
Beginner Web Design Mistakes - nickpettit
http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/beginner-web-design-mistakes-avoid
======
nhebb
> _Modals and Pop-Ups - You’ve seen this before. You click on a link to a news
> article or a blog post, and a gigantic modal pop-up window covers the
> content. This makes absolutely no sense._

The first thing that popped into my head was Twitter, when you click on
@someone and get a popup instead of just going to their full feed.

~~~
jeffmould
I actually kind of like that feature (if you can call it that). There are
times when I am scanning through the feed and I see something interesting
retweeted. I don't want to lose my place, but I am curious to see quickly who
the person is that initially made the tweet. The popup is a quick way to do
that without having to open another window or lose your place.

~~~
adamtj
That's what the back button is for. I will take you back to where you were
before you clicked a link, including scroll down the page to the correct
position.

~~~
Jare
Unfortunately, it doesn't work with infinite scroll pages or other stateful
types of sites.

~~~
csense
Infinite scrolling is another thing that should be avoided.

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onion2k
A 'sign up for our newsletter' modal pop-up when the user first arrives on a
website is not a 'beginner web design mistake' for one simple reason that even
websites made by beginners can't ignore: _They really work._ People sign up in
droves. Many people have tested it. It's annoying as hell, but the fact is
beginner website designers should learn to make effective websites that work
for businesses, not just pretty ones.

~~~
Turing_Machine
They work on clueless and naive people.

If that's the audience you're after, cool.

~~~
Iftheshoefits
That audience is some huge percentage of the internet userbase, because some
huge percentage of people are "clueless and naive." So people who want to just
make money off a widely read website would do well to do what works. Just like
how in the mobile gaming space irritating pay-to-play/in-app-purchase driven
"games" are the money makers, and people who make games in order to make a lot
of money should probably make a game like that.

~~~
Turing_Machine
Well, everyone has to make their own ethical choices.

Personally, I don't need the karma of annoying the customers, regardless of
how much it may seem to work in the short term. I mean, you might as well be
Zynga if you're going to do that.

No company survives in the long term by annoying and/or abusing their
customers.

~~~
PagingCraig
Don't be a drama queen. Just because you "think" something doesn't work
doesn't mean it doesn't at all.

~~~
Turing_Machine
I know it doesn't work with me.

Also, whether it "works" or not is completely orthogonal to whether it is
ethical. Reading: it matters.

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theschnabler
This article is a good example of content created only for the sake of SEO.

~~~
scottmagdalein
Not really. Treehouse is a learn-to-code training tool for beginners. A blog
post about typical beginner mistakes is pretty relevant to the Treehouse
audience.

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atacrawl
Definitely +1 for both "Thinking Too Far Outside the Box" and "Mysterious and
Complex Navigation." I experience way too much of each on a regular basis. A
message I try to drill home is "people don't come to websites to be wowed,
they come to either learn about something or buy something."

~~~
hfsktr
Just out of curiosity are there more options than that? I don't think I'd lump
Imgur or Tumblr into either of those categories.

Edit: entertainment. Thought of it on my own...

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gldalmaso
Web Design Mistake: maybe don't use a 794,03 KB image on the top of your
article?

~~~
Sprint
Web Design Mistake: Display no more than 9 lines of text to your visitors
because you managed to fill the rest of the screen with a persistent bar at
the top, a persistent SOSOCIAL bar on the side and your clickbait links on the
other side: [http://i.imgur.com/ruiBvN3.png](http://i.imgur.com/ruiBvN3.png)

~~~
benaiah
Yeah, cause a 480px vertical on a desktop design is completely relevant to
modern web development. /s

Protip: you don't _have_ to snark _every. single. article._ Lay off it
already.

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sutterbomb
Two of the five "mistakes" aren't always mistakes. Popups often work really
well, as pointed out in another comment by onion2k. Long-form sales pages
(i.e. walls of text) also really work in many contexts. Sure you want to
execute both of them well, but the basic ideas aren't necessarily mistakes.

Two others strike me as not really an issue or too vague to know whether it
was an issue. Do beginner web designers really never use any padding and just
cram everything next to each other, pixel by pixel? Can't say I've seen it.
And are they really thinking too far outside the box? What would this even
entail?

I'll give them navigation issue, but I can't say they offered much insight for
beginners to actually work from and improve their navigation.

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zachrose
If the page is for something I want to read, then a wall of text is perfect.

If the page is not something I want to read, then there should be less
writing, but also why are we having a disagreement about what's on your
webpage if I don't want to read your content in the first place?

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johnpark
If you're looking for a well-rounded education along these lines, two books
I'd recommend checking out are "Don't Make Me Think" and "The Non-Designer's
Design Book."

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at-fates-hands
"Every beginner web designer and developer has done this one (myself
included). They feel compelled to fill the page with interesting information
and stuff for people to look at and click on."

Great point.

When you design a site, you should already have a solid idea of where you're
trying to get a user to go and then use strategies to lead them there.
Overdoing the front page with buttons and modals and shiny things that move
doesn't help in that regard.

Probably the first and most valuable lesson in design.

~~~
ereckers
This works fine if you don't have a marketing team to answer to or a CEO who's
sister has just got 3/4 of the way through her JQuery class at JC and "has
some ideas".

Also, this blog post comes from the perspective of a single use website.
Treehouse, build a website. AirBNB, rent a pad, etc.. There are corporate
websites out there with multiples of sub-companies and 100s of different
product offerings all competing for space.

Putting up a full screen image and a button that says "Get Started!" is the
easy stuff and isn't what I would consider the definitive example of good web
design.

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pasbesoin
Interaction is no substitute for information.

\-- Me

~~~
buckbova
I agree. The fullscreen background image, 10 words, and call to action button
don't make me want to sign up for your product. If I can't find details about
your product within a few seconds, I'm gone.

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nollidge
I'll add "menu navigation that relies on mouseover".

