to what he said. If there’s no buy-in, there’s no deal. We buy with emotion and justify with reasons … later.
You’re certainly free to hate the conversation about browser compatibility, but that doesn’t make the conversation pointless. When handled correctly, the conversation is often constructive.
My point was simply that you cannot compare an older browser that your clients may still be using /simply/ because it doesn’t compare to modern browsers (um, duh?) and your client can’t/won’t upgrade!
All in all, this is a pretty good list. Thanks for the link BTW!
There are a few things that, between the two posts, I’m aiming to expound upon, my opinion about browser compatibility being one of them (as I mentioned in an earlier comment.) So I hope you guys don’t think I’m being rude by not responding, just know that I want to go through it all without leaving a blog post-length comment in the comments of another blog post. LOL.
your site should look the same across all browsers, so that everyone gets the same experience. enforcing a better market for browser development and more choices for users. as a front-end guy, i truly cannot believe that you do not agree. its not that hard, once you get it down.
I agree on the skip to content issue.
@J Albert – As someone who does BOTH front-end and back-end I can assure you it’s not about “getting it down,” nor is it about everyone getting the “same” experience. It’s about making sure that everyone gets an effective and useful experience. Furthermore, to minimize that question to something like IE6 vs the world ignores all of the other issues that would prevent a website from rendering the same for each visitor. (Not saying you did, specifically, but it just needs to be said for the future.)
Things like JavaScript allowances, load times, CSS on/off, images on/off, varying operating systems and many more will keep a website from looking the same. The DoWebsitesNeed… link might only highlight the bit about CSS support in different browsers, but there’s a much larger issue at play there that we all need to be more open minded about. Including myself!
Oh, thank GOODNESS for http://dowebsitesneedtolookexactlythesameineverybrowser.com/ !