Web Design / Netiquette Tips

Intro

I have decided to create this page for all website designers who are looking for general ideas, information and what not to do when building a website.
This article details my opinion of what is good, bad and downright ridiculous - please do not get offended by my opinions as they are worthless, and they are only my opinions after all - having said that, my opinions implemented into web design; do not cause visitors to be chased away, mean faster loading pages, X-browser/platform compatibility to keep everyone happy and easy to navigate pages.
That is pretty much all it takes, but I'm going to elaborate on those basic points to give you a clear understanding of what not to do.



First Impressions

Imagine you are browsing, you're at a search engine, or maybe another site - you are about to enter another site by clicking a link. What are you expecting at this point?
You are probably expecting to find what you're looking for, or hoping at the very least - at the moment I am assuming you are browsing with a purpose, perhaps you are just aimlessly browsing - it doesn't matter.
When you enter a site and you are hit with popups, pointless scripts and alerts, are you going to stay? When I come across a site like that, I leave, INSTANTLY. There is no way I would even attempt to navigate the site. Only in very rare, bizarre, or just unexplainable occasions would someone want to stay at a site like that. The majority of the time they will find another site to get the information they need.
The worst types of automated scripting you can put on your pages includes; asking visitors to bookmark, making homepage, and asking them to come back. When you go into a shop and buy a chocolate bar, eat it and hate it - do you buy another? If you eat it and love it - do you buy another?
If a visitor likes your site they will bookmark it, DO NOT WORRY - they know how, if you're not convinced everyone knows how then put a separate page up explaining how to do it and/or a script which automates it (but remember, there are more than one browser). The important thing is to NOT FORCE the visitor to do anything they haven't specifically requested.
Another thing which makes me leave a site instantly are alerts. "Welcome to my Site!", "Please bookmark this site so you can see the updates every week!" WTF??!! I don't care, let me out of here!!
Why make the user click 'OK' to completely useless alerts? Alerts are only acceptable when they are necessary, otherwise, leave them out. Your site will look far more professional and will be less annoying if you had a couple of text links on the first page saying "Welcome to Go Deeper..." or whatever.
It doesn't matter how you do it, just remember: DO NOT ADD UNNECESSARY AND ANNOYING SCRIPTS.
I am not going to go into too much detail regarding design, keep it simple, attractive, easy to navigate... oh, and make sure your colour scheme doesn't induce convulsions. No one will stay at your site if they can't read the information - red on bright pink is a no-no, light yellow on white is a no-no - just use your common sense. Can you read it? Use a forum to get other opinions on your chosen design. E-mail me and I'll give you my opinion.



Popups

I am really against popups - as you may have gathered; they are another way of trying to force the visitor to do something they have not specifically requested. Banners are OK, in moderation (stick with normal banners, not ones that include javascript etc.), if a user sees an ad that interests them they will take the necessary steps to track down that information - your job is to display this potentially useful information, make yourself a few pence and supply a visitor with something they are interested in. You do not have to force the user to visit the site by exploding it onto his/her screen, not allowing them to close it and creating havoc on their machine. What do you think they will do? Accept the new site forced upon them and browse it and eventually buy something they don't want? NO, that will not happen.
This brings us back to a main point - leave the user in control, the visitor must be able to do what s/he wants - it is not up to you as the web designer. You are merely making the information available.
DO NOT FORCE ANYTHING ON YOUR VISITORS.
If you are trying to make more money from advertising, link to sites in a manner that makes them appealing - and this isn't hard. If your site talks about carpets on one page - this is where you link to your carpet sponsor, this is where your visitors may be interested in carpets. Recommend the site yourself, with a text link and description - even banners are ignored a lot of the time.
And if you really insist on having popups, just have ONE. And NOT ON EVERY PAGE please. And if the visitor wishes to close the popup - make this easily possible, closing a popup means they are not interested - not that they really wanted two more similar options. So do not have popups that open upon closing another, popups that cannot be easily closed, full-screen popups, or just any popups really.



General Design

I'm not going to go on about this area too much, way too vast and too much to talk about.
Easy navigation is probably the key to successful websites, maybe I'm wrong about that, but when I arrive at a site I like to be able to move around freely, find what I want and leave - having bookmarked the site for future use. Keep your links visible, easy to use and easy to find. Popups make navigation impossible - leave them out.
Colour schemes will be a massive part in your design, the most important thing here is that the information is legible. Use your common sense.
Backgrounds should never be too happening, keep them simple and coordinated. And small. Picture this:
A page with white writing and a 150kb image to tile as a background - the image is a night-time skyscape with stars decorating it. The page loads, by default it has a white background (before the background image loads), so the user has to wait for the image to load before he can begin browsing the site (because you obviously can't read white on white).
Keep backgrounds simple - if your site fits the above example, you can adjust the bg to be black by default - then you could start browsing before the bg image has loaded - it is just easier to change backgrounds obviously. Isn't it?
Make your site for everyone, not just for MS IE users. A very small proportion of people online use browsers other than MSIE - but it is still vital that these people can view and navigate your site properly. Make your site for everyone.
Get rid of any unnecessary scripts on your site; mouse trailers, clocks, page transitions, dancing monkeys - you know - anything that is not needed for the site to function. You want useless scripts? Have a useless scripts section on your site, I do here - on my code section I can put any crappy script I want without affecting the rest of the site. Unnecessary scripts means longer loading, clutter (causing harder navigation) and more chance that your site will not be for everyone (as some platforms/browsers will not interpret them).
No Right Click. Just leave the browser functions alone, unless absolutely necessary - for example, if you don't want a user to press 'Enter' to submit a form because you have an 'onclick' function attached to it, then disabling 'Enter' on that page is acceptable. But disabling right click so that people cannot steal your crappy Mickey Mouse clock script is a waste of time - do people really find your scripts so special? do you think they won't be able to get them if they really wanted to? Remember, there are other common tasks, other than view-source, included in the context menu - right click is supposed to save a user trouble, make life easier, save time etcetera - LEAVE IT ALONE! The user has to be in control, after all, it's his/her machine - not yours, so don't try and take control of it.
You must embrace the open source environment on the Net, GIVE people your coding - be flattered when they use it, be pleasantly surprised when you get a hit from a site linking to you because they have used your work.



Spelling

Don't make spelling errors, unless it is the deliberate style of your site or supposed to be amusing - spelling errors are annoying, they make documents hard to read and look unprofessional - and even if you're not trying to look professional, spelling errors are still just annoying and pointless. And use punctuation as well.
Spelling errors have no use, and they may affect your hits from search engines (in a bad way).



Last Impressions

The visitor has had a look round your site; enjoyed it, hated it - doesn't matter - they want to leave now. Let them please! An Internetter doesn't forget his hat when he walks out the door for God's sake! Alerts and popups that come up when leaving a site are just the final straw, don't force a user to do anything. If they want to leave, they are going to - and if they didn't mean to, they will come back - don't panic.
If a site has been thoroughly enjoyable to browse, informative, and well designed - don't ruin it by annoying your visitors at the end of their session on your site. You would have completely blown it, everything wasted.

Remember: Leave the Internetter in control, don't force anything upon your visitors, eliminate useless scripting, make sure you can read and navigate your own site, let the user leave at his own will.