The Good, the Bad and the…Uhhh…

The internet is a beautiful place. Chances are if you’ve heard a word used, you’ll find every tidbit and weird fact under the sun about it on the internet, whether you want to or not (the residual trauma that is lemonparty fails again to subside).

…anyway. Take a look at this;

This is for the convenience of those of us who are less inclined to click links in full knowledge that they’ll lead to…that. For everyone else, high five, and here’s the real thing. http://www.dokimos.org/ajff/ . It’s worth a look – the site plays a tune for you automatically while cats and doves travel across your screen as you read some randomly generated bible verses. It’s a great experience in my personal opinion.

But WOW, I’m also just thankful my eyes still work.

Yes, the internet is certainly a place for much fun to be had and for silly people doing sillier things to be laughed at. But there is heap upon sorry heap of sites out there that will try removing your eyeballs wholly from your skull (if they don’t destroy your precious computer with hidden viruses first).

The thing about designing a website is everything sounds like a good idea at the first shot. And a lot of people just never move past the first stage of planning (I’ve done it, you’ve probably done it, it’s just something that happens and that is OKAY). Yeah, you just want to scribble down each and every passing thought you’ve got and then throw it all together, right? It’ll look fantastic….right?

Well, then you DO finally get your website up and running, and its there on the internet for the whole world to see. Suddenly the automatic music player becomes an annoyance and the page’s search bar bursting into flames as you type in it starts to look a little bit stupid. The font you picked is barely readable in the colours you chose and also because it spirals out like a calligrapher is drunk off his face and writing with the pen firmly grasped between two of his calligrapher toes. On the subject of implying that someone of the calligraphy profession has feet that look any different to anyone else’s feet, here’s a photo.

Okay so there’s a bit of ink on their toes and they have some VERY flexible pedis phalangical action happening there, but still. Look at that art. That talent. LOOK AT IT.

All the same, there are fonts in the world that you can’t read and almost nowhere where they are appropriate. It doesn’t stop people (me) using them everywhere (I do) and that is probably just something we all have to live with (try and stop me).

And THEN, because it’s nowhere near over yet, nosiree, then, it places on a top ten list of the worst sites to grace the world wide web with it’s eye-burningly fearful visage. And then another, and then another. And then you watch all the pride you had in your work be washed swiftly down the drain in your shower.

It’s good fun, designing websites, but it’s a hell of a lot harder than it looks. You’ve got to consider navigation, like I talked about in my last post, as well as accessibility and you’ve got to be a mature adult who understands that your favourite colour is probably not the best choice as a background colour, and nor is that photo of a rolling grassy hill, however popular that particular theme was made by our good friend Microsoft.

There are people who are very good at things like that, though. #noteveryChristianitysite looks like a unicorn threw up on it. In keeping with the religious website theme I set by using that first example, take a look at these;

Pretty good, right? The thing all of these have in common (barring layout – they’re all similar there) is the simplicity. All the info that NEEDS to be on the page is there, and it’s easy to find and easy to read and these are just nice-looking sites in general. You can see more here. Keeping it simple is really really important. As is choosing a basic colour scheme. And locking all the windows and doors – those pesky ill unicorns won’t get in on my watch.