- Don't Skip Designing for Mobile
- Don't Use Flash
- Don't Ignore Users' Expectations
- Don't Get Cute with Your Message or Navigation
- Don't Hide Your Contact Info
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Don't Hide Your Contact Info
If your site is for a business or organization, make it easy for users to find a street address and other contact information. If your site sells anything, this is a must, simply so that your site clears the legitimacy bar. Many folks look to see if a site is within their state to know if they'll be charged sales tax, and it just annoys them when they need to go almost all the way through your shopping cart to find that information.
Provide an email address for inquiries, and make sure that someone reads and responds to that email. A personal site can get away with a contact form (I use one on my personal site, for example), but a business needs more of a real-world presence. Make yourself available to your customers and potential customers via email, phone, and social media, and don't make any of those channels of communication difficult to find on your site. If you do, you're essentially saying to your site's visitors that you're faceless and anonymous, and who wants to deal with a company like that?
Tom Negrino is the author or coauthor of more than 40 books, covering such diverse topics as iCloud, Dreamweaver, JavaScript, Keynote, Microsoft Office, CSS, and more. His latest books are Dreamweaver CS6: Visual QuickStart Guide and 10 Things To Do Before Upgrading to OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion(both by Peachpit Press, 2012). A longtime contributor to Macworld and other magazines, Tom has lived in the Sonoma wine country with his wife and frequent collaborator, Dori Smith, since they fled the Los Angeles area in 1999.