by Michael Skinner

Created on: November 27, 2011

1) Design what you would want

When you are looking for something on the web what do you want?  You want to get to the information you actually asked for quickly with the fewest number of clicks and distractions possible.  Sure you’d like some entertaining graphics now and then but most of the time if you are really looking for something you want or need, less flash and more info is what you want.

So give that experience for your user.  Don’t make the user have to do a lot of clicking to get what he wants.  As much as possible make your site a one click experience.  Show the fuzzy kittens on the fuzzy kitten links.  Don’t go to an intermediate page where you store all your fuzzy animals and make the user search for fuzzy kittens somewhere on the page.

2) Avoid what you would not want

Do you want a lot of garish flashing, scrolling marquees with JavaScript pop-ups and warnings about certificates and possible insecurities?  Would you want to visit a page that keeps saying, delete your cookies if you want to see the content?  Not only no, but Hell No! So don’t do any of that stuff to your user.

3) Design with ADA in mind

Not everyone who visits your page will be able to see or hear what you have presented.  So study the Americans with Disabilities Act guidelines and design your page accordingly.   An example is:  make sure all your images have alternate text so that visually impaired people will know what it is you are trying to accomplish.

4) Feel the need for speed

A good web page downloads quickly.  Don’t have some many complicated objects and or tons of photos on your web page that it takes over a minute to load.  Don’t open up database connections or create objects before you need them.  There are exceptions to this rule of course. But most of the exceptions can be dealt with one of two ways. Either have the object or connection pools load unobtrusively in the background or have a splash screen that makes the user think something interesting is happening whilst your application finds its mind.

5) Trust but verify

To paraphrase President Reagan: Trust but verify.  However good your design  and your coding are, you must have some sort of quality review system that checks to see what happens if the user puts in the wrong input or uses a browser you weren’t expecting.   It’s not that you are supposed to be all things to all people but you certainly want to avoid being nothing to nobody.    Your application should not shut down for minor typing mistakes and your application should not take bad data and give bad results with a straight face.  Test your program for good data, bad data and unexpected data.  Make sure acceptable results happen for each of these cases.

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