1. WYSIWYG Editors

Do you use an online service such as pageflakes? maybe a WYSIWYG editor in some form or another? Have you dodged learning about about CSS? Then no, i’m afraid you are NOT a web developer. Firstly you are concentrating on the looks of the website as opposed to its content structure due to the very nature of WYSIWYG editors and secondly – get a text editor.

2. Semantics

HTML has heading tags for a reason, therefore you do not need to go overboard with your newly learnt inline css coding skills. Another common feature of the novice web developer is the overkill usage of the div tag, if your code looks like a long list of div tags (id’s / classes / both) then take a moment to consider if you really need them to get your desired effect.

3. Cross-Browser Compatibility

Yes the website does look fine in the browser you are using. . .wondering why you hear developers complaining about Internet Explorer when your site works perfectly? Try looking at your website in multiple browsers and platforms, fixing any browser issue is not my idea of fun so check them throughout the whole web design and development process to save yourself headaches later!

4. Web Standards

Ah, web standards, some people do not know they exist, others claim they are not important but the wise amongst us will strive to meet them. The standards were put in place for a reason and by following them you just might help yourself with the aforementioned cross – browser compatibility issues.

Use the W3C validator to check your website, if it validates great! if not look at the errors to see why, the validator even gives you clues as to why it failed so that you can correct the mistakes – which by the way you should try and do, please don’t ignore the results or pass them off as your code is “flawless”.

5. Accessibility

A few alt tags does not mean your site is now fully accessible. You need to consider the multiple devices it could potentially be viewed on as well as their differing capabilities, for example – browsers with javascript diasabled, mobile phones, screen readers or perhaps a missing plugin that your site requires. Not planning for these events is planning to block out some of your users.

6. Bandwidth And Load Times

My newly designed and developed website loads instantly! The main problem is that when you are testing your website on a local PC server you cannot usually notice the affects your huge, great looking, background image and multiple scripts are having. Not only will they eat away at your bandwidth they will also increase the load times of your site thus you will lose any impatient users who are not willing to wait for your website and its associated large files to load.

7. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Even if you do not know the ins and outs of SEO, you may think its too complicated and so once your site is live you will hire an expert in the SEO field who will perform his magic and you will be at the top of Google in no time – WRONG!

If you still think you cannot help towards your own SEO, cover the basics (and obvious) things – If your website is about rainbow coloured mice – say so! HINTS: Title, URL, sitemaps, rich content.

8. Inappropriate use of elements

I say elements as it could be a multitude of things that distract the users eye away from the content, for example flash, animated gifs, marquees (a big no no in my book) or maybe even jQuery? jQuery is great for adding functionality to enhance the user experience on your website but some will use it for the sake of using it which can be annoying as well as distracting!

So, now I have got that out of my system what are your thoughts?

One new element I did not previously have is of course what you are reading..a blog!
Time permitting, I plan to keep this regularly updated with interesting information, tutorials, perhaps even random topics of debate but we shall see how it pans out. I’m sure there will be plenty of web design related posts at the very least.

Enjoy the new site!