"...A recent report from Statistical Research showed that 62 percent of the folks surveyed felt strongly that pop-ups interfere with their Web activities... The ads are under fire from disability groups, who say they disrupt devices used by the blind to surf.
Finally, pop-ups also clog bandwidth and can eventually lead to system crashes, which is one of the reasons a group of irate pop-up victims brought a class-action lawsuit (still unresolved) against America Online last year." -- C.C. Holland: Managing Editor, AnchorDesk, Zd-net. August 17, 2001
A site that has pop-up ads irritates me, and tend to ruin my browsing experience. I will avoid returning to that site again. -- BJ Peters
Site Design
Web design is more than just putting a website on the Internet. Choices must be made in regard to color, fonts, images and layout. These work together to elicit an emotion, and convince people that browse your site, that you're the individual, company or church they were looking for. It's knowing when to add more, and when to keep things simple. Because of this, there's a balance to be struck between what you, the client envision, and what I may think is a better design. Hopefully, we'll both be happy with the end result.
Some individuals believe that the more "stuff" there is on a web site (noises, animated imagery, chirps, graphics and music) the more eye-catching their site is. In fact, these things can be distracting and cause a customer to get frustrated and leave. Most of you know the difficulty of what to watch at a three ring circus. Sometimes less IS more.
Navigation is also extremely important to a site. Most people who visit a site are looking for something specific and may not look past the first couple of pages in a website before they decide whether or not the site is useful to them. Your homepage should let visitors know what your site has to offer. Links to further information should be clearly labeled, organized, and prominent on the page. Your customers should be able to easily find the information they are looking for. If you've been browsing the web for any amount of time, you most likely have experienced frustration with some sites. Your site should not be in that category.
A balance between the sterile (virtually no graphics) style, and three-ring circus should be desired.
