On Credibility
SpyderBlog has a list of 14 Web Credibility Destroyers.
No matter how nice, professional, and ethical you are, if your web site looks bad, prospects and customers will form a lower opinion of you.
It’s a good list. The first (Amateuritis) and seventh (Discongruent Design) items are the ones I see the most. Sites that were just put together too fast, with not enough planning.
If it were my list, I’d add one more thing: Premature or Exhausted Technologies. Using Technology on your site that is so new or so old that viewers can’t view the site properly without downloading some obscure tech gadget. Just because TurboFlash2012! has been available for 23 hours doesn’t mean that your site should now require it. Your target audience needs to be Joe Schmo, not Joe Geek. On the inverse, just because something worked great in IE 4.0 doesn’t mean you should still be using it. Use safe and reliable coding and resources on your site, your readers may not notice it, but they’ll notice if you don’t!
Thanks for being the first person to link to our new blog, SpyderBlog. Your commentary on my post is greatly appreciated, and you’re right, I forgot this notorious little annoyance, the Too Old or Too New Technology implementation.
I’m sure you’ll also agree that the worst mistake you can make with a web site is to let an amateur or student build it. My post on that topic explains all the miserable ramifications of such a strategy.
I’m curious, since this SpyderBlog is so new, and not even fully integrated with our SpyderHost site yet, how you happened to find this post.
Much appreciation, and best wishes to you in your university job.
Comment by steven e. streight — January 3, 2007 @ 12:23 pm
I have a series of RSS feeds from major search engines that search for graphic and web design related terms. I use them to see what others are writing about that I might find of interest. Sorry, but I didn’t notice which search terms found your site.
Comment by Douglas T — January 3, 2007 @ 12:42 pm