1. Violating Convention
Designers who go against convention on the web are trying to ski up hill. Its a no-go and Steve Krug’s book “Don’t Make Me Think” makes it pretty clear why. Users have an internal model of how a site should be with a rough idea of what a navigation bar looks like, where it goes, how it flows. Same goes for any other part of a site.
Have you ever noticed that shops, department stores and supermarkets will often put their “Branch Locator” in one of just a few places? Convention! There’s a time to follow it and a time to break from it.
2. Opening New Browser Windows
Everyone seems to be guilty of this and its an oldy but it sticks around because people won’t let go of the whole new browser window. Remember: If a user wanted a new window they can get one. @helping’ them out will often do no more than irritate.
3. What is It?
If a website can’t answer that simple question in less than a second it’s losing the battle. People don’t consider a site for minutes or even seconds at a time. Its less than a second and if the user needs to think - they’ll likely get irritaed and move on. Make it clear what you’re about!
4. Ads
Unless its how your site operates then get rid of the ads - people rarely like being sold to and the more intrusive the ads are the worse off you’ll be.
5. Heavy Text
People don’t like reading on a monitor and so they’re unlikely to want to trawl through great tracts of your latest novella online. If you need to write a lot then add images, break up text with sub-headings, etc. Make it mor elike a magazine and people will be more inclined to read it.
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