The moment you start working as a web designer or web developer, you're told 'do this' and 'don't do that'. Official and unofficial rules abound.
You soon internalise them and start passing them on to others, either consciously or subconsciously. But here's the bad news: not all of this advice is correct.
Some of these firmly held 'truths' are based on outdated assumptions, and some were just wrong to start with. It's time to take a step back and reassess some of the myths and misconceptions circulating in the world of web design.
With our sword of truth and shield of keen analysis, we'll begin to break the cycle of bad advice and free our minds from outmoded dogma.
We'll start at the very beginning of the design process, when you're investigating potential audiences. And our first myth is, in the words of standards guru Eric Meyer, "the idea that global browser statistics matter in the slightest". In fact, he points out, "What matters are the browsers visiting your site."
By way of illumination, Meyer notes that a recent client had 14 per cent IE 5.01 usage – so Microsoft's ancient browser suddenly became significantly more important than global statistics would otherwise suggest. But even when you're creating a totally new site, Meyer recommends consigning aggregate browser stats to history. "Develop in a standards oriented way, ensure a site's readable – if not beautiful – in older browsers, and be satisfied with a job well done," he advises.
The wrong path
When it comes to actually working on your site, one of the biggest and most oft-repeated myths is attractive in its simplicity: that no web page should ever be more than three clicks from the homepage.
Clearleft MD Andy Budd reckons it's nonsense, but can see how it came about. "It's an over simplification of the idea that navigational structure should be as simple and straightforward as possible," he explains. "That in itself is a good maxim, but to communicate this concept, somebody decided to set an explicit, entirely arbitrary number."
With the modern web, though, such a restriction is ludicrous and outdated, Budd contends. The number of clicks required to get to a specific piece of information depends on various things, including the breadth, depth and nature of the information, and user usage patterns. "However, the myth nonetheless clings on in the perception of many web design novices," he says.
Budd similarly decries the much-propagated 'rule' that navigation should only contain about seven items. Again, the empiric justification for this is paper-thin, he argues. "It came about because of research showing that people can typically hold only seven items within short-term memory. From this, a myth surfaced saying navigation should contain no more items than this magic number. But short-term memory has nothing to do with navigation menus, and so has no relevance to the number of items in your menu!"
The three-second rule
In fact, arbitrary numbers seem to be a theme of many widely held web design myths. For instance, there's the old chestnut that you've only three seconds to keep a user on your site.
"This is based on studies from around 2000 that showed how rapidly users made their minds up," explains Cajzer. "But users are now more sophisticated and experienced, meaning they're more relaxed when it comes to deciding if a site's worth exploring."
The prevalence of search has also changed habits, meaning there's a good chance most users visit a site looking for something specific. Rather than battering users with a barrage of components designed to grab attention, you're better off thinking about what your users want to find. More controversial is the whole subject of 'the fold'.
Designers often hear that users hate to scroll and therefore everything important should be placed above this 'magic' line. "This request often comes from clients, sometimes taking into account the lowest common denominator screen resolution, batting you back to 800x600," complains Kleber's Tom Muller. "This results in content being crammed into a small space, and a convoluted, confusing hierarchy of content."
But Muller argues that, while broadsheet newspapers may put important items above a literal fold, the web doesn't have the same fixed size restrictions, adding that modern sites like blogs have made users increasingly aware of scrolling almost by default. "Anyway, you wouldn't just read the top of a newspaper," he adds.
He recommends instead that you design website content that cascades down intelligently. "Lead the visitor down the page, and inform clients that scrolling is intrinsic to the medium," he advises.
So should the importance of the fold be classed as myth? Clearleft's Cennydd Bowles is not so sure. Although rigidly adhering to the fold is foolish, he says, it shouldn't be dismissed entirely.
"There's almost a myth of the myth of the fold," he argues. "Some designers use it to convince clients to accept a design, and, as such, it can be badly misused. We're talking about design principles like visual hierarchy, closure and figure-ground. These are as relevant as ever, and sometimes that does mean we should consider the top of the screen as a far higher priority than the bottom."
This advice is as much about usability than layout, which leads us nicely into another widely held and damaging myth – that usable sites are boring.
Your comments (6) Click to add a new comment
sabrina168
October 20th
6. As a whole, the article is good although there were some points or "myths" which should not have been included anymore. Still, I was able to learn some things about <a href="http://www.phoutsource.com">web design</a>. Thanks.
