Web Design Disaster

If there are award-winning web design endeavors, there is also a list of miserable failures. Actually, there's probably more information on the world's worst web design than the world's best ones. We can't exactly blame these web designers though. Creating designs in an extremely volatile channel like the internet is no easy feat. The genius you came up with today may be outdated tomorrow. If you think you did something cool today, there's a chance that someone will be introducing a new concept everyone would be jumping on and you'd be left with a design that nobody would buy.

So right now, as we speak, what makes a Web Design Disaster?

Let's take for example havenworks. Who hasn't mentioned havenworks when talking about web design disasters? Anyway what makes havenworks a disaster? At first glance you'd understand why it is such. I also find it funny that because of all the bad rep havenworks is getting, it has now risen to Google PR 5.

Havenworks website

The basics of the basics: Readability.

Visitors should be able to read what you have put up in there. If they click your link and could not understand half of what you're saying, they won't waste their time trying to decode you. Apart from the incredibly small column with squeezed in text, the blue links surrounding the content hurts the eyes and stunts the comprehension.

If you fail in Readability, you must be extremely lucky to get visitors to come back. Or you must have something really important and relevant to their interests.

I came across some basic guidelines on web design that may prove useful to some of you.

1. Thou shalt not abuse Flash.

Adobe's (ADBE) popular Web animation technology powers everything from the much-vaunted Nike (NKE) Plus Web site for running diehards to many humdrum banner advertisements. But the technology can easily be abused—excessive, extemporaneous animations confuse usability and bog down users' Web browsers.

2. Thou shalt not hide content.

Advertisements may be necessary for a site's continued existence, but usability researchers say pop-ups and full-page ads that obscure content hurt functionality—and test a reader's willingness to revisit. Elective banners—that expand or play audio when a user clicks on them—are much less intrusive.

3. Thou shalt not clutter.

The Web may be the greatest archive of all time, but sites that lack a coherent structure make it impossible to wade through information. Amazon.com (AMZN) and others put their sites' information hierarchy at the top of their list of design priorities.

... Read the rest here: Business Week