What to Avoid
Want a quality school Web site, but the rules keep changing and you’re not sure what to avoid?
Counters – lose the page counters. They do not add credibility to your site or your school and look amateurish. For analytical purposes, view your statistics through the server logs (or any statistics analysis not publically displayed). Your site visitors don’t really care how many “hits” a site gets and your site is there to serve their needs.
Excessive Animation or Flashing Text – If your animation doesn’t serve a purpose and add to your message, lose it. They used to be kind of fun, but have become annoying and detract from the professionalism of your site and the message in your content. The site, unless created to highlight the technological skills of the designers, shouldn’t be there to show off your cleverness, but to provide useful, current information.
Broken Links – There are tools that you can use to check your entire site for any broken links. Get in the habit of running those frequently to keep your links useful. Broken links make your site visitors feel that your site is stale and that you don’t care enough to keep it fresh. We all know that off-site links are not under your control, but when they become broken, fix or delete them.
Under Construction – All sites should be constantly under construction if they are to stay current and useful. However, don’t place any “Under Construction” signs on your site. If it is not ready to display, don’t take the page live until it is.
Slow Page Load Speeds – Fast wins! The established standard is text that is visible in five seconds or less. It is acceptable for graphics to take a few seconds longer if they are worth waiting for, but always optimize them for the Web. However, while speed is important, don’t completely sacrifice quality for two seconds of load time. Pixilated photos detract from visual appeal and professionalism. Your site exists to provide information to your customers–parents, students, staff, potential new hires, and the community—so always keep their needs at the forefront of all your design decisions. They went to the site to save time, don’t test their patience or they will leave.
Splash Screens or Doorway Pages – lose them. Your site visitors want to get to the information they are looking for and not to see your mascot growl or roar or your logo morph into something clever. It’s fun for the designer, but a waste of time for your target audience.
Inconsistent Navigation – Your site visitors should feel confident that while transitioning from page-to-page the navigation structure will remain consistent. With navigation, the KISS rule applies (keep it simple stupid). Don’t confuse the visitor with redundant navigation scattered around the page, with different buttons or links pointing to the same page. The exception for redundant links on a page would be, for targeted users’ convenience, when you clearly delineate them under a specific category like Parent Quick Links or Student Information.
Inconsistent Theme & Style – A professional site design will maintain a theme throughout. This tells your visitors you care enough to build a cohesive, well thought out Web site. It also assures your visitors they haven’t wandered off your site. Don’t change styles from one department to the next just because they want to do their own thing. You need to display an organized front, not a fragmented, departmentalized image. A school or district site shouldn’t be a reflection of individual personality, but a team of professionals dedicated to a corresponded cause.
Stingy White Space – Readability requires the good use of white space. Use adequate margins and line-height and avoid wide blocks of text that are difficult to read. On a monitor, it is too difficult and they simply won’t do it if the text runs from one side of their screen to the other.
