Your preferences in website design

[Darth Wong]

What do you guys like? I'm just curious about some of the following:

Menu buttons across the top of the screen? Or on the side?

Plain buttons? Or animated buttons?

Fluid-width pages? Or fixed-width pages?

Flash? Or no Flash?

Frames? Or no frames?

[General Deathdealer]

Plain Buttons on the side of the screen, fixed page width, flash, and with frames is my vote.

[General Zod]

It really depends on what the website is geared towards imo. For something with lots of multimedia frames with non-cluttered, logically designed links works great. For something that's just text based no frames works just as well. Fluid width pages are always better as fixed width sites can get annoying and feel amateurish, unless it's for something like a popup dialog box where it makes sense to have a fixed width.

[Zac Naloen]

What do you guys like? I'm just curious about some of the following:

Menu buttons across the top of the screen? Or on the side?

Plain buttons? Or animated buttons?

Fluid-width pages? Or fixed-width pages?

Flash? Or no Flash?

Frames? Or no frames?

Menu Buttons across the top, I automatically go to the top of everything for menu's these days. Mostly because most GUI's are like that now.

Non-animated but well done buttons.

Fluid-width.

Flash is over rated for web sites.

Never been a fan of frames, but they do serve their purpose in some situations.

[Luke Starkiller]

Frames are nice to hold menus on pages where there is a lot of navigating from one section to another. The less Flash on a page, the better.

[YT300000]

Plain buttons across the top, no flash. Just keeping it simple, clean and functional is best on pages with lots of content.

Width doesn't particularly matter to me, but I prefer no frames, as I use Firefox and like to open lots of new pages in tabs.

[Edi]

The less flash, the better. Menus either on top or on the left-hand side and fixed in place, frames for content.

[Bounty]

I like minimalist design. No gimmicks, no Flash, just a plain menu down the side and clear text on an unobtrusive, preferably solid-colour background. Frames might work, but they make it harder to link to specific content. Avoid moving or morphing objects at all costs and never, ever automatically load multimedia unless it's either very small in size or crucial to the way the site works.

[General Zod]

I like minimalist design. No gimmicks, no Flash, just a plain menu down the side and clear text on an unobtrusive, preferably solid-colour background. Frames might work, but they make it harder to link to specific content. Avoid moving or morphing objects at all costs and never, ever automatically load multimedia unless it's either very small in size or crucial to the way the site works.

Agreed on the multimedia. With the exception of some animations, automatically loading video or audio is annoying and sometimes enough for me to never visit a website again.

[Isil`Zha]

Hell, I like flashy designs, it can be as flashy as you can make it... as long as it's easy to read and easy to navigate.

Take this sitefor instance. It's actually pretty easy to navigate and what they did with it is pretty neat....

[Bounty]

Hell, I like flashy designs, it can be as flashy as you can make it... as long as it's easy to read and easy to navigate.

Take this sitefor instance. It's actually pretty easy to navigate and what they did with it is pretty neat....

Excuse me? That site might work as a tech demo for a Flash designer, but as a usable website, it fails completely. Takes 30 seconds to load on DSL, no clear navigation (yes, there are buttons, but they're too cryptic), I have no idea what sort of product or service it's supposed to offer...

Thinkgeek is somewhat closer to what I envision a "good" site to be. Not perfect, but a damn sight better than what you're peddling.

[General Zod]

Hell, I like flashy designs, it can be as flashy as you can make it... as long as it's easy to read and easy to navigate.

Take this sitefor instance. It's actually pretty easy to navigate and what they did with it is pretty neat....

Takes much too long to load and has audio on as default. Though they at least had the courtesy to put in a feature to turn it off. White-Wolf, DrivethruRPG, Craigslist and Tucows all meet what I'd consider excellent design standards. Drivethru can be a bit slow but I chalk that up to their server than site design.

[Beowulf]

Frames are evil and anyone using them without need should be shot. Multimedia, if present, shouldn't play unless I tell it to. Fluid width pages. I have my browser set up to take less than half the display width of my home monitor. I don't need you to override the decision. Buttons shouldn't move on their own (when you click or hover over them, sure, go ahead).

[Isil`Zha]

Hell, I like flashy designs, it can be as flashy as you can make it... as long as it's easy to read and easy to navigate.

Take this sitefor instance. It's actually pretty easy to navigate and what they did with it is pretty neat....

Excuse me? That site might work as a tech demo for a Flash designer, but as a usable website, it fails completely. Takes 30 seconds to load on DSL, no clear navigation (yes, there are buttons, but they're too cryptic), I have no idea what sort of product or service it's supposed to offer...

Thinkgeek is somewhat closer to what I envision a "good" site to be. Not perfect, but a damn sight better than what you're peddling.

eh, could've been worse, I've seen flash sites that are just... indescribable. Considering it's an advertising/graphics design company, I'd say the site is quite appropriate.

[Pu-239]

No frames, just links on left side, maybe banner at top. For navigation needs for larger sites/pages, perhaps javascript or position:fixed to move the navbar w/ the page.

[Drooling Iguana]

What do you guys like? I'm just curious about some of the following:

Menu buttons across the top of the screen? Or on the side?

On the side. They don't instantly disappear when you start scrolling down, are easier to read and I won't accidentally press them when I'm trying to change tabs.

Plain buttons? Or animated buttons?

No real preference, beyong my general "simpler is better" attitudes toward this sort of thing.

Fluid-width pages? Or fixed-width pages?

Fluid-width, but still keep a bit of margin space for easier reading. The margin should also be a function of the size of the window instead of hard-coded, though. I shouldn't have to squint at a tiny column of text when I have the window maximised, but I should also be able to shrink the window down without having to put up with horizontal scrollbars.

