simonyoungwriters.com

That’s one of the findings of the recent Technorati study that asked people why and how they blog. The biggest answer to the “why” question was to “gain visibility as an expert in my field”.

Some very interesting answers to the other questions here.

posted by Simon Young 11:36 AM, 4 October 2005 NZDTThe best of the worst are out – worst web design mistakes, that is. The full list is here, but here’s my summary:

1. Legibility problems – fonts too small or a fixed size.
2. Non-standard links. Links should look like links. IMHO the worst problem is underlined words that aren’t links. Confusing.
3. Flash. “Flash should not be used to jazz up a page. If your content is boring, rewrite text to make it more compelling and hire a professional photographer to shoot better photos. Don’t make your pages move. It doesn’t increase users’ attention, it drives them away.” Preach it, brother!
4. Content that’s not written for the web. But who’s going to spend the time repurposing content for a website? Hi, I’m Simon. I do that sort of stuff.
5. Bad search. A technical problem that’s becoming more important.
6. Browser incompatibility. There was a brief window where just about everyone was using Internet Explorer, but now Firefox is really popular, plus a few others. Don’t shut us “other” users out!
7. Cumbersome forms. Nielsen recommends using an application if you need to get lots and lots of information. He also points out one of my biggest bugbears, US sites that require you enter a US Zip code and State – even if it’s an international offer. I hate having to say I’m from Wyoming just because I can’t say “Outside US”
8. No contact information or other company info. Nuff said. It’s pretty simple, just look at the left hand sidebar on this site. Nothing too strenuous.
9. Frozen layouts with fixed page widths. Well, I can’t argue with the research, and I’ve chosen to make this site variable width, but I meet a lot of people who argue convincingly for a nice 700-wide border, centred. Looks nice, tidy and professional. But, as Nielsen points out, you’ll end up horizontal scrolling if you want to have two browser windows open next to each other. Designer’s answer: get two screens!
10. Inadequate photo enlargement. Interesting! Especially pertinent to ecommerce, where people want to replicate as closely as possible the experience of picking up the product in the shop. Trademe does this pretty well; individual ecommerce operators need to do this well too.

It’s good to see a list like this, even though much of it is familiar from past years. Sometimes when I meet a designer or client who wants, say, a Flash intro, I forget that not everyone knows this stuff; some people are still stuck in the 90s.

I could be biased and say it’s all about the words, but mostly it’s about the customer. Just so happens that the customer is largely guided by words, rather than images, animations or suchlike.