Many young and innocent page creators have the 'click here' (if you've clicked on this false link, gimme twenty push-ups right now) syndrom. A long time ago, a wise old man told me the forgotten eleventh commandement, which I repeat now for your enlightenment:
No 'click here' statement shalt be displayed on your page, for the link maketh the command redundant, and thou shalt not clicketheth on a false link, for by so doing thou bringst shame on thee and all thy family. Twenty more push-ups await thee.
There are two reasons for this (not counting the redundancy factor).
First, any menu will look far more stylish without the comment. The second reason is the golden rule of thumb to see if a web page section is well-made: a hard copy of it must read like a real document. Of course, you can't click on a document, so writing "click here" on one is an obvious no-no.
| Bad Example |
|---|
|
Click here for Yanick's Egomaniac Trip Click here for the FBI secret archives Click here for a picture of Bongo the Pink Lettuce |
| Good Example |
|---|
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Yanick's Egomaniac Trip FBI secret archives Picture of Bongo the Pink Lettuce |
Anybody who fell for it this time, gimme a hundred and twenty.
The HTML tag <Blink> is frowned upon by a vast majority of
web specialists. Mostly because it's, well, annoying as hell. Think of it as the web equivalent of those little yip-yip dogs. Just don't use it and everybody will love you.
To ice the cake, it's only effective on Netscape (which was the the one who proposed the tag in the first place), which neatly proves my point. Think of it: how rotten can a tag be if even Microsoft's browser doesn't want to use it?
| Bad Example | Good Example |
| this message will bore you to tears. | ATTENTION: this message will bore you to tears. |
Another tag, <Frame>, also has a bad reputation. As far as I'm concerned, it's not really because of the frames themselves, but because it takes extra time for browsers to load pages that have them (beats me why) and because their 'back' buttons work like crippled penguins when frames are involved. The large screen area frames eat up doesn't help their rep either.
Personally, I kind of like frames, when their use is justified. My advice: keep them scarce and this will keep the bloodthirsty crowds away from your living room.
Never forget that anybody can access your page. Even a Japanese grandmother. An explanatory text of what the page is about is usually a good idea.
To illustrate the point I'm trying to make here, let me bore you to tears with something that happened to your truly some days ago.
It was a dark and snowny night and I was leisurely surfing the Web in quest of a cool network game. I was browsing Yahoo when a section entitled Virtual Airlines attracted my eye. My curiousity aroused, I selected the link of CanAir, the Canadian Virtual Airline. The site on which I landed was looking very neat, very professional (and the logo was even nicer than Air Canada's). So neat and professional that I suspected for an instant that I had somewhat misread something and found a real Airline. After much browsing, thinking and intense discussions with friends of mine, I came to the conclusion that it was a kind of club for flight simulators freaks.
I accessed this site via the Network game section of Yahoo, I'm a seasoned user of the Web, I'm used to its queerness and I don't consider myself as being (completly) braindead. Nevertheless, it took me a good hour to understand what the site was about (and there's much grey areas I'm still not sure about). Now imagine what would have happened if your average Joe found this site via a search engine, looking for a real Airline compagny... Scary, uh?
When any link goes to another site, it's a good idea to inform the surfers that it will do so. This way their fragile psyches will be ready for the difference of design and all.
Furthermore, by not giving any hint that a link goes to another site, an hapless visitor could think that he's still on your site. Now, you don't want to steal the credits for someone else page, do you? Of course, the lowest of the low in this case is to incorporate someone else page as a frame in your own page (see example).
When you put a link on your page, associate it, if possible, with a keyword and not with an entire sentence. This way, the reader grasps what the link is about more quickly. The presentation is also lighter and, in my own humble opinion, far better aesthetically.
| Bad example |
|---|
| Yanick's other attempts to sound wise await you at 'The Naborales'. |
| Good example |
|---|
| Yanick's other attempts to sound wise await you at the 'Naborales'. |
With pictures, Java, animated gifs, graphic backgrounds and all that can now be included on a web page, one can be tempted to transform one page in a mind-blowing creation. One should resist this vile impulse, though.
First and foremost, the container should always complete, not compete, with the content (I refer to disobedience of this rule as the Independence Day Syndrome). Animations, like fluorescent backgrounds, are eye-catchers. While one or two animations can fit fit quite nicely on a page, you've only got two eyes. Do the math. Animations should relate to important parts of the page, not spread your attention and retinae all over the screen. I'm assuming you want people to read your stuff here. In the same vein, before putting in a background, it's a good idea to make sure it won't blind the reader or hide the text.
Another argument against orgiac excesses is the pragmatic constatation that most surfers are still stuck with crummy 14.4 modems. Your first impression of someone new is made up by the end of the second minute you spend with them. Is "Please wait, loading" really the first impression you want to make?
The industry offers a plethora of software to help page makers. I classify these in two categories. The first, Informatica Incognita, also known as WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) looks exactly like classical word processors. The major advantage of these is that they are very intuition-oriented and can be understood in less than three seconds by someone already familiar with Word or WordPerfect. Unfortunately (or, since I want to keep my job, fortunately) they also have flaws. The worst is their chronical sloppiness in tags management. They often 'forget' to delete useless tags and have a tendency to go from New York to Boston by way of Moscow. Another problem is that the YYSIWYGism of YYSIWYG editors is a fallacy. While a web page will more or less look the same on most of browsers, small and not-so-small differences exist. A quite dramatic example would be to compare the same page on the Netscape and Lynx browsers, Lynx being a text-only browser.
