Squandering bits since 2003

Nielsen’s Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2005

Via Alt1040 I see that Jakob Nielsen has published his Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2005 . Here is a summary:

  1. Legibility problems: small fonts, low contrast.
  2. Non-standard links: not underlined links, no difference between visited and not visited links, JavaScript, links opening in new windows.
  3. Flash.
  4. Content that’s not written for the Web: not short and ’scannable’ enough.
  5. Bad search.
  6. Browser incompatibility.
  7. Cumbersome forms.
  8. No contact information.
  9. Frozen layouts with fixed page widths.
  10. Inadequate photo enlargement.

Let’s see how does this blog do against this list.

  1. The fonts look big enough to me, but they could be perhaps a bit bigger. The contrast is ok.
  2. My links are not underlined, and I don’t differentiate between visited and not visited links.
  3. There is no Flash here.
  4. Hopefully the posts are short and readable enough. I am constantly working on this.
  5. The Search box is the one that comes with Wordpress seems to work ok. No one is using it, though, according to my logs.
  6. I tested this site with IE and Firefox. Hopefully it looks ok in Safari and other browsers as well.
  7. No forms to fill here.
  8. My e-mail and some info about me can be found in the About me page.
  9. All the column widths are fixed.
  10. There are no photo enlargement options.

It seems that I should work a bit on the CSS and make the links more usable, and perhaps enlarge the font. Changing the layout to liquid will be more complicated, because of the large header image. Perhaps I should skip the header image altogether.

October 4, 2005   Filed under: internet, navel-gazing, usability  

4 comments

1 Matt Whyndham { 10.13.05 at 10:49 }

You hardly need a liquid layout as it’s a well-tempered width. The header image is beautiful, keep!

2 ana { 10.13.05 at 19:17 }

Glad that you like it, Matt. :-) Thanks for your comment!

3 Andreas { 10.14.05 at 12:38 }

Hmm, lets see…

1. I agree, the text size could be 1px bigger. Perhaps you can offer two or three different font sizes. Many governmental sites have that now, the same with the contrast (e.g. http://www.forsakringskassan.se). I think it is even a EU regulation to offer that. :-)

2. Here I disagree with Jakob. Having the links in a different colour is working as perfect as having them underlined. And having them not underlined gives a much better readability.

Different colours for visited links is a good idea.

I like external links opening in a new windows to not loose the visitor who perhaps wants to continue reading my page after looking at the external link.

4. The length of your entries is good. But some more illustration would be nice.

9. No problem to even fix the top picture for liquid layout since it is fading into a single colour. I know how to do that with tables, but unfortunately not how to with CSS.

Anyhow, maybe this helps: You add a new table in the cell where the picture is (width 100%). The table has two cells, left for the picture (align left and width of the picture), right filled with the single colours and width 100%. In this way, the right cell will always “fill” the liquid layout with the single colour.

Keep on blogging! :-D

4 ana { 10.14.05 at 14:41 }

Interesting suggestion about the top header. I think I can think of a way of making it semi-liquid, but I am not sure if I can make the columns liquid as well. I will definitely have to think about it.

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