Ten Commandments of Website Design

Written by Mary Finn

Bad web design is a sin. If you want your website to have a prayer, follow the Ten Commandments of Website Design.

1) I, Microsoft Explorer am not thy god. Thou shalt remember Firefox, Chrome, Safari and other browsers besides me. Explorer has not been the only game in town for a while. A good chunk of your market prefers Mozilla Firefox for its built-in security protocols, Chrome for its speed or Apple's Safari just because they like Apple. Don't alienate your customers. Check your work before release. Make sure it displays properly in all common browsers.

2) Thou shalt not impose thy musical taste on thy audience. Perhaps your customer is discretely viewing the browser at work, prefers a different style of music or has a blazing headache. Don't have your music start every time your viewer opens a page. Instead, use plug-ins that let your customer choose whether to listen at all.

3) Thou shalt respect the boundaries of the written page—no horizontal scrolling. Vertical scrolling is okay, but don't expect customers to read text that bleeds right off the edge of the page.

4) Thou shalt not trigger thy customer's migraines, eyestrain, epilepsy or any other infirmities of thy customer. Flickering text can do that. Be careful when you use Flash.

5) Thou shalt not steal another's copyrighted work nor shall thou add unwanted scripts or spyware to thy customer's computer lest thou be cast out.

6) Thou shalt not be a stranger-- be sure thy website contains an order form or contact form.

7) Thou shalt not make thy customer's PC run very slowly. When designing your site you may need to use image files or other information rich formats. Make sure the finished images are compressed as much as possible to speed execution. Try JPEG.

8) Thou shalt use Web safe colors. This goes back to my earlier point about browsers. To avoid surprises choose your colours from the more limited Web Safe pallet. This will assure consistent rendering regardless of which browsers you choose.

9) Thou shalt not be mistaken for a kidnapper. Remember, your customer has to read what you write. Weird fonts, poor contrast between print and background, tiny fonts and other desecrations of basic typography assure they will move on to another site.

10) Thou shalt not abandon thy customer in the desert. When you add links to other sites, make sure that they appear as additional tabs when the customer opens them. If your links lead him off your site, he may never return.

Tags: design, tips, tutorial, web, website

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Brian Evans on February 12, 2010 at 19:46

Item 4 is correct,I see so many websites with flashing text and we design for people who suffer with epilepsy.
The first thing they always tell me is please no flashing text or banners just easy read pages.

Permalink Reply by Chris Davis on February 12, 2010 at 20:22

First post in this community from me for a while, and once again I have to say thanks Harvey for finding some of the best articles on the web and bringing them right here to Compila Exchange - I agree completely with everything contained within that list, most of which (without wanting to sound like a clever clogs) I would have thought was pretty obvious but you'd be surprised how many websites ignore them.

The only one I will confess to is that for years, my music club's website, www.willowsfolkclub.org, was only ever tested in Internet Explorer, back in the days when it was designed first in Microsoft FrontPage and then in Serif WebPlus. Back then I had absolutely no idea that different web browsers would display my content differently - it was only when I started to really understand and study website design (and when I got into hand coding the pages I build) that I began to realise the importance of testing in other browsers. So, item #1 on that list is a very good place to start!

Best wishes,

Chris

Permalink Reply by Delicate Touch, Liz Napier on February 12, 2010 at 21:41

Not been in for a while Harvey, due to losing a loved one, but this is very funny but hits home! Some very good tips for me! You're doing a grand job teaching us newbies tricks, tips and how to make our websites better! Thou should considerist thyself truly thanked! Liz

Permalink Reply by Harvey Raybould on February 13, 2010 at 9:03

Hi Everyone,

Thank you for your comments. I am truly happy that everyone is developing their skills as web designers and learning from the content on CompilaExchange. Brian, you are absolutely correct, flashing text, banners etc can be a real problem for some web users.

Chris, as you mention it is becoming more and more important to test in different browsers, especially as IE's near monopoly on the market is no longer. If only all of the companies complied fully to the standards.

Liz, I am sorry to hear that you have lost a loved one, best wishes for you for the future, from everyone at Compila.

Regards

Harvey

Permalink Reply by Lesley Pyke on April 20, 2010 at 13:58

I absolutely agree with those commandments/ rules.
I wish I had more time to spend on this forum, it is most informative. My experiences could not be more basic, I keep my website up to date on SUCH an old program that I have only been shown the basics of, the rest being trial and error (with lots of error) . I have been using , and still am, Dreamweaver 4!!! I am trying to learn Serif WebPlus X4 so that I can completely rebuild it and show good looking galleries and slideshows. I find the whole website thing so fascinating and exciting, just wish I had more time to devote to it.
I have always been with Compila and have found them most helpful.
THanks guys
Les (who needs another lifetime)

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