Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2005

[donecweb]

I have just come across a site that really needs to be read by anyone creating or contemplating creating a website. This is not one of those web technique bashing sites but rather a very informative look at things needed to make good sites and why some things are not good.
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/designmistakes.html

[johnhask]

If you read Nielsen's books, you'll see the same mistakes were being made 5-6 years ago.

[dojo]

Ok, everything nice and smooth BUT I don't think my fonts should have sizes changeable by the users, not to mention I truly hate the default link style. I make some of the "mistakes" he lists there, because I think my sites would be dreadful otherwise. Not to mention I don't have any people say they cannot see the links in my site  or recognize them

[donecweb]

Seems to me Dojo that you must be using IE or a browser that uses the IE engine only. I say this because in Firefox, Opera and all other non-IE engine browsers I know of your visitors can and will change the apparent size of your fonts using the zoom feature they have built in. IE and the other browsers that use the IE engine are the only browsers that you can stop your visitors from changing the viewed font size. The only exception to the IE engine browsers ability to zoom (that I have seen) is the Maxthon Browser. It has the zoom feature just like Opera built in as an addition meaning you can both set the text size like IE (which will not alter the text on your site) and use zoom like in Opera (which will make your font seem bigger or smaller).

As far as having flexible fonts goes since you have advertising on your site it seems to me you desire to make money with your site. What do you suggest your visitors that have poor vision (thus needing your site to be viewed with larger text which they can read) do when they get to your site just leave because they can't read it or change the size of the font, continue reading through your site and maybe clicking on some advertisements (making you money) while they are there?

As far as links go you do use colored links to make them identifiable. You just don't differentiate between links that have been visited and not visited. The only problem I see with that is that with so many links on a page it would not take long for your visitors to get lost and not know where they have been in your site and where they still need to go to see all of your site.

BTW I also happen to dislike the default colors used for links. I believe however, that this is something that is not really that important to stick with. I don't believe many visitors like having those same colors on all the pages they visit. I believe most visitors like to see colors and other link indicators that work with the page design while still being readily apparent.

And maybe the reason you don't have anyone saying they can not read your site or use your links is because they can't and so they don't have a way to let you know. Could that be possible?

I think your links are quite visible but I do tend to get lost (meaning not remembering where I have been and where I have not been) rather easily on your site and I do use Firefox zoom to read your site even though it is readable on my 17 inch monitor at 1288x922 resolution. I find when I zoom on it the text becomes even more readable with less effort as my eyes are not quite as good as they used to be.

PS over all I quite like your site.