Eleven Design Mistakes Making your web page easier for your students to use Making your web page easier for your students to use FSI Applications II

Overview Many technical issues cause web sites not to work as well as we might want

Lack of Navigational Support Consistent navigation options are vital –Don’t depend on the “Back Button” –Watch out for “next” and “previous” Are there multiple ways into a document? They determine the look and feel of the site Try to follow established standards –Home page graphic links to home page –Use of “bread crumbs”or cascaded menus Consistent placement of navigational buttons

Non-Standard Link Colors One of the few “standards” on the net Provides users with an idea of where they have been If you must change them –Be consistent –Use a light/dark color combination –Consider VERY carefully before you do

Bleeding Edge Technology Users who encounter a single JavaScript error generally leave sites. How widely available is the plug-in? What browsers support the feature? –Have you tried to download a browser update lately over a 56k modem? Who is going to support the “end user” when there are problems? What are the bandwidth requirements?

Slow Download Times Be considerate of user bandwidth Avoid unnecessarily large media files Provide thumbnail links to large graphics if necessary Test pages on different connections –PageMill and FrontPage both provide you with download time estimates. Consider “hybrid” development People only patiently wait seconds

Orphan Pages Dead links, 404 errors, “linkrot” Causes terrible problems for novice users Requires diligence to avoid them –Programs available to assist you Linkbot, SiteManager (IIS), and MANY Others Put up only as large a site as you can manage.

Scrolling Text and Looping Animations Does it look like advertising? People are beginning to ignore it. Does place additional bandwidth requirements on the network Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Complex URL’s Good navigation tools can minimize this issue Logical directory and file naming structure helps

Scrolling pages Many users won’t scroll past first page Most important features should be available on first screen –Including navigation Structure pages for easy, quick reading –Lots of white space (tables can help) –800 words max Consider Anchors for very long documents

Frames Some have difficulty navigating in this structure Old browsers don’t handle them well Can cause printing problems Can cause bookmarking problems If you are going to use them, be consistent

No Consideration for the Visually Impaired Alt Text for all graphics Text captions for audio and video Make sure text is understandable without color Can the site be run without a mouse Try to avoid frames Consider a text only page option Run your pages through a screen reader

Reference Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design Top Ten Mistakes Revisited Three Years Later Auerback, Sarah (Jan, 1999) Site Unseen: Keeping blind students in mind will make you a better WBT designer, Inside Technology and Training