Does Your Website Look Like Circa 1999?

It's 2010, and the web has been around long enough that people recognize what is current in web design, and what is outdated. Having an outdated website can have the same effect on a customer as you showing up to a meeting dressed in clothing that is distinctly not from this decade.  A poor website can sour potential customers within seconds if they can't find what they are looking for, or are turned off by the apparent age of your site. Given the year, your online presence has the potential to be driving more and more of your business, and you want to present the best possible face you can on the web.



The first thing you should do when analyzing your site is research your competitors' websites. This should give you some insight into what kinds of design features are trending, especially within your field. Things to keep in mind are general layouts, cleanliness of site, and ease of use. Relatively small touches, like having a search box on your homepage instead of on a "Search our site" page can be tremendous.

While certain design features can be given a pass (such as sidebar navigation), others are absolutely inexcusable. Never make visitors click through an additional page before accessing the main website. People intend to visit your site and know what it is; you don't have to ask them if they want to enter or tell them what they're about to see. On the same note don't have a flash intro play before your homepage is displayed. Few things can be more jarring then an intense flash intro exploding on your screen when you aren't expecting it. The same goes for auto-play music and video on your site. The last thing you want visitors to do is scramble to find how to stop the media. At best they'll be annoyed when browsing your site, and at worst they'll close it entirely.

Don't hide site features from visitors. While you no longer have to make links blue, you don't want to confuse visitors as to what links are and aren't. Cut down the number of steps people have to take to find what they want, ideally to 0. If they are looking for a product you sell, consider placing a partial list of products on your homepage with a link to "View All", so visitors don't have to clickthrough a "store" link. Just because you've grown accustomed to clicking through many pages doesn't mean your customers will like doing the same.

Design elements that have been gaudy for years, such as the "" and "" tags, animated .Gifs, and low-quality artwork used for links should be avoided like the plague. The Geo-Cities era of design came and went - don't try to bring it back. These concepts came about back when the web was young, digital photos barely existed, and people wanted to make their sites stand out. Just because people used to place a .Gif of the word "Hot" next to a link doesn't mean the practice is remotely acceptable today.