Tips for defensive Web Designing

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Recently, I perused a book titled “Defensive design for the Web” by 37signals.com.It contains a number of useful guidelines for Web Designing followed by illustrative examples. Some of the

notable points are listed below:

About Error Messages
1)Error messages should be distinctly noticeable.
2)Color, Icons, Text should be used to highlight/explain problem area.
3)Error identification should be consistent throughout the system.
4) Need for back and forth clicking in error pages be eliminated.
5) Custom “404-Page not found ” pages should include following information:
a) company’s name and logo.
b) reason for displaying that page.
c) links back to home/other pages.
d) search engine.
e) email links so that problem can be reported.

About Web forms
5) Required fields should be highlighted in the form.
6) Sample entries, drop-downs, formatting hints should be provided.
7) Entries should be validated ASAP both at the client and the server.
Use of “Reset” or “Clear” button be discouraged and the “Submit” button be disabled after it is clicked to avoid multiple form submissions.
9) Entries made in the form needs to be saved periodically
to handle premature drop-outs.

About URL redirection
10) Near-miss URLs should be successfully redirected using sub-domain wild cards(*) etc.
e.g. addresses like www3.abc.com or www2.abc.com can be directed to abc.com.

Use of HTML ALT tags for images
11)As usual, ALT tags should contain concise but precise description of the images being used so that users withslow Internet connection or with text-only browsers may use it without hindrance. Moreover, it aids Search Engine Crawlers to grant high ranking to thepage.

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