Julie R. Neidlinger: Lone Prairie Art and Writing

Web pages that suck: How to make a bad web page. (Part 2)

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Our last post talked about avoiding bad web pages and some cautionary design considerations to look out for. If you insist on creating a bad web page anyway, this post will tell you exactly what you need to do to drive your customers and readers away in droves.

Center everything on your page.
Make your page so wide that your visitors have to scroll horizontally to read everything. (Though this is tricky since you can't control the settings on your visitor's computer.)
Tell your visitors how your web site is best viewed, expecting them to change their computer's settings each time they visit your site.
Pack your site with high resolution images and lots of sound files or other slow-loading gimmicks so your visitors have to sit for a week for your page to fully load. You can even help them out by flashing a "loading" graphic so they know they have to wait.
Have irritating or severly busy background imagery and/or music.
Use lots of different colored fonts, and lots of different fonts.
Set up confusing navigation that isn't standard throughout the entire site.
Have each page look different from all the others because its more fun to do lots of different designs even though it may confuse your visitors into wondering if they are still on your original site.
Use lots of java scripts, cursor trails, animated gifs, scrolling text boxes, cookies, blinking text links, page transitions and flash anything.
Use lots of horizontal dividers because you think they work great as an organizing tool.
Make bottomless pages that scroll forever and have no "back to top" links.
Forget about the concepts of value and tone when using color, and put bright red text on bright blue backgrounds so your visitor's hearts stop right there and they die while trying to read from your wite.

Think about it.

If you are an artist, and your website is ugly, your customer is going to think "This has to be the world's worst site, and hence, this must be a terrible artist." Though this connection would seem obvious, you would not believe how many times I've gone to the website of an artist and found it so awful that I am appalled and think "Gee, of all people, you'd think artists would have a sense of design...." and then I move onto another site.

Remember:

People on the web don't have patience (won't wait more than 15 seconds for a page to download).
People on the web are easily distracted (one hyperlink away from leaving you behind)
People on the web have become jaded (gimmicks no longer cool, just immensely irritating unless your visitor is a 13 year old boy).
People on the web are sophisticated (they know what a good site looks like and will not tolerate your rainbow font and "America the Beautiful" background music while trying to take you seriously as an artist).

Your goal isn't to anger and turn away your viewer! Convince them before they've even seen your work that, just by looking at your site, you are an artist and writer to be reckoned with.

Unless, of course, you really want to make a bad site. Then go to it. Because hey. I could use a good laugh.

::Part 3: What, in the name of all that is good and holy, does an artist or writer need on their site?::