Top Ten Web Design Mistakes for 2005
Jakob Nielson of the Nielson Norman group has released his Top Ten Web Design Mistakes for 2005. This year he had his readers vote for their top losers, yet the list is reminiscent of past years. Unfortunately, bad design seems to transcend time.
So drumroll please………..
1. Legibility (Bad fonts)
2. Non-standard Links (which ones are links?)
3. Flash (ouch)
4. Content that’s not written for the web (bad prose)
5. Bad search
6. Browser Incompatibility (some think IE is the only one)
7. Cumbersome Forms
8. No contact information
9. Frozen Layouts with Fixed Page Widths (pesky 640×480 users)
10. Inadequate Photo Enlargement (zooms that don’t zoom)
As usual, despite all the advances in technology, users still want the basics:
- text they can read;
- content that answers their questions;
- navigation and search that help them find what they want;
- short and simple forms (streamlined registration, checkout, and other workflow); and
- no bugs, typos, or corrupted data; no linkrot; no outdated content.
Not too uncommon to see designers spending obscene amounts of time trying add so many extra features to a site while they ignore the basics. The entire article can be found here.