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Practical Web Design - Fundamentals of Web Design
Poor Spelling and Language Usage
Bad grammar and spelling is a perennial problem for even the most sophisticated sites. If you can't spell a word or parse a sentence correctly, draft someone who can and have them go over your page with a fine-toothed comb. Don't trust any spell-checker to do the job for you; this is one area that requires the human touch.
Again, considering your audience is paramount. Some audiences like heavy use of slang and deliberately misspelled words. Other audiences are receptive to more casual use of the language. If you're going to deliberately use "bad" grammar and spelling, then know what level of language you're aiming for, and use it properly. The most egregrious example I can think of is for, say, a professor of medieval literature to try to whip out a site for fans of gangsta rap music. The rap mavens will know the prof isn't down wid dat, and go elsewhere to find a site that rings true.
If you can't walk the walk, then don't talk the talk. Stick to what you know, and err on the side of proper grammar.
The "Wall of Text"
If your site features a lot of copy, don't intimidate your visitors with the notorious "wall of text." Half the reason I don't read Dostoevsky is because I don't want to deal with page after page of text unbroken by even a single indent. Break up those blocks with line spaces, bulleted lists, subheadings -- anything that gives the reader's eye a rest.
Remember, you're writing for the Web, not print. Most of your visitors won't sit in their chairs and read through every word on your page; rather, they scan what's there, looking for something that interests them. Your text should be "scannable," which means breaking up the text blocks with some of the above features, as well as other tips such as keeping paragraphs short and based around one single idea, using the "inverted pyramid" style of information presentation (i.e. starting the paragraph with the conclusion), keeping word counts short, and avoiding "marketese" whenever possible.
Meaningful File Names
Use meaningful file names. "Page2.html" means nothing to the site visitor, while "web_fundamentals.html" means a great deal.
ALT Tags for Graphics
Use descriptive ALT tags for every graphic you employ. These tags not only keep those with graphics turned off involved, they also can display before the graphic loads, letting the visitor know what the graphic is that they're waiting for.
Turning off IE 6's Automatic Graphics Toolbar
Internet Explorer 6.0 for Windows displays a little toolbar at the top of any large image when you hover your mouse over it. The toolbar gives options to save, email, and print the image, along with quick access to the user's "My Pictures" folder. A lot of surfers and Web designers don't like this toolbar. Lucky for us it's easy to disable by the use of a simple META tag. Just add the following META tag inside the <HEAD> tag of the page to turn off the image toolbar, like so:
<meta http-equiv="imagetoolbar" content="no" />
This tag disables the toolbar for every image on the page. If you'd rather disable it for a specific graphic image, use the galleryimg attribute for the IMG tag instead, like so:
<img src="myPic.gif" galleryimg="no" />
Quite a few savvy IE users disable this feature in their Preferences, so don't plan on it being available to them. And the rest of us don't have it at all, so don't make any design choices with this toolbar's availability in mind.
Custom Error Pages
A nifty trick that is under-utilized is to provide the visitor with a custom "Error 404" page. If they click on a link to a part of your site that is down, or mistype the URL, or make any of a hundred possible errors, then instead of getting the generic "error" page as generated by their browser, they get a personalized error page. Often these customized "404" pages provide the user with:
- possible reasons why they got the error (i.e. typing .html at the end of the URL when your pages all end with .htm),
- a search field for the user to find the content he or she was hunting for,
- a link to email the Webmaster or a form to report the broken link, and most importantly,
- a link back to the main page to give the visitor something to do besides click the Back button or simply bail out.
Customized error pages are good places to soothe your errant visitor with a little humor or reassurance as well.
All in all, customized error pages are a nice touch, and provide your visitor with an often-unexpected bit of customer service. You'll probably need to talk to your Web host about letting you host a customized error page, unless you have access to the server. Visit Area 404 for information on customized error pages, along with some entertaining examples from other sites.