Top Ten Don'ts of Usable Web Design
Published on the 29th of January 2006
Skip to the Table of Contents6. Do not require a specific web browser.
Nothing will tick a user off more than requiring them to open up an additional web browser just to view your website. Majority of these visitors will not even bother to do so. They will just find another website that is cross-browser compatible. There is no reason why any website should block or require a specific web browser.
As a good measure, your website should always work in the four major rendering engines - Presto, Gecko, KHTML, and Trident. (Read more about the different rendering engines.) Despite any browser statistics, you should always support at least these rendering engines. Try not to use the latest and greatest web technology if it is only supported in one web browser, as this will leave all of your other visitors empty handed.
If you cannot fully support a web browser, for whatever reasons, then make sure that your website is still accessible. This means that users can read and navigate your website, but maybe they will just not experience the full blow. It is best to make sure that your website peacefully degrades if a browser fails to support a specific technology you need. Separating the design, markup, and logic of your website is the most strategic method for doing this. For example, if a web browser fails to support CSS then at least your website is still accessible.
7. Do not use unreadable fonts.
Unreadable text is caused by many factors - font, size, and color. The fault is that many designers assume that everyone has the same browsing environment as him/her. You have to compensate for people with lower-resolution screens, bad eyesight, and older computers.
Web safe fonts are rather concrete in web design - Verdana, Arial, Georgia, and Times New Roman. Most computers will properly support these fonts. You should also offer alternative fonts for your website to fall back upon if the user's computer cannot render your primarily chosen font. For best compatibility with older systems, you should offer a font-family as the last font to default to - which will render if the browser cannot load any of the other specified fonts.
CSS
font: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;
Font size is another important factor that you should take into consideration. You should always use a font size that can be effectively resized by web browsers. To do so you should use the em font size scale. This will allow the user to enlarge and shrink the font size as he/she feels necessary.
Stay away from obscure and radical font coloring. It is best to stick with white or black text. The main focus of a web page - the content area - should be black text on a white background, or vice-versa. This will put less strain on your visitors' eyes.
8. Do not clout your website with unnecessary media.
How many times have you been irritated by a website's extravagant Flash banner? Or a massive Quicktime file? Media files can be overdone rather quickly. It is best to avoid using third-party media types - Flash, Quicktime, Windows Media Player, RealPlayer - unless it is crucial to your website.
First and foremost, media files are typically gigantic and significantly delay page load time. Most webmasters fail to optimize and compress their media for faster loading times. Not only are large media files a disadvantage for visitors, but for websites as well. These large media files skyrocket the monthly bandwidth usage of a website.
Another practice you should stray from is playing any form of sound on your web page without the user initializing it. Background music is one of the worst habits you can fall into if you want a usable website.
If you absolutely require media on your website, make sure that the user can easily opt out or that the file is small enough that it will make no notable difference for your visitors.
9. Do not support only one media type.
One fault of many websites is only optimizing for one media type, which is usually the typical computer monitor (screen). With today's growing usage of different devices to browse the Internet, it is vital to make sure that your website works in multiple media types.
You should always offer a printer-friendly version of your website, so that your visitors can print out hard-copies of your website without consuming three cartridges of ink. Printer friendly pages are easy to create with either a separate web page or by using a separate printer style sheet.
Today millions of people are using their hand-helds to browse the Internet. Therefore, you should always boast a hand-held version of your website (external link). This can be done through a separate style sheet, similar to the separate stylesheet for the print media type.
10. Do not use multiple windows for one website.
This conflict appeared when JavaScript first hit popularity. It quickly died when developers begin to carefully use JavaScript as an enhancement to a website, rather than for the core functionality. Still, many websites still practice the use of multiple windows. This creates a huge usability conflict as it is confusing for visitors to have to switch back-and-forth between windows to navigate a website.
Conclusively, there is no solution to this problem, just do not do it.
Summary
By following these ten simple steps you will have made great strives towards a more usable website.
