Pavel's Place - Computer room

Some ideas about the Web design

This section is adressed to either unexperienced or advanced Web designers who are concerned about readability and acvcessabilty of their pages.

Fact no.1:: There are still people who use old 486 PCs with old browsers like Netscape2.0.
Fact no.2: Most of the Web users have limited bandwidth and do not use technologies like ISDN or SMDS because they have no access to these (the reason might be geographical restrictions or the cost).
Fact no.3: There are people (me included) who use latest versions of browsers and disable their Java capabilities on purpose, because Java applets written by beginners with mighty ego often get Web users' computers down.
Fact no.4: Usually people don't like the idea of getting one or more unexpected new browser windows by clicking on a link.
Fact No.5

So, how do we avoid such problems and make our pages more readable and accessible? Here are some tips:

Place at the beginning a short brief describing the most important things you thing you have on your site. Ususally 20-30 seconds after you pages have been rendered, an average user will leave it if he/she doesn't find what he/she has been looking for.
Avoid spelling and punctuation mistakes! Beleive me, it's very important to be treated as a serious person. One can't be that priveleged if he/she doesn't proove he/she graduated from the highschool. In addition, there are people who doesn't come from English-speaking countries (like myself:). They can misunderstand your text if it contains spelling mistakes.
Make your pages easy. At least, at the beginning. By overloading your page by heavy graphics, Jave applets, advertisement banners you prevent from the common public to access your material. Here are common features that can cause to a very long downloading time and still might not look allright. Here are some things that are in many cases cause some serious headache:
- Animated GIFs - can affect computer's performance in terms of speed.
- Java applets and Javascript - not only slow down user's computer, but also can stuck it in some infinite loop or something like that. If you do use these features, warn the user! Of course, double check your scripts. If you use somebody else's script, don't do it until you understand what it does and how it works!
- Tables - it takes a long time to download long ones. Until then, you can't see parts of it which have been downloaded already, because your browser don't know how to render them. Fortunately, HTML4.0 gives authors new tools to control tables. Still, be careful.
- Music and video - any kind of multimedia 'weights' lots of KBs. Except that, nat all the people have all the necessary plug-ins to represent it, and it shouldn't be their problem. Give people the control on music, they could use it not only when they don't need it, but also when the music sucks.
- Frames - if you are using these, warn the user! Even advanced browsers often can not handle frames. Think again: do you really need them?
- And, of course, advertisement banners, link rings/exchanges and other spam - while they don't carry any informative load, they can completely overcome any information that you do have on your pages. Personally, I gave up even on the 'Link Exchange', because I realised it doesn't bring anything to my site.
- Don't forget image maps, especially server-side ones. Although practically nobody uses server-side imagemaps at the present, some authors may find that the idea is nice. Well, it doesn't work.
...Wow, that was a lot! But remember: most old and some of the new browsers don't support most of these things. So, here are further recomendations how to use this stuff and still remain a technological snob:
Always warn users about advanced features you use and give them the possibility to avoid such possibly unpleasant for them meetings by, for example, writing two versions of the same page.
Always check your pages representation and scripts on several different browsers, including the old ones. It's not very nice of you to wright down messages like: "This page is best viewed with the *(%$)@+^& 4" or "use 800x600 resolution or better".
Use standart HTML. It had already happened before that largest software companies that produce Web browsers introduced new HTML elements, and W3C had no choice but to accept them in updated HTML drafts (it happened to
```
<FRAMESET>
```
element). It affects the readability of the Web data for users who use browsers that don't support such elements.
Think twice before you design the page if it really needs some advanced stuff. Don't let your ego rule your site. You can do it by yourself!

The Gromozeka Berloga - Computer room

Some ideas about the Web design

The Linklist.

Common computer stuff:

Hardware:

Software/Downloads:

Hacking:

This one is for regular Web users:

And this is for Web resources developers:

This page has been visited times since May, 23th, 1998.

The Gromozeka Berloga - Computer room

Some ideas about the Web design

The Linklist.

Common computer stuff:

Hardware:

Software/Downloads:

Hacking:

This one is for regular Web users:

And this is for Web resources developers:

This page has been visited times since May, 23th, 1998. lastmod = document.lastModified lastmoddate = Date.parse(lastmod) if (lastmoddate == 0) { document.writeln("Last modification date is unknown!!!") } else { document.writeln("Last updated: " + lastmod) }

This page has been visited times since May, 23th, 1998.