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Another Web design boo-booI had an email from a woman who wanted me to add her organization's Web site to one of our pages. I visited the site and found it puzzling. The site had a logo and an email link to the Webmaster, but nothing else. So I sent her a message back to let her know that she might have a problem. During the rest of the day, we exchanged a couple of emails until I received one from her that answered the question. She (or her Webmaster) had set up the main page so that menu bars would change colors when the cursor was over them. These menu bars were the only links to the rest of the site. Unfortunately, they had used full-tilt-boogey Java to enable this color change. Therein lies the problem. I normally have Java turned off on my browser for security reasons. Many experts recommend disabling Java unless you have a specific need for it. When I turned it on, the page appeared the way she had intended. I wrote her that, if she wanted to continue using Java to animate the menu bars, she should at least provide a text menu someplace on the page for people who either have Java disabled, or have browsers that don't support Java at all. While I don't consider myself to be an expert at the more nuts and bolts aspects of advanced page design, I do know that you can get mouse-over animation without implementing Java, which seems like overkill for such a minor effect. JavaScript will handle this job. What are the lessons to be learned? I do have to compliment this individual in that she took my message seriously and pursued the problem until it was resolved. If you have a customer who says that they can't access something on your page, or it does something weird on their browser, don't ignore it. Customers who can't access key content on your Web site are like customers who are locked out of your store. Avoid being fancy with your Web site, particularly when you first set it up. Try to make your site accessible to as many browsers as you can. If you're going to use a technology that is not universal, at least provide text options or alternate pages that still provide the content, even if they're not quite so sexy. I'm guessing that whoever designed this page got caught up in using the technology and forgot about making the page usable. I wouldn't be surprised if the word "cool" was used when discussing the design. Beware of getting carried away with Web design and ignoring the whole point, which is to get information to your clients, partners, vendors, and other constituents. If you pour too much technology into your page, or over-design it, all you're going to do is freeze out some of your visitors. And remember, they're visiting your site to get information or to buy something, not to marvel at your outstanding Web design skills.
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