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The top 5 dumbest things Web developers do today
The Web is certainly much different in 2007 than it was in 1997 when I created my first Web site. There were things back then that were really annoying (under construction .gifs, blinking text, and ugly frames)… I certainly contributed to the ugliness. But 2007 has its share of terrible Web practices too. That got me thinking: what bothers me the most about Web pages today? Here’s my top 5 list of the poorest things Web developers are doing in 2007. If you find some of your methods on this list, don’t get angry. Leave some comments and get the discussion going.
5. Use Microsoft FrontPage to make Web pages.
Why Developers Do It
At the risk of sounding pretentious, true developers don’t. But many beginners do, and how can you blame them? FrontPage comes with Microsoft Office, and, like most Microsoft software, pretty much beats you over the head until you use it. It reminds users of Microsoft Office products, so they feel comfortable creating their Web pages with something familiar.
Why It’s Dumb
Web sites created with Microsoft FrontPage are a real developer’s worst nightmare. For starters, the software creates all sorts of proprietary Microsoft code that is not valid and bulky. When pages don’t look quite right (and this happens often), viewing the source code to debug is virtually not an option. In fact, weeding through the bogus Microsoft HTML is enough to make eyes bleed. If you create a Web site using Frontpage, you are assured one thing and one thing only– your site will need to be completely revamped sometime in the future.
4. Create table-based Web designs instead of DIV-based layouts.
Most developers get a pass on this as good Web designers used to use tables and transparent .gifs to create professional designs. Any new development, however, needs to get with the program and use DIV-based layouts.
Why Developers Do It
They learned to create professional Web sites using tables (I would fit the bill on this one). They think CSS-based design is too hard to learn. They’ve heard from others (or keep telling themselves) that not all browsers will support a CSS-based layout.
Why It’s Dumb
Bulky page code. Accessibility issues– programs like JAWS don’t read the text sequentially, since the tables break up the order. Extremely difficult to maintain larger sites this way or make layout changes across many pages. A site positioned with tables takes more time to build and is more expensive and time consuming to maintain. Additionally, the lighter page code of a CSS-based layout offers many benefits.
3. Build completely Flash-based sites with no alternative.
Why Developers Do It
Simple answer is that it can look great. Visually, nothing on the Web can compete with a nicely-designed Flash site. The second answer is that the client has probably asked for it. Lastly, it can offer a level of interaction that even the best JavaScript-based application can’t compete with.
Why It’s Dumb
3 reasons. First, search engines don’t read Flash content. This means that a completely Flash-based site has a 0% chance of ever landing a visitor through a search engine like Google, Yahoo, or MSN. Not very good odds, especially considering successful sites pull about 80% of their visitors from search engines. Secondly, some users hate Flash or worse yet, don’t have it installed on their machine (this is still true for about 10% of users). Lastly, it’s harder to maintain. This leads to a) increased costs for clients and b) more expensive maintenance rates. Great if you’re a one-person development company. Not so great if you need to pay staff or freelancers to do the work.
2. Build sites using frames.
Why Developers Do It
This dumb practice is the only one on my top 5 that might have also been on the list 5-7 years ago. At this point, it’s probably because they aren’t aware of better alternatives that will achieve the same end result (includes files for scalability, scrolling divs for the visual effect, etc.).
Why It’s Dumb
Just like Flash, frames are an obstacle for getting a Web site indexed by search engines. This means less visitors, if any. It’s also a usability nightmare. Frames prevent users from easily bookmarking the page content they’re viewing. It also renders the browser’s “Back” button useless. Blah blah blah. If you’ve been around Web design for any amount of time, you’ve probably heard all of these. But people still do it!
And now, for the moment you’ve been waiting for….
The #1 dumbest thing I see in 2007…
1. JavaScript-based navigation systems.
This one has been growing in popularity over the years, as the dropdown menu has become somewhat of a standard in site navigation. The basic idea is that people want to have cool dropdown menus on their site, so they naturally peruse the Web for some code that does what they’re looking for. They find something they like, a menu with icons and animations, and drop that bad boy in their site. Problem solved.
Why Developers Do It
The most likely answer is that cross-browser dropdown menus are tricky to build. Instead of dealing with the inevitable cross-browser compatibility issues, an easier solution is to just find an app that has already addressed them. Building something like this from scratch would take some time. And most developers just don’t have an abundance of spare time. From a usability perspective, many developers (and clients) like dropdown menus because they allow for 1-click access to more pages on the site. If there’s one feature clients love, it’s a dropdown navigation menu.
Why It’s Dumb
This practice is incredibly dumb from an accessibility and marketing perspective. First, if a user has JavaScript disabled or is using a text-based browser, they can’t navigate the site. Better hope your homepage rocks since that’s the only thing they can see! With respect to marketing, search engine crawlers can’t read JavaScript. So they find your homepage, think it’s a dead end (since they can’t see any links pointing to your other pages) and promptly leave. As mentioned earlier, less pages indexed means less chances for referrals, and ultimately a Web site that doesn’t perform.
The good news: all of this can be easily avoided! Instead of a JavaScript-based menu, use a completely CSS-based menu (like the one used on this site) or a CSS/JavaScript combo that utilizes DIV tags to house your menu links. This way, users with JS disabled, text- based browsers, and search engine crawlers will be able to read the hyperlinks pointing to your other pages.
So there you have it. As Dwayne Wade says in the T-Mobile commercial, “My 5’s hot!” But I’m sure I’ve left off some good ones, so please feel free to submit your comments. And feel free to disagree.
5 Responses to “The top 5 dumbest things Web developers do today”
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April 1st, 2007 at 7:01 pm
Great article. However, some search engines can read flash (like Google), but they can’t figure out semanthics at all.
Furthermore, even though Google fetches the correct wording it can’t lead you to a specific page inside the Flash movie.
In other words, you are 100% right in your oppinion. :)
April 24th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
Good artical, I quite agree with what you say! Especially the one about learning CSS and making flash websites. I thought CSS would be hard to learn, but once I started it was so easy! :) Much eaiser than tables in my oppinion.
October 8th, 2007 at 5:05 am
Well, I used to make sites in tables and/or frames.
Tables were quite easy to make. To make layout etc… to maintain, it was okay for a small site I had.
And it didn’t have to be dynamic in layout because I wasn’t planning to change layout often ’cause I had a good one.
Now I’m learning DIV stuff and CSS things… Quite nice, less html code… but a lot of CSS code.
And totally not cross-browser. Always problems with one of the 3 I try (FireFox, IE, Opera).
But I don’t give up at the moment… I try to find the good CSS style to make it right for all browsers… Maybe impossible, but I don’t give up so fast. I hope it’s worth the time I spent.
Cheers!
Nice articles!
October 31st, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Agree,
Google and other search engines can easily read flash now. It is also very easy to spoof content to them as well (this is allowed by google and is not SEO dark magic). The worst part of flash is linking to individual pages. 99% of flash sites do not do this properly. How am i expected to make a page using a bookmark if the bookmark just sends me to the homepage.
December 24th, 2007 at 3:27 am
Very nice article, i really admitted that in developing site i prefer to tables but after i learn on css div are now the best and it’s faster to load rather than tables…