This week’s cooltopic:
Web Do's and Don'ts (cont'd)
Article by:The KROW   [Page 1] [Page 2] [Page 3]

Monkey See... Monkey Be!

"Whoa! You's callin' me a monkey?" Well, not exactly. But, that's what you might look like if you fall for some of the "Don'ts" in Officer Linkey's Book. So, why not spare the banana raid and follow these tips. That way, you are doing your part to rid the web of sites that are so bad they're a crime, and you are helping to make the Net a better place for all!

1.) Get Your Coordinates From Dispatch
Just as Officer Linkey starts his duties with instructions from Dispatch back at HQ, you too should start any new web site with a clear understanding of what your building and who will be looking at your sites. Most importantly, this issue covers the problem of scroll bars! You know scroll bars... they're like Monkey Bars in that you grab ahold of them and take them for a spin.

On a web page, the only scrolling you really should be doing is vertically (that's up and down for you civilian types). But, it never fails. You're cruising your favorite shopping site for the latest in surveillance equipment when you're suddenly thrown off course because the only way you can view the products is to scroll horizontally (left and right).

If you build a site which ends up with horizontal scroll bars, you're sure enough rigging an explosive device which will inevitably backfire because your viewers will go haywire trying to get the pages adjusted and readable!

So, just exactly how big do you make your pages? Well, you can always play it safe and build your pages in Fusion to about 600px wide by whatever (where the "whatever" is how ever long you allow the page to be... which is another point later on). The "pro" here is, no matter who is viewing your site, everyone will be able to see the entire width of the pages without having any horizontal scrolling to mess with. The "con" is that there isn't always a lot of room to put objects and content on a page that size... especially nowadays when pages are so loaded with information. In that case, find other ways to get plenty of content on your pages (i.e., use click-fired popups, etc).

Most often it's a safe bet to build your site at about 750 pixels wide. This covers the most "common denominator" of viewers' monitor settings out there, and alleviates the most worries of creating a horizontal scroll bar. There are other ways you can work around that nasty bottom bar and all of them are fine. The whole point here is... just make sure you don't have them on your site!

2.)Don't Fall For Party Tricks
Remember that time you and your buddies were out cruising the streets in your car? And, for excitement somebody pops up and tells you how “cool” it would be to spin a donut in the middle of the highway... at 70 miles an hour... during rush hour traffic... up a hill. Well, naturally you obliged because... well... it was cool, right?! Looking back now, do you recall what you got for your little stunt (other than maybe time in jail)? You got laughed at by the buds for getting caught, no one respected you or your cool “trick” because everyone else had done it last year and that made you look silly. And then you had to go back and rebuild your car!

Falling for web “party tricks” is just like pulling silly stunts you’ll look rediculous for later. In other words, what Officer Linkey is saying here is, just because the local newsgroup says something is cool, or you happen to see something on the web that’s being used on a lot of sites, doesn’t mean *you* need to do it on your site too (that’s worse than falling into a sting-operation even after you’ve seen all the clues)!

Web Party Tricks mostly include all those hokey little things you see on the web that most often come from snippets of code (like java). You cut and paste them into your site and the next thing you know.... awww.... how cute... look at the pretty white dots (supposed to be snow) floating down the screen. Officer Linkey caught our furry Webbie friend pulling that trick. He grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and said: “Dude! Your web site says your based in Florida!! What’s up with that?”

Oh... another good one... what about that good ol’ “Lake Affect” applet? How many times did *you* take a dive on that one?

Best thing to remember here is, don’t let this crime happen to you! There are hundreds of these little goodies out there. Sure, some of them are functional (sort of), but you need to remember that as the Webbie, you’re working to expound upon your “professionalism”. So, unless you’re selling snow blowers, maybe you can kill the falling white dots, even if it is a holiday season.

Now, if for some unknown reason you have a client who just insists his site is full of this kind of stuff, you might want to investigate his actual motives here! Most of the time you’ll find that all he’s really looking for is some sort of activity or functionality on his site. So, rather than gumming up the page with silly tricks, try suggesting some things like additional navigational aids, unique ways to display his images (the Thumbs Up component here at ccc is a great little tool and they love that stuff), and other things that give the user something to do!

3.) Lock Downs and Shake Downs

Isn’t surfing the whole point of the web? Surfing as in... you’re smoothly and consistently moving through web sites gathering the information you want along the way. Yeah. That’s surfing. Good stuff... UNTIL you get locked down into a site. You know how this goes... you hit a site and no matter how many times you click that “Back” button, you’re still there! Now, this is flat out the kind of trap that says, “Since our web site stinks, we’ll just lock you in here like a prisoner. That way, when the Boss sees our page stats, he’ll think everyone stays for a long time”. In the words of an infamous movie police-duo... “That’s pretty thin”!

There’s just no excuse for this kind of page behavior (and to a visitor, it borders on malicious)! Sites that do this type of thing in order to “keep” visitors need a serious dose of rehabilitation! Perhaps it would help them realize that rather than spend time creating rude functions on their pages, they should be investing that time in some better content on their sites. Then, they wouldn’t have to worry about visitors leaving too soon in the first place!

Cool KROW Clue

There are some “do’s” about web pages which should remain consistent throughout your entire site. Good examples of these would be contact information (or at least a link directly to a “contact us” type of page). Also, strive to keep your site’s look (design, nav, layout, etc) consistent. This is especially so when building a site for a company. That company’s logo (or at least their name) should be on every page of that site! Since these types of objects would be on every page of your site, and probably won’t change from page to page, save yourself loads of time and make good use of those Master Borders in your Fusion!

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