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Is your site ready to go? The Surfer from Hell runs you through the most important checklist you should pay attention to before launching you new Web site. So, your new Web site is ready to go, and it has taken a few weeks of hard work to get it to the stage where you’re ready to FTP it to your server. You run through your checklist one last time: Text You know that dark text on a black background is easily readable, as is very light text on a dark background. You wanted your site to be different from everyone else’s, but everybody else knows that yellow text on white is not readable, so you’ve decided to fit in with what everybody knows is right. Yours is black text on a white background, and you haven’t flooded your pages with a background picture. You’ve selected a maximum of two fonts – one for headlines, and another for body text and sub-heads - and you’ve made sure that there’s an adequate border of white space between the text and the side of the page/browser/sidebars. You’ve also made sure that the body text is of a readable size – not too small and fiddly, yet not too big and “in your face”. Your sub-heads, although they stand out, possibly because they’re a different colour that fits in with your scheme, are not too different in size. Your paragraphs aren’t too long – or too short – and don’t have too much space between them, either. All in all, your text looks good, and you’ve done a good job. Well done – that’s one item ticked. Links As part of your design work, you’ve chosen link colours and hover styles that fit in with what’s usual on the Internet – and you haven’t used underlined text anywhere other than for links. You know there’s nothing worse than clicking away at what looks like a hyperlink, when it’s only underlined text. You’ve also made sure that your link colours are readable no matter what background colour they’re over, and you haven’t used any of those fancy scripts that make your links look weird, or disappear when a reader’s cursor goes over them. Excellent – another item ticked. Grammar You’ve paid attention to the rules of grammar. You have scoured all your text for aberrant apostrophes;
You’ve also checked that you haven’t unwittingly used mixed upper and lower case in words that don’t require them – you’ve also avoided “KeWl” spellings and word constructions, because you know that you’ll limit your audience if you do. You’ve made sure that all proper nouns – like “Internet” – have an initial capital, and that your punctuation is correct, clear and understandable. You’ve had someone else proof read text you’ve written yourself, because you know that you have difficulty spotting your own mistakes, or at the very least you’ve run everything through a spelling and grammar checker. Time to tick off another item. Graphics You are so aware that a fast site is a popular site that you have slimmed down your graphics superbly, using only those which actually add something to the text they’re associated with. You have also optimised them to the best of your ability to reduce their file size. You’ve checked download times on a dummy site, and had your friends do some timings for you, so you can further trim downloads to the absolute best you can get them. You have avoided huge Flash animations on your home page, so that it loads very quickly, because you’ve been to sites that have a Flash introduction, and you departed before the <skip intro> button even had chance to appear. Another item ticked. Counters You’ve heeded the advice from the experts and avoided visible counters like the plague. You’re only too well aware that a counter picture with loads of zeroes and only two digits actually showing says “Don’t bother” to a visitor, while a huge number looks somewhat suspect. You know that top sites and portals don’t use visible counters, so you’ve emulated their example. Very wise. Tick another item. Animation Ninety percent of your site’s pages have absolutely no animation on them, whether it be graphic or text. If you’ve used any at all, it’s very, very highly targeted and very tasteful, and certainly doesn’t overpower the text on your site. You have definitely not included an animated GIF that took your fancy, just because you like it. Tick this item off. Recommendations You have made it easy for visitors to recommend your site to their friends, but you haven’t done it from your home page. You understand that nobody’s going to recommend a site they haven’t yet read, so you have included a recommendation link at the bottom of articles, using wording like “If you enjoyed this article, your friends may too – click here to recommend us to them”. You have avoided using automatic home page reassignment scripts that change your visitors’ home page, or add your site to their favourites without them knowing. You just don’t mess with their software. Good for you – another tick. Contact and Privacy You have included an “about us” page in your site, and on it you explain what you are all about, and how you treat your visitors. You have made it easy for visitors to contact you, if they need to, probably to a special email address that is reserved for just that purpose. You have also stated your privacy policy explicitly, no matter what it is. That’s very good – another tick. Browser wars You might think that your favourite browser is the bee’s knees, but you have designed your new site to be cross-browser. It doesn’t use any facilities of one browser that others don’t have, and you don’t tell visitors that “this site is best viewed at a resolution of 1280x1024 in IE6”. It can be viewed in any browser, at any resolution, and you’ve tested it in at least two browsers from different makers. You’ve also asked your friends to test it in their varying collection of browsers to make sure that it doesn’t break them or look strange. Neither have you forced people to install plug-ins to read your home page, and if you need to use a plug-in to display something important, you post a warning sign before your visitor gets to the page that needs it. Sensibly, if you use plug-ins, you’ve made the need for a version one or two older than the current one – that way, there’s a better chance that readers will have a compatible plug-in already installed. Tick off the last item on the checklist. Finger on the button. Congratulations! You have ticked off all the items on the list. Now you need to check your navigation, and make sure that your site works well. Once you’ve done that, you can open it up to the world and welcome your visitors – but remember to apply your checklist to every new page you add to the site, and be constantly vigilant that you don’t overstep the boundaries of good design and taste.
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