ephoenix

We’ve all come across those little annoyances in websites; those small details that make the difference between a good site and a great one. As a web developer I’ve learned a lot from my mistakes and ones I’ve observed. Over the years I have come to identify several mistakes many web designers and developers commonly make and what you can to do fix them to help you improve your own site.

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1. Making entirely flash websites. This one should be a no-brainer by now. Flash should never be used to create entire sites unless you are just showing off your design skills and don’t care if your site is usable.

Flash takes a long time to load, takes up time for effects, and it breaks the back button as well as several other browser features. Flash should only be used for interactive elements such as games, demonstrations, videos, etc. Flash used for effects should only be used when necessary, and should never delay access to navigation or content.

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2. Using strange methods to track variables. I actually found a site the other day that kept track of users’ movements and all site variables using session variables. Yes, no GET or POST variables, ALL session variables. This had an annoying side effect of not being able to browse the site in more than one window or tab at a time, or the site would get confused. Editing more than one item at a time resulted in one of them overwriting the other one because of cross-referenced ID variables. I bet this was a really cool idea in theory, and probably required lots of fancy and complicated code to achieve, but it was incredibly detrimental to the function of the site.

Other sites send users to different pages by using POST variables. Overuse of post variables is very annoying because it affects the back button and the user’s history. Using POST variables should be limited to user input forms. POST variables should NEVER be used for accessing information, or as a replacement for links. Stick to the basics: link to pages using links, access information with GET, collect information with POST, and ONLY store user IDs or other similar stable tracking information in session variables.

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