The latest PC Magazine has a feature on making a "great web site." It
includes all the glitter and glamor that is unnecessary. I sent the
following e-mail to them:
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For a web site to be "great," it must:
1. First and foremost, be browser neutral, unless the owner of the site only
wants people who have a certain browser to access the site.
2. Load quickly. Unless the user is using the web in his/her
recreational time, time is valuable and twiddling your thumbs waiting for a
site to load is very, very, expensive.
3. Have substance, or very quickly give the user the choice between
substance and glitter/glamor. It is very frustrating waiting for a site to
load all its unnecessary graphic images and then the last thing to load is a
link for the site in "text only," which loads in a couple of seconds.
4. Have a *good* search engine! You know that a search engine is no good
when you go to an office supply site, such as Office Depot's, search for "fax
machine," or "answering machine," and be told that they could not find the
product.
5. Tone down its flashing, scrolling, spinning, advertising banners or give
the user the opportunity to turn them off before they even start.
www.modernsteel.com has sponsor banners that change every 10 seconds (scroll
and flash in the time they are visible) and no way to turn them off. Drives
me away from the site!
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I got one of their "thank you, we are always happy to hear our reader's
opinion" responses, but do not know if they will publish my comments.
Roger Turk
Tucson, Arizona USA
