What constitutes a good web page?

[seramai]

This is an assignment I have been given.

I like the Google web page because it is clean and simple.

I thought, however, that you could provide some more objective criteria.

Thank you,

Seramai

[Deviant Ollam]

Re: What constitutes a good web page?

how "good" a web page can be said to be is often directly related to the site's function. is it just an informational site like the yellow pages or a political candidate's web page (both of which could be said to have very different functions really... since one is designed to help you find information and the other is designed to convey specifically crafted information but maybe mask or distract from other information) or is it related to commerce?

if it's a site selling something, does the business exist only in cyberspace or are there any brick and mortar stores, as well? (i raise this point simply because of the fact that this is one of my immutable rules of web design... if you are a company with retail outlets then your web site must have a link somewhere at the immediate top of the page saying "locate a store" or some such function.)

ultimately, however, i think that many people will tell you that a site is good if...

1. the site has some degree of uniform look and feel (not a bunch of links at normal size in Tahoma font followed by some other links of similar purpose but in +1 size Times font)

2. the site makes good use of the browser window (keeping vertical scrolling to some degree of a minimum and eliminating the need for horizontal scrolling entirely)

3. doesn't use garish or stupid color schemes (how easy is it on the eyes)

4. and (this is less of a concern in the modern era of broadband) loads quickly.

i would also put down another one of Deviant's Rules of Web Design...

"no web page should ever start playing any sort of sound, noise, music, or other animated content the moment it loads. it should only play such items if the user clearly clicks on a "play" button and then the "stop" button should be equally accessible and operate immediately."

[Voltage Spike]

Re: What constitutes a good web page?

Deviant's rules are pretty good(*), but his first is the best: it depends on what the page is meant to do!

(*) Especially concerning sound. I no longer frequent a local music venue partly due to the fact that they insist on playing a looped, 5-second riff on their page that you can't turn off. It demonstrates an utter lack of respect for your customer even if it did sound "cool" at the design meeting.

There have been quite a few books written on the topic of design and presentation, and you may wish to look into an expert's opinion. Being a tech board, we are probably more inclined to give you technical advice (on layout, rendering on small devices, etc.) than art advice.

That being said, and without any formal training, I'd suggest:

• Make your page as simple as possible, but no simpler!
• In this day and age of cheap LCDs, it is easy to forget that not everyone has crisp, color-perfect displays (or great eyesite). Find an old CRT, possibly with dirt on the screen, and check your page with that.
• Negative space is your friend.
• Provide a searchable interface for your content and decent navigation. They serve two different agendas for viewers.
• Figure out what the viewers want and make it the most prominent item on the page. (I can't for the life of me figure out the current fashion of retail outlets making the Weekly Ad and Store Locator links as small and out-of-the-way as possible, nor why listing store hours is the exception and not the rule.)

That's just off the top of my head. If you provide more detail about the type of page you are writing, then we may be able to find an excellent example for you to copy.

[xor]

Re: What constitutes a good web page?

On the lighter side I personally like mine.

xor

Ps I'm not a very creative person in the web sense. More of a nuts and bolts kind of person. I'm truly and often amazed though at how talented some people are when it comes to web design.; like our Neil.

[YenTheFirst]

Re: What constitutes a good web page?

Standards compliant, and not 'broken'

I've been to quite a few websites where some floating element or other blocks out half the text, rendering it unusable.

If you use firefox, try viewing sites with 'view->page style->none'.
I find that a lot of well-designed sites are usable, and usable WELL, even with all that CSS turned off.
When turning off CSS, see how the text is rearranged. Is it still in a sensible order? or not?

some concrete examples:
good:
google.com - it's practically identical with and without the CSS.
xor's website
xkcd.com - good, simple design, degrades well. Functionally, it includes a very useful search, which has transcripts of comics - a useful but lacking feature in many web-based comics

not so good:
slashdot.org - very cluttered front page. User preferences are difficult to configure, and not self explanatory. Threaded comment system is a plus, though.
ebay - pretty crowded.
myspace - bad design, most pages lack a sense of purpose, completely broken.

the defcon forums have a pretty good layout, it's fairly standard and accepted. The color scheme sometimes causes problems for me, depending on lighting, and how high my laptop's backlight is.
The 'new posts' indicator can often be difficult to differentiate in low-light situations. (yellow vs. grey)

[Voltage Spike]

Re: What constitutes a good web page?

myspace - bad design, most pages lack a sense of purpose, completely broken.

