Do's and Don'ts of site design?

[Narasinha]

Narasinha dude!
How old is your computer? My site isn't for everyone I guess. Most of the people who go there have gaming systems. However I have an old IBM test computer that only has a 100 processor and 64 megs of ram and it's slow on everything but doesn't crash on my site, even if I dump the temporary internet files and it needs to reload everything. I defrag a lot, maybe that's the secret.

AMD K6-2 550/256MB RAM/Win98SE. I think the problem at the time was viewing in Opera browser. Opera uses the Netscape plugin for Flash instead of the IE plugin. I had about ten different browser tabs open at the time. My video sub-system sucks, which would account for Flash getting bogged down. Also, I was re-encoding an AVI into MPEG-2 for a SVCD in the background. Still, the site is much more resource-intensive than it should be. Some of that is Flash, some the animated cursor. The other dozen sites I had open were no problem.

[mikmik]

WEN =

Black text on a white background works great, but if you want to be remembered use a dark blue - as close to black as you can get.

Alright! I've always done that just for the minor chance that it looked slightly better and was 'different', but not to much. More memorable is na added bonus.
Question - I've also used dark maroon ie "#330000", and was wonerring if it has 'side effects'?

matauri wrote

6. Beware of copyrights! Content on the Internet is the same as any published intellectual work -- it is afforded copyright protection unless it's explicitly declared as public domain. There are hefty fines associated with breaching copyright, so before you go adding graphics, text content, music, etc., from another web site, be sure you obtain permission to use it.

I don't see what julian is talking about(re: music violation)? lol (o:

[matauri]

6. Beware of copyrights! Content on the Internet is the same as any published intellectual work -- it is afforded copyright protection unless it's explicitly declared as public domain. There are hefty fines associated with breaching copyright, so before you go adding graphics, text content, music, etc., from another web site, be sure you obtain permission to use it.

5. Quote - "If you must use music on your page..." - Addition: Unless you have written/performed the music remember you may well need a lisense and should pay royalties to have music on a commercial site.

I don't see what julian is talking about(re: music violation)? lol (o:

I'll beat Julian to it.......
I think he is talking not so much about copyright poaching from other websites, but also paying royalties for the use of it. A pretty fine line admittedly, but we love Julian for his fine lines ;-)



Cindy

[kneelsit]

Quote:- "most folks currently use a resolution of 800x600"

Sorry Syren-song but you are using out of date stats here. Most folks are using 1024 x 840 these days. I discovered this by putting up a free tracker just a few months back from 'extreme-dm' on one of my pages as an experiment. My old tracker used to show 800 x 600 but that was over a two year period.

Just thought I should mention this as there is so much rrapid change on the net.

[carju1]

I don't see what julian is talking about(re: music violation)? lol (o:

I'll beat Julian to it.......
I think he is talking not so much about copyright poaching from other websites, but also paying royalties for the use of it. A pretty fine line admittedly, but we love Julian for his fine lines ;-)

Nah nah n nah nah - See Mik, Cindy understood. (Oh boy Mik are you in trouble now, wriiten proof that a blonde understood my fine line and you didn't ;) yep lots of fine lines to love (mainly around the eyes)

The reason I added that one was I recently (OK sometime this year) read of a (I think German) group trying to sue a big European company for using its music on its web site and wanted x cents per site hit. It wasn't some random thing the company used (legittimatly I assume) the same music for tv adverts and were following up the tv campaign on the web.

It is also applicable to video. I was this spring involved in a situation where the client had paid thousands for the rights to shoot some (lets say sports) footage for promotional purposes. They were using it at shows and distributing highlights of it on video for promotion. I had added it to the intranet for them, which was OK, but we found out that it couldn't go onto the internet site (unless thay paid thousands more) as that would count as public performance.

Julian

[simonm]

People scan content top left to bottom right for an initial view.

Advertising banners appear at the top of web pages - are web users learning to (subliminaly ) not see the top of web pages?

Search engines show results as a list left aligned with relevancy from the top and reducing. Are web users being conditioned into a certain behaviour?

Google adwords being boxes right side of screen with potentially useful content might again be conditioning users - perhaps to look on that area of the screen, perhaps not?

I'm increasingly considering the above when both commissioning and doing my own design or modification. My site stats seem to indicate that is valid.

[carju1]

Simonm

Your correct on the ignoring the top of a page. I have noticed lately that when a page is loading I automatically move my mouse over to the bottom of the right hand scroll bar ready to click and bring the page down to 'lose' the banner. On some sites I use frequenty (Yahoo and *gulp" don't tell Brittany even WPW) I now automatically click for a scroll down the moment the page has part loaded and have my 'click' point and time down to perfection to remove only the top banner.

Julian

[simonm]

Julian

While reading your post, oh dear, there were my hands doing just what you were describing.

Scary or what!

Simon

[matauri]

On some sites I use frequenty (Yahoo and *gulp" don't tell Brittany even WPW) I now automatically click for a scroll down the moment the page has part loaded and have my 'click' point and time down to perfection to remove only the top banner.

I vote for Julian to tell Brittany ;-)

Yes..I do the same. If I really want to use the site as soon as I see a top banner I scroll. But I am prob more fussy that most when I surf, I will skip over a site that is advertizing rich for one that is content rich. This is especially so when they are animated banners, I just cant stand them.

I blame marketers who have force fed desciples that they have to carry such advertizing to get hits. I wish they would at least also teach people how to place them tastefully.



Cindy

[carju1]

I vote for Julian to tell Brittany ;-)

Makes note not be nice to Cindy anymore and extra note that if B finds out to make a new list in Mod forum called 'members to pick on' and to add Matauri as the no.1 candidate :0

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Google adwords being boxes right side of screen with potentially useful content might again be conditioning users - perhaps to look on that area of the screen, perhaps not?

Simonm - I just skimmed a few sites and I always looked left - right expecting navigation on the left but no preconcieved idea for the right. Looks like the google boxes haven't been there long enough for my brain functions to automate.

Cindy - to save you a post re above "I'm only a man so you can't expect my brain functions to catch on that quickly - not enough blood to go around"

Julian