A list of don'ts

Hints for web site designers:
1.)  DON'T use Javascript links to other pages.  Use direct links.  I can't see where a Javascript link will take me, and often they won't let me launch it in a new tab - they do whatever YOU THINK it should do, not what I NEED it to do.  Especially DON'T use Javascript functions where links will do.  (Are you listening, all you bloggers who use HaloScan?)
2.)  DON'T default links to popping up in new windows. If I want a new window or a new tab, I'm quite capable of launching the link in one myself (unless you prevented this using Javascript; see #1 above).  I do NOT need to click your link, close the new window I did not want, then control-click to get a browser tab and then close the original tab I don't need anymore.
3.)  DON'T squeeze significant amounts of text into frames much smaller than the full window.  If the navbar and other things take up so much room that I can't have them up while reading the text, let me scroll them off.  The window is for INFORMATION, not just all the pretty thingies that web designers like.
4.)  Along with #3, DON'T use Javascript to re-load all the frames I tried to get rid of by clicking "View only this frame".  If you've put too much nav clutter on your page, let me get rid of it.  Better yet, provide buttons so poor folks still using IE can do it too.
5.)  DON'T make a link do different things if it's launched in a new window/tab instead of the same window/tab.  (Are you listening, Yahoo Mail?)
6.)  DON'T force your pages to ridiculous window widths... especially not in flyspeck fonts.  Ultra-wide text columns are hard to read, and even harder as the font gets smaller.  Text becomes nearly impossible to read if lines grow wider than the window, or the screen.  This should never happen, so why do so many of you do it?
7.)  DON'T give your nav links priority for window space over the content.  If the user expands the font to read the content, the nav stuff should move aside gracefully.  If this doesn't work with your whiz-bang layout, rethink your layout.
8.)  DON'T use a style sheet which keeps the user from scrolling over to the left margin if their window width isn't what you think it should be.
9.)  DON'T make me re-load button graphics and other static stuff every time I come by; if I visit you every day, those things should come right up out of cache.  The last-modified and expiration date on all elements of the page should be trustworthy.  (Are you listening, Keenspot and the rest of you comic sites?)
10.)  DON'T use automatic reloads unless it's essential for the READER!  Your view-tracking is not reason to reload a page, suck down the user's bandwidth and maybe make the browser go wonky.
<the engineer-poet breathes a sigh of relief as one insistent peeve is let out to do its business>  ¶ 5/13/2005 01:36:00 PM