November 24, 2000

 
 

November 24, 2000. Interview with Nate Oostendorp concerning the question: What makes a good website?

Q: Nate, briefly describe what makes a good website?
A: Depends on the websites purpose. If a website is meant to be for a company or a product, it has to be attractively marketed. It needs to let people get the information the customers are looking for. If the website if for entertainment, it needs to grab the attention of the customers quickly. If it is for reference, it needs to display the data and the customer needs the ability to access the data quickly and easily. The interface is very important to making a good website, the most important is paying attention to bandwidth limitations. Super graphics are heavy on bandwidth and many webmasters don't realize that the majority of web surfers are still using a 56k modem. It also should be compatible work between many browsers. Many people make websites for Windows IE, given it is 70% of the market but not everyone. needs to be intuitive and easy to use.

Q: Nate, what are mistakes that professionals along with non-professional make while designing websites?
A: I think that professionals put a lot of weight on glitz. They want to make the page flashy. This is because they are making it for a client and need it glitzy and is not looking at the details. Non-professionals - obviously don't know HTML and so they just center everything on the page. Non-professionals also will put too many graphics on the page just because they want to show a picture of… Metallica, or something.

Q: What website do you run?
A: Everything2.com

Q: Does it have those mistakes you mentioned? And does it suck?
A: Yeah, sometimes, partially because it is written by the users that play on it. Yeah, it sucks.

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