Recently I received a short, anonymous entry in my guestbook on Internet Tips and Secrets. It simply said "Change your colors". Short, to
point, and extraordinarily rude. I quickly deleted entry from my guestbook as it was not appropriate and did not fit well into context. I don't mind an occasional politely negative but helpful comment, but those which are stupid (as this one was) or blatantly abusive are not necessary.As I deleted guestbook entry I thought of gall of person who left it (besides cowardice of leaving a message with no return email address). This is my creation, my web site - who has right to tell me what colors or navigation scheme or for that matter, anything else (unsolicited).
I believe that many web sites (especially professional ones) have become exceptionally boring and uninteresting. They are cookie-cut from a common mold based upon "user testing". Perhaps you've seen these tests, perhaps not.
What they say is a person's eye wanders from upper left down to center of screen. So most important thing needs to be in upper left, and navigation should be down left. Colors need to be bland and uninteresting - black on white is best. And blah blah blah. Ho hum, it all looks same.
People are not created same. Every single one of us is an individual, with our own unique desires, needs, likes, dislikes, viewpoints, or whatever else you want to call it. Why should our web sites all be same?
Perhaps it makes sense in world of business for all web sites to look like Amazon or Yahoo, but if you widen your horizons does it really make sense anywhere else? Is your home page describing your personal life and your cat any better if it looks like someone else's site? Did that make it better somehow?
Are web sites really better if they include same collection of links? The same news headlines and same guestbook styles? The same bland colors, navigation bars in same place and a few select fonts? Is this good? Is this what we really want from web?
Even with your standard small business sites, do you really think that someone wants to surf to your site to find that it looks just like all other sites? Does this make them care about your product any more?
So what should you do when you create a web site? If you want to win most of awards offered by such places as "awardsites.com", then you probably want to create a bland site with perfect HTML, excellent navigation, pages that all match wonderfully and consistently from page to page. You want to spend your time making sure your site matches common idea of "good", and if you can do that you can win awards. Your site will look like any other site (bland and uninteresting), but you will win awards.
On other hand, if you are an individual with your own brain, your own artistic sense and your own strength of character and will, then perhaps you want to create something that YOU like, something that your visitors may also enjoy. Anyone can create a site that wins awards (it's actually very easy, just follow instructions in your coloring book and remember to draw perfectly within lines) - only a true artist or simply an individual can create a site which tells a story using their own interesting and unique style.
First and foremost, keep your end user in mind and make it work for them. In other words, make sure it works in their browsers, that they can navigate from place to place easily and, if you sell something, they can purchase it as easily as possible. You are indeed creating something that you would like to be understandable to other people, so be sure and make it understandable.