The second type, the Esoterica Blabberbla, lets you play with the real HTML code, while giving you tools to help you in your task. Of course, you have to know the HTML language beforehand. One the other hand, a complete dictionary of HTML tags would be about five pages long, so learning it isn't an impossible feat. Anyway, programming should never be easy or fun. It must be hard, painful and dangerous. That's how the Gods separate the Chosen from the rest.
Okay, okay, I'm pushing it. But, hey, why should I be the only one
suffering from Overflow Errors?
Fascistic position notwithstanding, it's generally a good idea to begin a page with Informatica Incognita software and fine-tune it later with Esotorica Blabberbla. Myself, I use HomeSite 3.0 from Allaire (guess which category it falls into?). In all objectivity, this software is my HTML editor's dream come true.
You are one of these persons whose web page that proudly declare itself as under construction. I know that what I'm going to say will shock you, maybe even shake your perception of the world, but someone have to do it.
There's no such thing as a finished web page.
There, I said it. The accomplished, nothing will ever be added, it's going to remain this way 'till the end of time web page is a myth. More than that, the perpetual updating and morphing made possible by electronic media is one of the web's prime quality. So why does people put Under Construction signs everywhere and anywhere? With my superlative knowledge of human psyche, I can come with some explanations.
First, there's the eagerness of the youth. Imagine that you just receive your very first hard disk space on a server to put on a web page. That mean you can now have your very own web page! Oh God! Aren't you excited! Isn't that fuzzy feeling in your stomach great or what? So you create a first page with your all-new HTML editor (see the It's Never Done Better...) section for further rambling about that) and begin the creation process. You begin by entering your name, your cleverly choosen page title. A little introduction text telling who you are would fit nicely. A picture, maybe? Yes, great idea! Now what? You could talk about... no, not interesting. Or maybe...? Neither.
Well, you have run out of idea and, looking back at your page, you find it a little... empty. Not for long, mind you, you're sure you will find plenty of subject with which to entertain your visitors before long. But you don't want to wait until the next epiphany to put your web page online, you want to do it now! But you don't want your visitors that your site is uninteresting or, worst of the worst, boring. What to do? Eureka! Why not put a Under Construction sign?
While I understand the eagerness of joining the web as a full-fledged member of the web, I must be honest. If a page is boring and under-develloped, it will remain boring and under-develloped, even with an Under Construction sign. The advice I'm usually giving here is patience. Take the time to think your page and craft it in the comfort of your home. When come the day when you can look at it and say proudly "This is mine. It contains something interesting for the rest of the human population (or a small subset of) and the design is pretty cool", then you can publish it.
Don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying you must build your complete web site before publishing it. I'm only saying that you must publish at least something.
On this subject: a true story. I have a younger brother (hiya Stéph!) that got connected on the 'net not so long ago. Of course, he was all excited at the notion of having his personnal web page and immediatly begun to collect information and HTML and the such. After learning the basics, he begun working on his page, more precisely on a section devoted on the Simpsons. However, after a while he stopped, looked at what he has done and come to the conclusion that there was already plenty of (better) sites already talking of the Simpsons. His page was bringing nothing new to the web. Do you know what he did, then? He decided not to publish the said section. My brother, at 16, already has reached an enlightement that a good portion of the web is still seeking.
Enough of family stories. What I have said up to now? If it's ugly, weak and inspire you enough shame to put a Under Construction sign on it, don't publish it. On the other hand, if it's ugly, weak but must be put on the web right now, do it (God know how I had to crash-construct pages to help my fellow students and co-workers out of nothing in less than five minutes). Just don't apologize in advance with a UC sign but assume stoicly your creation. And work on it at the first opportunity.
Related to the same topic, when you work on a section of your page, link it to your page only when it has some meat on it. Just take the following example:
| The Swedish Centipede: an underated tapdancer (coming soon) |
| The Swedish Centipede: an underated tapdancer |
You see? While the first version already tell us that the information are not available (but give us a nice thrill of anticipation), the second let us hope for a few seconds before we come crashing down on a near empty page. Frustrating, isn't?
See also Gordon Kindlmann's page for further Under Construction funny and healthy bashing.
A common and subtle semantic error that many (me included) make. Suppose that you are in subsection of your page and, with the best intention of the world, you want to help your visitors to return to your main page with the help of a link. How would you call this link? [Return to Yanick's Guide to Web Authoring], of course!
But there's a catch there. Imagine that a visitor has found your subsection not from your main index, but from another link. How come he or she can return to a page he or she never went? If the poor soul was to select the [Return to Yanick's Guide to Web Authoring] link he or she would immediatly be torn apart by the induced paradox.
For that reason, and because less is more, I prefer to use the formulae [Yanick's Guide to Web Authoring]. This way, everyone still understand where the link goes and the information is carried in a more concise, and thus elegant, way.
What? You want to acheive perfection and want more good advice? Well, I'm rather dry on wisdom right now, but you can always go take a look at these other excellent web pages.