website.qxd  4/9/2003  11:52 AM  Page 20

Website Development & Hosting

a

it  breaks  the  conventions  of  the  web  when  clicking  on  blue  underlined  text  spawns  an

email message instead of activating a hypertext link to a new page. 

14. Lack of Archives

Old information is often good information and can be useful to readers. Even when new

information is more valuable than old information, there is almost always some value to the old

stuff, and it is very cheap to keep it online. Estimates show that having archives may add about

10% to the cost of running a site but increase its usefulness by about 50%. 

15. Moving Pages to New URLs

Anytime a page moves, you break any incoming links from other sites. Avoid hurting the people

who send you free customer referrals by clear notification of the new URL and, where possible,

incorporate an automatic redirect at the old site. 

16. Headlines that Make No Sense Out of Context

Headlines and other micro-content must be written differently for the web than for old media: they

are actionable items that should help users navigate. 

Headlines are often removed from the context of the full page and used in tables of content (e.g.,

homepages or category pages) and in search engine results. In either case, the writing needs to be

very plain and meet two goals:

a

tell users what is at the other end of the link with no guesswork required 

a

protect users from following the link if they would not be interested in the destination page

(so no teasers   they may work once or twice to drive up traffic, but in the long run they

will make users abandon the site and reduce its credibility) 

17. Jumping at the Latest Internet Buzzword

Although it is a good idea (depending on the site s mission and objectives) to have community,

chat, free email, 3D sitemaps, auctions etc, these are by no means magic bullets. Most Internet

buzzwords have some substance and might bring small benefits to those few websites that can use

them appropriately. Most of the time however, implementing the latest buzzword may hurt most

websites. The opportunity cost is high from focusing attention on a fad instead of spending the

time, money, and management bandwidth on improving basic customer service and usability. 

18. Slow Server Response Times

Slow response times are the worst offender against web usability: in a survey evaluating how many

companies are able to attain  the 10-second response time , major sites had an 84% violation

score. Bloated graphic design was the original offender in response time. Some sites still have too

many graphics or too big graphics; or they use applets where plain or Dynamic HTML would have

done the trick. 

Copyright  NESIS 2002

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