In the article "Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design" Jakob Nielsen states the top ten worst mistakes that can be committed in web design, as is stated in the title of his article.
The first mistake is “bad search.” This occurs when the user searches for something and has one or more of the following common variants: a typo, a misspelled word, hyphens, or plurals. He notes that this is even more difficult for the elderly but is really a pain for all involved. The search box should be just that, a box—simple, easy to see and know what it is.
The next mistake is using PDF files for online viewing. Anyone who has come across this knows that it stinks. PDF files are not for the screen, they are for print. The usability of PDF files is the worst part; “PDF is an undifferentiated blob of content that's hard to navigate.” The fonts are small and it is difficult to navigate through the content.
Links should be a relatively easy thing to see and navigate through. This mistake deals with not changing the color of visited links. This makes it very difficult to find your way through a document or a series of web pages. If you don’t know where you’ve been, how are you going to get there?
Text in a document for the web should be easy to scan. Nielson’s simple tips to help:
The fifth mistake deals with fixing font sizes so that people cannot decide what size they want the fonts. Use relative size fonts, not absolute.
Use titles that allow the search engine to see what your page is all about. Also, make each separate page just that, separate in title and in function. This allows multi-window/tab users to see what your page is about.
Anything that looks like an ad makes users turn away. Don’t use ‘em.
Users will leave your site if it does not behave the way that other web sites do. You must follow design conventions so that they will stay on your site and not leave because it was too difficult to navigate.
Don’t open new windows because it makes it difficult for the user to understand what is going on. Be kind, stay in the same window and allow them to use the back button.
Provide answers to the users’ questions. The person has come to your site for some reason, and if you cannot answer the question, you have lost his or her business.
I am going to apply these in my personal life by making sure that this summary meets the criteria listed above. I am going to do my best to integrate these design concepts into whatever pages I create.