Old School Web Design: A "Contact" Page

Is there anything more inexplicable about a business website than being unable to find contact information?

You're interested, ready to buy, or simply want more information, but ...you can't find the email address, street address, or phone number!

Which is because it's been stuck on a page all by itself somewhere else on the site. Not a shred of contact information anywhere except that one page.

This is another classic design mistake that heralds back to the days when graphic designers were told to make websites, and sought to create as many pages as possible from a slim amount of information.

It seems like an extension of the website-as-brochure mindset from the early days. Maybe graphic designers were so used to putting contact information only on the back of a flyer they figured it would only have one place on a website as well.

But it's more helpful to think of web pages in terms of a letterhead, where there should be essential information at your fingertips at all times. A visitor should be able to call a business or send an email from whatever page they happen to be on, instead of having to wander off to a separate part of the site. That breaks how visitors naturally move around a website, and demands they take at least one extra step just to get in touch... and probably moves them away from what got them interested in the first place!

In fairness, a contact page isn’t pointless in every case, just misused on a grand scale. If you have 35 offices, then yes, a contact page is appropriate, but at least a head office or 1-800 number should still appear on every page.

Just like the "enter" or "splash" page, never make your visitors jump through a hoop to do something as basic as contacting you.

Old School Web Design: Works Only On Internet Explorer

This issue stems from the fact that about 15 years ago Internet Explorer was the dominant web browser by a huge margin. But 15 years is a heck of a long time, and anyone today still building websites using FrontPage or any other WIndows-specific design tool needs to give their head a shake!

For some reason there are websites still being built today that only look and work correctly on Internet Explorer. Do these designers not understand that different browsers render code differently? Could they not bother spending a few minutes to test their sites? Why are they even building websites if they don't know what they're doing? How can they sleep at night knowing they are charging good money to build websites that won't even work right for many of the people who try to use them?

There are five major browsers in use today, and while Internet Explorer is still common on desktop computers, it is essentially non-existent on mobile devices. And we all know how mobile device use has skyrocketed in the last few years, soon to overtake laptops and desktops for overall internet use.

Building websites that only look and work right on IE is a sure way to neglect at least half of the visitors to an average website, close to all the visitors of any tech or geek-related site (typically using Chrome or Firefox), and basically everyone using a mobile device.

Now sure, some websites built for IE will work correctly on other browsers by default without any extra effort, as long as they are of simple and standard design. But the days of designing primarily for IE and hoping for the best are long gone. It simply isn't the dominant browser like it was 15 years ago.

We build websites that look and work exactly the same on any browser at any resolution. It takes a bit of extra work, but it's not that hard. Don’t let anyone tell you some nonsense about what they think your customers and prospects prefer, or tell you it's hard to make compatible or standardized websites, or tell you it will cost more. It's easy for anyone who ought to be calling themselves a "web designer".

Old School Web Design: An “Enter” page

Also known as a splash page. Have you ever come across one of these? It’s basically a huge empty page with a logo and a link to enter the actual website.

This is a leftover from times when no one really knew what to do with a website, but wanted more than just one page with their flyer on it, so they tossed up an extra page with nothing but the company logo on it.

It might say something like: "Welcome, you are now at the website of Joe’s Peanuts. Please click HERE to enter our site..."

There are only two types of sites that might need a landing page or splash page: A multi-national site asking you to select a language or country, or a porn site that requires a legal warning or disclaimer. For all other sites an entry page is pointless and indicates an amateurish delight in having as many pages as possible, which is nothing but detrimental and irritating to users.

Your home page needs to be a real home page, rich with content.

Entry pages also present a huge problem in terms of ranking in web searches. If one home page is completely devoid of content, how do you suppose it stacks up against other websites with normal home pages full of information? Do you think Google and Bing would consider it more useful or less useful to users?

Give your visitors what they came for. Never make someone jump through a hoop just for the privilege of getting to your home page!

(P.S. If you do need to remove a splash page from your site, make sure your webmaster is going to do a proper 301 redirect.)