Oh, it almost goes without saying that MySpace pages tend to be excellent examples of what not to do. I would assume that the original poster knows that black text over a background of a crowded stadium (i.e., unreadable), 6 songs and 2 videos starting up on page load, a broken table causing three pages of blank content and two screens of horizontal scrolling, and no clear organization for the little bit of useful content is not the way to go. Who are all these people that think it's cute that I have to highlight the page text in order to read it?

Grumble, grumble, get off my lawn, grumble, everybody has value, grumble, table-based layouts, grumble...

[xor]

Re: What constitutes a good web page?

Oh, it almost goes without saying that MySpace pages tend to be excellent examples of what not to do. I would assume that the original poster knows that black text over a background of a crowded stadium (i.e., unreadable), 6 songs and 2 videos starting up on page load, a broken table causing three pages of blank content and two screens of horizontal scrolling, and no clear organization for the little bit of useful content is not the way to go. Who are all these people that think it's cute that I have to highlight the page text in order to read it?

Grumble, grumble, get off my lawn, grumble, everybody has value, grumble, table-based layouts, grumble...

You mean trying to use all 256 shades of black isn't cool.

xor

[Voltage Spike]

Re: What constitutes a good web page?

You mean trying to use all 256 shades of black isn't cool.

Except for Nigel Tufnel's page: "It's like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black."

While I'm here, I'd like to add that drop-down menus are also quite frustrating. Half of the time I see them the menu goes away as the pointer travels between elements (mouseoff triggers on the wrong element?). If you include them, and I'm not saying you shouldn't, I should be able to click on the menu itself and not be forced to hunt down a specific item.

It looks like we've lost the original poster here, though.

[streaker69]

Re: What constitutes a good web page?

Web designers on large corporate sites need to stop attempting to quantify their own existence by changing the entire layout every other week. Probably like many here, I visit lots of corporate sites for technical issues, and it's really frustrating when the site changes on what seems like a daily basis.

I've had to select my country settings on the same sites over and over again because they change the format and neglect to keep the same cookies.

[Deviant Ollam]

Re: What constitutes a good web page?

Web designers on large corporate sites need to stop attempting to quantify their own existence by changing the entire layout every other week.

This

oh my holy fucknuts how annoying is that?

[Thorn]

Re: What constitutes a good web page?

Web designers on large corporate sites need to stop attempting to quantify their own existence by changing the entire layout every other week. Probably like many here, I visit lots of corporate sites for technical issues, and it's really frustrating when the site changes on what seems like a daily basis.

HP seems to be the worst example of that. Every freakin' time I go there for a print driver for a client, the entire layout is different.

[streaker69]

Re: What constitutes a good web page?

HP seems to be the worst example of that. Every freakin' time I go there for a print driver for a client, the entire layout is different.

Ding Ding Ding, we have a Weiner. That's exactly who I had in mind. Linksys is another big one, along with Dell.

[Thorn]

Re: What constitutes a good web page?

<rant ON>
And another thing: Flash. I hate Flash. Hate it, hate it, hate it. Michael Dell's web designers should be hung by their nuts for requiring Flash to run, just so you can search for a driver for one of their crappy machines. What is so wrong with a simple text box and a "Search" button?
<rant OFF>

[streaker69]

Re: What constitutes a good web page?

<rant ON>
What is so wrong with a simple text box and a "Search" button?
<rant OFF>

Because not everyone can be as 'innovative' as Google.

[xor]

Re: What constitutes a good web page?

<rant ON>
And another thing: Flash. I hate Flash. Hate it, hate it, hate it. Michael Dell's web designers should be hung by their nuts for requiring Flash to run, just so you can search for a driver for one of their crappy machines. What is so wrong with a simple text box and a "Search" button?
<rant OFF>

Site map is good for circumventing flash enabled sites.

Of course I could rant about the lack of 64 bit support for flash. But it's getting a little better.

xor