This is the first in a series of 10 Things in 2010. It’s a short list of 10 things you can do to stand out in the dog-eat-dog world of web design, where — as everyone knows — anyone can be (and is) a web designer. </snark>.
1. Faster Response Time
Set the stage for a pleasant experience with a prospective client by returning phone calls or answering emails promptly, at least within 24 hours if not sooner. How you handle a prospective client sets the tone for his or her experience with you once money changes hands and may even be the deciding factor in your being hired above another design firm.
your web site. Ironically enough, it’s not a web page or even a plugin that inspired this post, but a FaceBook app. (Birthday Card, should you wonder.) I just won’t tolerate that behavior, it’s beyond sloppy coding and goes to bad manners. There’s no doubt in my mind that web designers (and FB programmers) who engage in this behavior probably not only pick their noses but likely also ingest the products of that nasal navigation. But I digress. Scandal said it best back in 1982:
1. Play loud, obnoxious heavy metal music on page load. Now, I am a child of the 80s, and my favorite bands include Great White, Guns N Roses, AC-DC and the like. But I might not be surfing from the comfort of my bedroom Imposing your musical tasts on me (or on my co-workers around me if I happen to be surfing from work) Is. Not. Cool. Period.
2. Hijack my browser’s back button or my mouse cursor. Those things belong to ME, not you. And especially with regard to the browser’s back button? Remember, some people might be using a text-reader or a handheld device. So you’ve just yanked the rug right out from under them with this stunt. Nice move.
3. Use absolute font sizes so that if I’m unlucky enough to be using a browser like IE6 (which I am forced to do while I’m at the office), I can’t zoom the text. I’d even forgive you if you provided a JavaScript based font resizing tool. But bottom line is CSS has been around a long time, and the web is not the printed page.
4. Fail to declare a background color (if your text/background scheme is something other than dark text on a light background). It renders your page illegible and me insane. Stop it, stop it right now. If you run your CSS through a validator (and you better be!), it will catch these kinds of errors. And as I said before, if you are using traditional dark text on a light background, you don’t have to worry about it so much. (But if you are anal, like me, and want your CSS to validate, you will anyway.) :)
5. Bombard me with pop-up ads and flyins. If I didn’t buy it before, that’s not going to make me whip my credit card out. It’s going to make me hunt for that back button. Oh, wait. You’ve disabled that! I’m always amazed at the places where I see such flyin ads. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the equivalent of a man forcing my head down, know what I mean? And THAT, guys (and girls) is NOT nice.