Alert a moderator
birdyman79
June 1st
5. @tbq
I know that to use scrolling on pages. That's not what I complained about. I just dont liked the stuff about the three second rule. What I have experienced that is something very important. When you say I have no experience, you are completly wrong. Those design rules are just best practises, which is made to not be always followed as someone pointed out. This article is still not made critical. Thats just the facts.
Alert a moderator
martynrevans
May 30th
4. It seems to me that this article is fairly light and not really one to get all hot under the collar about.
I enjoyed the read thanks and reckon it's central premise is that "rules", especially in such a new and ever changing medium, should always be questioned.
As someone who runs a company (Sumac UK) specialising in providing technical consultancy and delivery for creative agencies, I'm always amused by the developer vs designer debate. Different people bring different values, ideas, knowledge and skills to any project. Viva collaboration!
Alert a moderator
tbq
May 29th
3. @birdyman79:
I quote from the article:
"Although rigidly adhering to the fold is foolish, he says, it shouldn't be dismissed entirely." (The "fold" referring to what is visible when first arriving at the page).
And:
"Fortunately, Bowles says, the user experience field has matured substantially and usability is now seen as just one aspect of user experience, of which visual design is an important component. "There are thousands of exciting, engaging sites out there that are also easy to use. The next time someone tells you usability and attractive design don't mix, point them at the likes of Mint.com or Campaignmonitor.com."
The point that the article makes is that you really need to determine what is best for your application and your audience.
When you say "Never" and "Always" you assume that your situation always (pun intended) applies. That is very naive. There are very few absolutes in web and application design. There are plenty of guidelines and best practices, but they are mostly tied to certain scenarios.
If you are designing an interactive web app, scrolling is probably not a good choice. But if you are designing a web site that presents information, scrolling beats paging any day (again, in most cases).
Personally, whenever I have an option on a paging display page, I select the maximum number of entries on a page, and the I scroll though the results. Scrolling through 100 results on a single page is much faster than paging 10 times with 10 results per page.
The World Wide Web was "invented" in 1991. Before that, there was an Internet with e-mail, file transfer, and a few other protocols, but no HTTP/HTML, etc. That makes the entire field of web page design all of 18 years old. 9 years ago it was only 9 years old, so nobody had more than 9 years of experience. Add to this that the first 3-5 years consisted of a lot of trial and error, proprietary ISPs (AOL, CompuServe, ...) and the exponential growth of the web (pages designed, users, access speeds etc.), it should be clear to anyone that the collective knowledge of the field today is vastly superior to what it was 9 years ago, when some of these "rules" were established. Also, as the technology changes, rules become obsolete or their importance changes. Broadband access affects some design principles. Ajax and other refresh/update techniques introduce an alternative to scrolling and paging. Browser enhancements change what you can and cannot do - and how you should do those things.
Never say never.
BTW - a university degree doesn't make you a guru, just a university graduate. And there are plenty of those around. Pointing it out only shows that you don't have a lot of experience. Don't make your person the point of your post - make your argument convincing. Some of the most amazing developers I've met had their education in completely unrelated areas (including a Certified Wine Taster, Psychology, Philosophy) or lacked a formal education altogether.
Alert a moderator
simonova
May 29th
2. I have to agree with birdyman79 - most of these myths have never been hard and fast rules but just good practises to follow.
It's pretty obvious that web devs/designers haven't been following the 'myths' very closely anyway or most websites would look the same, so actually the myths have been busted long ago - if they existed at all.
Alert a moderator
birdyman79
May 29th
1. This article was the most stupid one i have read for many years. Some parts are good but not all. The guy that you are talking about don't use facts when doing the study.
I am working as a systems developer at a company in Sweden. I have a university degree, and know what I am speaking about.
We have increased our selling on our webpage due to usability designing. Is this a myth? Or are our customers lying to us when saying that our webpage is the best in our market?
Our customers HATE scrolling, it is one of the biggest problems that can occure on a site today. You should always minimize scolling, thats a rule that never ever should be broken. Where and what this study came from, i dont know. But i can asure you that it can't have been made correctly. People today dont know more about internet than for some years ago. We are running a E-commerce, the biggest risc we can take is to let the customes click a lot, that ASURE us that they DONT want to buy our products. Please read some facts before writing this stupid article. Its crazy.
Alert a moderator
Tell us what you think
You need to Log in or register to post comments