[Sigia-l] seeking rules

[Scott, Josephine (J.S.)]

Sorry, I had a problem with my message.  Here's the rest:



Christina asked

Hey all, 
I'm seeking "rules of web design" that are absolute and erroneous in their
over-simplicity. Such as "users don't read" "users don't scroll" "Have only
seven links on a page" and so on.
Anyone have any of these (anecdotes not necessary, but always welcome for
entertainment value) 
thanks! 


christina wodtke 
http://www.boxesandarrows.com 

David Heller responded:




Christina here are a few of mine: 
1. Local Navigation should be on the left; Global Navigation should be on the top 
2. Links should be blue & underlined 
3. Animated gifs are bad 
4. Flash is bad 
5. Nested tables are bad 
6. Users won't wait for pages to download 
7. Users won't horizontally scroll 
8. Users max out their windows 
9. Users use web sites differently from GUI applications 
10. Keep it Simple 
Ok, that's all I can come up w/. Ziya is right w/ the Jakob site ... He's the man w/ the real list. 
--dave 

David Fiorito said

Some reactions - 
 
1.  Cool.  Looks good to me.
2.  I agree with that one too.
3.  Animated GIFs are bad.  They are annoying and basically useless.  I have
yet to see an animated GIF that added so much to a site that it could not be
replaced by a static image.
4.  I love flash but it still has a way to go before it becomes truly
useful.  Its still just a toy.
5.  They are bad - they take longer to render and make site maintenance a
pain in the ass.  Some times you need to use them but they should only be
used if nothing else will work.
6.  They don't unless they really want to see something very specific on the
page.
7.  Horizontal scrolling is bad because it represents lazy design unless
your site _only_ scrolls horizontally.
8.  Agree.
9.  They do - the Web is a medium of communication and is acquiring a set of
user expectations that are very different from GUI apps.
10.  Always keep it simple - as simple as possible to meet the goals and
expectations of the end user.


My response:

But Christina's asking for erroneously simple, since nothing in Web Design is truly absolute.  It seems she is asking not for rules that work but rules that are oversimplistic and therefore wrong.

Josephine Scott