I'm going to start doing the occasional Website Review. Consider yourself warned. I figure it's worth taking a look at the good and bad parts of other sites so we can all learn from their successes and mistakes.
I'll mostly be focusing on design and usability, usage of web technologies (ie. HTML, JavaScript and CSS) and whatever else strikes me as interesting and unique.
If you have a site you'd like me to review, let me know.
I didn't want to put my email address on the site, purely for spam reasons. I thought I could avoid spam by putting a contact form on the site instead. Now, I get more spam than I used to from comment spam bots using my contact form!
There is no escape, and I will have to accept this as a part of my destiny...
The golden rule of URLs: They never change.
This certainly isn't a new topic. In fact, it's as old as the web itself. It seems like it's been long forgotten, brushed off and ignored. It is still highly relevant and can't be stressed enough.
When designing URLs, assume they will be still be used 1000 years from now. Why? People already assume they won't change. They bookmark the page, search engines index the page, other sites link to the page. It's your responsibility to keep the page there.
Web applications, search engines, online shopping and sadly even simple web sites have designed URLs to be disposable, full of variables including session IDs and other junk. How often have you sent or received a URL that didn't work because the "session has timed out" or some other reason?
You can improve the permanence of a URL by making it as simple as possible. Try not to include a file extension (.html, .php, etc.) Try to split things up into a logical hierarchy. Using dates in the URL like /2006/3/ can help a site grow over time, but so can using a unique ID such as a number or title.
Sometimes URLs just have to change. Perhaps the original URL was one of those temporary, junk-filled ones and you are migrating to a permanent URL system. When this happens, make sure you put something in place to send the visitor to the new location.
There is already a great document written on this topic, so rather than repeat everything, I will include it here. I highly suggest you read it if you haven't yet:
Lately, I've been thinking a lot about Flash. My girlfriend wants to set up a web site. She wants it to act like a lot of her favourite web sites: Flash sites. At first, I wanted to explain to her why this is such an awful idea.. but I couldn't. I couldn't because I realised a Flash web site can be perfectly accessible if done properly.
Then, I saw the video player from YouTube and realised, it's perfect. It's perfect because users don't have to choose from Windows Media Player, Quicktime or Real. They just need Flash (and everybody has Flash). This made me rethink what Flash really offers. Here is a single plugin that opens up Video and Audio capabilities, even streaming and bi-directional. This alone is reason enough to welcome Flash with open arms.
If we use Unobtrusive Flash Objects (UFO), or some other JavaScript-based Flash deployment method, nobody can complain. We can deliver alternative content for those without Flash, the disabled and search engine spiders.
Flash can be a wonderful, powerful tool when used properly. It's important to treat flash the same way we do images. They can improve the experience for many of our visitors. For all others, including search engines and those with disabilities, we need to make an alternative available.
So what's next with the web? Will we see the next big thing come when CSS3 gets adopted? Will there be a revolution on the Internet when browsers support XHTML 2? No, of course not. These things might make life easier for us, but they aren't going to change what we can do right now. We already have all the tools we need.
Even XUL or XAML will just make things easier. They're not going to change what is possible. We can do anything right now using JavaScript, CSS, HTML and (for the really tricky stuff) Flash. We can communicate to the server in real time with XMLHTTPRequest or Flash Remoting. We can make complex interfaces that update themselves. Nearly anything that is possible in a desktop application, and so much more, is possible on the web.
So what does this mean? It means we're not waiting for anything except new ideas. Whatever the coolest, greatest new thing will be in 2010 will probably have been possible right now, if only we could have thought of it.
It's only our perception that changes over time. For example, Google Maps used technology that was there for years to do something very useful, and it pushed the limits of what we thought were possible in a web page. And it didn't take long for Microsoft and Yahoo to roll out their imitations. We could have had maps like this years before, if only someone would have thought of it.
It'll take some time to explore what other possibilities exist in the technology we have available. But there's no need to wait around. Let's see what's possible today.