Web Do's & Don'ts » Don’ts

Don’t use empty image src

Siniša — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 18:18:20 +0000

An HTML image, either via tag or JavaScript Image object, that has its src set to an empty string can cause traffic spikes or user state corruption.

Don’t use all bold text in your content

Bojan — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 09:27:05 +0000

Never use all bold text in your content. All bold text is hard to read and the point of the emphasis is lost. To put emphasis on a certain part of the content, use the strong tag.

Don’t put non-ascii characters in URLs

Siniša — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 17:30:11 +0000

One thing that is rather common, especially on websites whose content is not in English, is URLs that contain unencoded characters such as space, å, ä, or ö. While this works most of the time it can cause problems.

Don’t use splash pages

Bojan — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:20:06 +0000

Unless you absolutely must, do not use splash pages. Don’t waste your visitors’ time on the intro page and force them to “click to enter”. If used, splash pages should contain valuable information.

Don’t publish undated content

Bojan — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 09:11:10 +0000

Undated information will make your content irrelevant and cause the user to leave sooner rather than later. Remember to always provide a date. A useful addition is to use a “last updated” date for articles or posts that changed after being published.

Don’t use HTTP based resources on a HTTPS page

Siniša — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 20:35:27 +0000

Internet Explorer interrupts the download and displays a confirmation dialog whenever it detects the use of mixed content on a secure page.

In IE 7 and ealier, this dialog would cause annoyance to users but generally didn’t cause any other significant problems because most users would click on the Yes button and allow non-secure content to be downloaded. However, the wording in the IE 8 version of this dialog has changed and to download the content a user would now have to click on the No button.

Don’t use protocol relative paths to CSS files

Siniša — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:53:03 +0000

Internet Explorer 7 & 8 will download stylesheets twice if the http(s) protocol is missing.

Don’t be skipping heading levels

Siniša — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 12:55:53 +0000

One of the benefits of a proper and consistent heading structure in an HTML page is that they can be repurposed to improve access to the content. Also keep in mind that skipping a heading level makes navigating by headers less usable for screenreader users.

Don’t link pages to themselves

Bojan — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:37:16 +0000

Do not include links that point to the current page, as this can only confuse the visitor. In navigational menus, omit the link to the current page to also indicate the current location.

Don’t use empty HTML elements

Bojan — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 11:27:07 +0000

You should avoid inappropriate HTML use such as putting empty elements just for float clearing.