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Black on Black is Not a Helpful Web Form
Sometimes "great" web programming ideas backfire. Seniorsite.com is an online 'HealthStyle' community designed for adults 55 and older. It encourages web visitors to join their site via a free online registration. As you click from field to field to fill out the form, the background of each field (First Name, Last Name, etc.) changes to yellow. At least, it does on a PC. On newer Mac computers, the background changes to black! That makes it impossible for the user to see what he or she is typing. Not only that, but the left-hand navigation menu seems to overwrite itself on the same Mac computers. The result? They're losing about 8% of their potential market because they got "too cute" with their programming, and didn't test it across most major platforms. To avoid this pitfall, test your site on both Mac OS computers and Windows machines, in both Netscape and Microsoft Internet Explorer. Don't just test using the latest versions, but check with the standard versions (for Netscape, that means 4.7 and later, for MSIE, it means 5.0 and later). Then check your site on AOL and WebTV. That way you've covered 95% or more of the common platforms from which typical web users might try to view your site. April 2003 | ||
