Webdesign problems: www.praktiker.hu

I've been planning to make a little website for helping web designers by telling them their worst mistakes in actual works. Many times I just sent my ideas to webmasters by e-mail. From now here is a static location for these issues. I am not a usability guru, but as you will see most of these design mistakes are just so obvious that everyone can notice. Please welcome our first guest: www.praktiker.hu.

In most cases I will examine Hungarian pages. Feel free to send me your opinion, comments, there is a contact form in the main menu.

I do the testing on various Linux browsers. This does not mean I do not respect the IE/Windows user visitors, just means I have this one and it was my free choice. In most cases the problems I mention are not browser or OS dependent.

Problems? What problems? (See the numbers on the screenshot.)

1. Skip Intro - Do we still have webpage intros in 2004? No, normally we don't. We are about to show information visitors may be interested in. Latest changes or actual discounts if that is a shop.
2. Welcome here - What do I get after skipping the intro? (Which is anyway a Flash what I do not value too much as being a proprietary standard, follow my free software columns to learn more.) The image (you can see on the top) appears with "welcome text", and still no content, even if visitors skip the intro in hope of seeing content.
3. Processor eating JavaScript - JavaScript has been implemented to help the readers experience with the page, not to make discovering the page harder. There is a little yellow shadow moving continuously on timer control, this just stops my Konqueror on 1.7 GHz. Wonder what is on Pentium 2? Webpage builders should take extra care with timer controlled javascripts. Also, the movement takes reader's focus away from the content.
4. Scrolling link - Another fancy javascript, which scrolls "Contact addresses", you must be lucky to read it and then try clicking. Especially elderly users. Don't they buy screwdrivers? (See also 8. - if you cannot find the scrolling link on the screenshot.)
5. GifAnim - The past says "hello again" here with another animation, I wonder if I can still find something on this webpage what does not move, what does not try to catch my focus from the content (if there is any).
6. Blocked pop-up - My browser has blocked a pop-up window. Oh, may that have been the content I was looking for for 10 minutes? Some special discounts. Why was not that presented to me instead the 2 levels of "welcome intros"? Pop-ups are just blocked, everywhere in 2004, because they have been just annoying since web builders started to abuse them. Note: FireFox displays a little icon in the browser corner when it has blocked a pop-up .
7. Designed for SIZEX x SIZEY - Then why it just does not fit? Web page size should be designed to be flexible which fits on 800 pixels wide screen too. Yes, in 2004 most of the users use 1024 or more, but with 19" monitors there is no sense running maximized windows. Let me specify my comfortable window sizes, and the webpage should just fit in. (Webpages with rich content will have an excuse designing for 1024.)
8. Frames - The frames are problems in general, but this site goes further. There is a frame with disabled scrollbar which just did not vertically fit on my screen with all my taskbars and so on (a rich KDE setup). The "designed X Y" was even below the scroll (4.) you can see cut by browser window. Search engines do not understand frames, thus Google originated visitors will not see the navigation, just the content are alone. Try it NOW please, if never done before. Specific links cannot be sent to friends because the link will just say the homepage's main URL, thus friends will have to find the article themselves or users will not waste the time. Page cannot be bookmarked, I will always end up on the mainpage from my bookmark and have to find the specific article again. Do not use frames. (Alternatives: dynamic pages, shtml, pre-generated pages etc.)

Additional problems not visible on the screenshot:

• Images as content - Using image as product category links, a photo of the building with product categories written on various floors. Not only that screen reader software cannot read it, but the actual image was also hard to understand with good eyes (funny, but hard to understand). Images should be used for illustration only, not actual important content.
• Opening new windows - Content on the same webpage opens in new window by clicking on some links. Those links look to be the same HTML file like the one from the pop-up (6.), that may be the reason for "target=_top", but that is not an excuse.
• Scanned brochures - Ofcourse it is cheap to scan the printed material and put the image online, but this comes out cheap (cost, result and effect). This violates the images as content rule too, the product names are not indexed by search engines, cannot be found by site search, not even the Ctrl-F. Not accessible for blind visitors.
• Contact address points to another country - I wonder if the "Contact" link, "mailto:info@praktiker.de" will answer Hungarian mails too. I will see soon, but this will also hold back some other visitors to send e-mail questions.

I hope, major international companies like Praktiker will realize the importance of the WEB, because many of their future customers are ALREADY CONNECTED IN. They must be able to look up things very fast, find content, use the website just like if they were in the shop.

If you want an effective online marketing, a webpage is not something you can make cheap and fast. If a company does not have the staff for internally planning what should be implemented for the webpage, they must either contract a consultant company before implementing the website, or get it done by a company who has all the necessary knowledge inhouse.

Let's see when the page will became serious...

Until that, I put a link here to Hungarian edition of the great book from Jacob Nielsen; Designing Web Usability.