There is quite a bit that content owners (these are the people saying, “Put X on the site”) don’t know, which web developers (used in a very broad sense) often assume is common knowledge. This represents the difference in knowledge that developers have compared to normal users. In some cases, the users really should know these things; in other cases, it’s really beyond them. In all cases, web developers have to be careful when making any assumptions.
They don’t know…
- they can increase/decrease font size (by a means other than leaning closer to the monitor)
- it is acceptable to say “link” (rather than hyperlink, hot link, live link, etc.)
- “because I saw it on another site” is not a good reason for anything
- people don’t like to read
- everything needs a specific purpose (e.g., font colors, images, etc.)
- users ignore most pictures, especially when in the shape or position of a banner
- websites are often viewed far more frequently than publications, especially when the audience is younger
- typical marketting hype turns on the user’s skim mode
- they should talk about goals and let developers determine the means
- terms of use for a website is guaranteed to be one of the least viewed pages
- if a viewer (who isn’t affiliated with the site) finds something wrong on the site, s/he will most likely not report it
- text should rarely, if ever, be placed over a distracting background image (e.g., a soft gradient is fine, but a tree is not)
- uncontrollable animation is evil
- print designs rarely work online
- sites have to be tested for functionality and display in multiple browsers, so it’s rarely as simple as “just move it over a little”
- “flashy” is not synonymous with “better”
- creating new accounts is irritating (more so with some of the ridiculous password requirements out there…)
- the terms used in your business/field are not common knowledge
- changing requirements near the end of a project kills developers’ morale
- just because it can be done doesn’t mean it should be done
Sadly, all of these come from actual experiences. Feel free to add your own in a comment.
Ian,
In the opening paragraph, do you mean:
“the difference in knowledge that developers have compared to” content owners OR unaffiliated searchers — which ones are the “normal users” here.
Too much on one page slows the page’s coming up and also dilutes the value of searching for terms on that page.
Long paragraphs and no headings does not lead to viewer appreciation.
Robert
“Normal users” was sort of a mix of the two as the original focus was on users in general, but my pseudo-ranting started going more towards content owners, since they’ve been causing me headaches lately. As much as I can enjoy web development, I’m quite glad to leave it behind (as a job) in a month or so.
I wish the average person understood your final two thoughts. That’s the biggest problem I see: People thinking they can treat the web like some big magazine. People come to a site for specific information in most cases (and especially in the cases I’ve been working on) and they don’t want to read paragraphs and paragraphs, pages and pages of text. Headings, bold, lists, etc. all make the information easier to get to and skim for and that’s what the end users want.
You know what makes the information even easier to get to? Random tips. That change color. Maybe with a picture of a guy in a hat.
From what I hear, that works especially well when the random tips are often out of context for the particular page…
How about this:
“You know, I don’t like the idea of a web app. Let’s just change it to a regular windows application. You can reuse most of your code and just like change the interface to ‘application’ instead of ‘web’ right?”
Web app was written in PHP on a LAMP stack. Fun times!
Ouch, that’s a pretty terrible one. I try to use analogies to explain these kinds of things, but that one’s really pushing it.
Just imagine you decided to have a wood house built and when it was all done, it seemed perfect. Then you changed your mind and decided you wanted it to be a brick house. You can just ‘change the walls to “brick” instead of “wood” right?’