Weblog Entries
Got a leaky home page?
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Over the past few decades, countless homes around the country have been constructed using inferior materials, have been poorly designed and constructed without due care and responsibility which means they are rotting, dangerous, hazardous to health and expensive to fix.
The similarities between leaky home syndrome and low quality websites is unfortunately, very real. Websites constructed using inferior methods, tools and practices are also rotting, dangerous, hazardous to health and expensive to fix.
What a lot of rot
The internet itself suffers a crisis of countless leaky home pages. Inferior websites rot the internet, thats why we have international standards and best practice techniques in implementing those standards, to stop the rot. Standards Compliancy and a code of conduct is important for any physical or virtual construction whether its a home or home page.
“Although their owners and managers might not know it yet, 99.9% of Websites Are Obsolete”
Jeffrey Zealdman, author of Designing with Web Standards
How could this be dangerous?
It’s dangerous to your business or organisation as you run the risk that your visitors know the difference between good and bad, which they do. Internet users are getting more savvy by the day and can see quality where they never could before. Customers are unlikely to wait for slow bloated websites to appear because they know from experience what to expect.
Warning: hazardous to health
Your website needs to be barrier free, your website information should be available to all your visitors. Many people have needs that you may not be aware of, 20% of New Zealanders have some form of disability and there is a growing number of sliver surfers among us who rely on the internet for products, services and information. An unhealthy website is not accessible to many visitors and by turning people away you would be showing a lack of social responsibility. A healthy website is a happy website and happy visitor is a repeat visitor, these visitors will be loyal and in turn will help you do your marketing to others.
Expensive to fix
What does a poorly made website cost a business or organisation? Reducing business credibility through an inferior website in itself is damaging and will only send visitors running (if they ever find your website that is!) on top of the reduced business will be the redevelopment costs. You need good impartial advice to ensure that you get what you are paying for.
Ask any website design company if they will build an accessible website, you will quickly find that the answer will always be the same, yes of course! Many clients do not understand about accessibility or professional design and they rely on unregulated professionals to help them. Unfortunately, many (too many) design companies have very little understanding about real world accessibility themselves. Tickboxing standards checklists is not real world accessibility.
But what can I do?
For friendly impartial advice ask us about how you can be all things to as many people as possible, because thats what we do. New website or old, we will advise on your current situation and provide you with a quick and effective plan to get the best from your online presence. We can check you current website and help you find a company that will produce the quality that your customers deserve and respect.