1. Poor graphic design ... I say it loud, this could be first reason your website sucks. One of my clients told me that more than 50% of his visitors remained on his website after he redesigned his 90’s website. Awesome effect.
2. Too much flash on your website - Too much flash is not good for your SEO and also slow down alot your website for most of users. It also takes some badwidth use it wisely !
3. Bad navigation - Your website must be very friendly to all the users. Make sure all your visitors could see all the sections easy without spending hours ;
4. Audio & videos which auto start - this scared me one time when I visited a website ( they add a radio link which started without my click - rock music ).
5. Site intros - I’ve never agreed with this. Why should I wait 30 second or more to get in a website I want to see. You really want a intro?
6. Excessive advertisements - My uncle is new to Internet and what he hates the most are the aggressive pop ups, banners, flash ads which sometimes takes the whole page for few seconds.
7. Browser compatibility - Check twice your website in all major browsers and apply for 1024 x 768 & 1280 x 1024 before you publish it. Browsers understand in different ways html/css code.
8. Orphan pages ( back button is missing ) - make sure your visitor could easily leave a page but remain in your website.
9. Slow loading sites - Either you use too much flash or heavy backgrounds and images , too much youtube videos or audio files auto started your website will take forever to load.
10. Outdated information - If I’ll enter a website and I see in latest news "Britney is still virgin!" and I open the tv and I found out that she has 2 kids I’ll never visit that website again.
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caffinephil posted this at 10:50—17th March 2008.
They have: 100 posts
Joined: Feb 2008
Point 1 for me is a great one. I've realised i'm not great at photoshop and paying for a graphic often improves my site 10x over.
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AyntRyte posted this at 14:06—17th March 2008.
He has: 145 posts
Joined: Jun 2004
11. Sites that mention Britney.
webwiz posted this at 05:42—18th March 2008.
He has: 275 posts
Joined: May 2007
Interesting that you consider graphics the number one issue. Arguably one of the most successful sites on the 'Net, Jakob Nielsen's useit.com gets millions of page views, and is cited extensively. No graphics. From this I would conclude that the number one requirement is good content.
As for #6 - tell your uncle to get a pop-up blocker, and the FlashBlock add-on for Firefox.
Apart from your choice for #1, I think this is good advice. Thanks for posting.
Cordially, David
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"Old web developers don't die, they degrade gracefully..."
Megan posted this at 13:36—18th March 2008.
She has: 9,941 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
I think the graphics question really depends on who your target audience is and what your topic is. I think there are some sites that have become popular despite poor design. Sites like ebay and useit.com were around long before good graphic design was done on the web. They became very successful and didn't need to change the design. I'd bet that if a competitor to ebay came along and was able to be succesful they'd be changing their design.
Irritating that Nielsen is blocking archive.org in his robots.txt!! Can't see how long that site has been like that. It's as long as I can remember which is at least 1999, if not earlier.
I also think that some sites have been able to get away with bad design because it is appropriate for them. Myspace is like that I think, and that dating site (something about a fish). People are attracted to the more casual, less designed look. It's got more of a hanging out in a friend's basement feel.
For many sites, though, design is important. If you're a business or an organization of any kind your design is going to be used to judge your level of professionalism. I was recently in a presentation where they talked about how "Content is king, but design trumps" (that's in the context of higher education but it applies elsehwere too). For me, the most important thing is that the design is appropriate for your site and your target audience. If your site is mostly about content then design isn't that important, but if it's about marketing or business then you do need to have something that looks good.
I'd still agree that good content is the #1 requirement
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Other reasons why your site sucks
I could go on here but I need to go back to work
Megan
My web design blog