This is important if you're selling something.
Some sites let you select the country you live in from an option menu with several hundred entries. This requires lots of manual dexterity, and on most Unixes (I don't remember how it is under Windows and Mac) the cascaded menus will appear on top of each other when reaching the right border of the screen.
Why is that a problem? Because the "more" item at the bottom usually will appear at the same place as the "more" item in the next cascade, thus popping up all the cascades which exists!
Instead you could use a list box, where one can scroll down to the appropriate section. Or let people write in plain text the country, and then checking that against probable matches, and then presenting the probable matches on the next page.
Add 'ALT' tags to ALL your images. If there is no alternative text that makes sense, use alt="" - this will help text-only browsers more than you will believe.Don't use 'ALT' text like 'GIF image, 14Kb'. It's no help to anyone.
-- Bruce Coker, September 12, 1999
Don't require your users to download a plugin unless they are strongly committed to using your site (otherwise they will realize what a hassle it is and leave) and unless you really can't provide that functionality without the plugin. Most plugins are a drag to download over a slow connection, may ask the user to reboot their machine, may crash the browser, may crash the OS and are only easily available for Windows and MacOS.
-- Lucas Gonze, September 19, 1999
Eliminate all Java applets unless you really, really, really have a need for it/them. Nothing infuriates me more (well, a few things do) than to spend ten minutes trying to start a page's Java applet, possible crashing my browser and CPU (especially since the big two browser's Java implementation on Mac's is less than ideal right now) only to find it's for a chintzy little scrolling message image that says something timely like "Dewey Defeats Truman."
-- phil gavenda, November 20, 1999
Don't use Java for navigation menus
Nothing ticks me off more then to have to wait for the stupid java application to download just to go where I want. That is unless the java applet crashes, or just plain doesn't run because they didn't bother to test it. You you absolutely have menus with that "hover" effect, use JavaScript (so I can disable it on my side).
-- Derek Dysart, December 7, 1999
I had mentioned an excellent external free site-search program for people who don't run their own servers. The limit is 5,000 pages (vs others' 500 pages). This one has NO ads and it even offers boolean searches and other advanced options. I have no idea why they do this. Also, it doesn't use javascript and is faster.
It's Texis, at Thunderstone, and their webpage for that is here.Since the time I found and wrote about them, I've come across www.atomz.com which indexes only up to 500 pages but which has an advanced option that's easier for users and which also indexes results of cgi runs.
It doesn't do boolean searches but sort of emulates them in a limited way which is easy-to-use. Results are much more detailed, showing you context for each page.
Also it lets you re-index your site at anytime while Thunderstone Texis' is allowed only 8 hours apart. I've decided to keep the atomz.com one on my umbrella site, at the top of my page for those curious what it is like. - Andrys
-- Andrys Basten, May 8, 2000
90% of users work on a 14" monitor. Always try to work to the resolution of a smaller monitor.
-- AARON DAVIS, September 6, 2000
In addition to the many useful tips here, I'd like to suggest that most pages should have a "first presented" or "last updated" date.Some pages should have both. This can be in some "cheap" real-estate - maybe near the footer.
While reading your site, I was surprised to find references to the new Netscape 1.1 browser, for example. I just graduated from using the 6.0 version to Mozilla.
Particularly, with advice and howto pages, I really value a quick hint at how current the data is likely to be. I don't necessarily depart old pages, I just make sense of them more quickly.
-- Robert Mackie, October 8, 2001
Be military-friendlyMilitary members often have addresses that are part of the military post office system. They usually look like this:
Name
Street address
APO, AE 12345
where "APO" is the "city" (really stands for "Army Post Office"), and "AE" is the "state" (can be anything, this, I think (not sure), is Europe).
-- Jeremiah Moss, December 11, 2002
As you are emphasing on broken links, I would like to tell about Dead Links, a link cheker spider I've developed. Hope you like it.
-- Mario Carbonell, January 18, 2004
One of the most prevalent mistakes that I see in website design lies in the area of navigation and user-friendliness. Some tips on navigation: - Make sure that wherever your visitor is in your site, they can get to any other area - Make sure they know where they are!! If you have a deep site with lots of internal pages, I suggest placing a "You are Here" ICON with a path back to the top. This is sometimes known as "Breadcrumb navigation" - Readability. I sometimes see heroic graphical feats in navigation buttons, but ... bummer I can't read them .. or they are so loud and distracting that I can't concentrate on page content. - Be honest about your content. Don't mislead a visitor into going to a page on your site and disappoint them with content unrelated to the link text.
-- Outdoor Decor, March 20, 2004
The most frequently-asked questions are noted, and in many cases ANSWERS ARE GIVEN! (contributed by George Girton)