Flash? Or no Flash?

NO FLASH!!!

Unless it's an actual animation or interactive bit that really needs Flash. If it's something that can be done in HTML, though, then that's the way it should be done.

Frames? Or no frames?

Generally, no frames, although they do have their uses.

[Mad]

Menu buttons across the top of the screen? Or on the side?

Left side. It allows for more links and the links can be quickly scanned from top to bottom.

Plain buttons? Or animated buttons?

I'm not quite sure what you mean here.

I like something to happen when I mouse-over a link or button and something else to happen when I click it; it gives a more polished look as well as feedback to the user.

For normal links, usually a simple (or even somewhat subtle) color change suffices.

Fluid-width pages? Or fixed-width pages?

Fluid-width. Depending on which computer I'm viewing a site on, my resolutions can vary drastically. Mobile devices are becoming more and more popular, as well, so layouts really need to work with a large range of widths.

Flash? Or no Flash?

Keep Flash to a minimum. Flash should not be required for navigating the page, though it's understandable if certain content requires Flash for the presentation.

Frames? Or no frames?

No frames. I like to use separate header and footer files and have all my pages do a PHP include to maintain a consistent look on all my pages.

[Lisa]

sipmle clean and quick. even though I have a high speed connection a quick page is still better then a bloated one. fluid width is better, if you have a bigger screen why not take advantage of it. my browser already does stuff when highlighting a link so no need to do mouse over buttons.

[Darth Servo]

Your format is great the way it is. But if you're in the mood to work on the website, here's something

[Xisiqomelir]

What do you guys like? I'm just curious about some of the following:

Menu buttons across the top of the screen? Or on the side?

Plain buttons? Or animated buttons?

Fluid-width pages? Or fixed-width pages?

Flash? Or no Flash?

Frames? Or no frames?

Top, plain, fixed, no-flash, no-frames

[ThatGuyFromThatPlace]

Fluid width pages, no question, I hate having lot's of blank space from a website due to fixed width.

Menu Buttons across the top unless you're running a webcomic.

Flash can make a good site, but not gratuitous flash, If you really want to do something that can't be done without flash then go for it, but don't just slapdash a whole website out of flash for no good reason.

Same with frames, You can do some good things with frames that can't be done without, but unless that stuff is essential to your design then just don't do it.

[Hugh]

No frames, just links on left side, maybe banner at top. For navigation needs for larger sites/pages, perhaps javascript or position:fixed to move the navbar w/ the page.

Seconded. Javascript can also be used (unobtrusively) to do away with page reloads, thus eliminating the need for frames. It's even possible to fix the Back button

Also, animations are a no-no, unless they're part of the content. Flash is good for that, as well as movies, music or (mini)games.

Fixed-width pages I can cope with, though I prefer fluid layouts. Really, it's more important to make sure the layout survives an increase in font size.

Finally, though I prefer minimalistic layouts, I want the page to have margins at the very least. There's a reason why all printed books have them.

[JediToren]

1. No flash unless it is video, animation, games, etc. In other words, use Flash for what's it's best at. HTML, CSS, and JavaScript area always better at things like navigation since that can be viewed by a wider audience, don't run afoul of Flash blocking technology, and can be indexed by search engines. If Google can't read it, your site might as well not exist at all, because no one is going to find it.
2. Frames suck big fat donkey balls. Where frames really breakdown is deep-linking, where another website links to an article on your site rather than a front page, or when someone Googles a page on your site. If your navigation is in another frame (and thus, another page) visitors who don't come in through the front page are fucked, and so are you.
3. Simple backgrounds. Patterns are okay, but gradients and solid colors are best. This is my biggest complaint with MySpace. Virtually every MySpace page on that entire site has a background and text color selection that makes it virtually unreadable.
4. Don't use animation unless you actually need it for content purposes.
5. I like the main menu to be along the top, horizontal. If you have a lot of sub-sections, cascading menus and/or simply having a vertical menu for each section (along the left or right side) is always a good idea.
6. Fixed width is bad, but having some margins on the side is always good.
7. Breadcrumbs are always good.
8. Active/Hovering links should be underlined and have a different color, except for navigation menus.
9. Make sure your site works without JavaScript.
10. Video and/or audio should only play when I ask it to. Notice how embedded YouTube and Google videos require you to click it first.
11. If you want to create a thumbnail image, create an actual thumbnail image. Don't cheat and use the height and width attributes to adjust the full size image. It looks like shit, is hard to see (thus defeating the purpose of creating a thumbnail) and still takes up the same amount of memory and bandwidth as loading all of the full size images.

[Durandal]

What do you guys like? I'm just curious about some of the following:

Menu buttons across the top of the screen? Or on the side?

Down the side, personally.

Plain buttons? Or animated buttons?

Rollover buttons are probably the best. Animated stuff is just distracting.

Fluid-width pages? Or fixed-width pages?

You tend to post essays, and really wide paragraphs tend to make text harder to read. There's a reason every newspaper website uses fixed-width divs for their text.

Flash? Or no Flash?

What would you need Flash for?

Frames? Or no frames?

There are entire societies dedicated to the eradication of frames from the Internet. They're a nightmare in terms of page focus and following links, with behaviors that vary from browser to browser. I'd say you should avoid them.

[Starglider]

While we're at it, what do you guys think of this layout? It's a sample page for a project I'm working on. It's just for the proof of concept and maybe early public beta, we'd definitely hire at least one professional web designer to redo it if the project gets stage two (i.e. VC) funding.