12 Mistakes to avoid in creating an artist website.

DO NOT DO THE FOLLOWING THINGS ON YOUR ARTIST WEBSITE:
1. Right Click disablers! People aren't trying to steal your web-quality images, but you're really annoying the rest of us who use the right-click for all kinds of options, including navigating websites. (By the way, people can get your images even if you have a right-click disabler....so why have it?)
2. Music! This isn't a gallery opening. Please don't make me listen to the music you like. If I want to visit your site while listening to heavymetal....let me.
3. Resizing the Browser Window! Do not resize my browser window. I use a tabbed browser that fills my whole screen and keep several tabs open simultaneously. If you resize my browser window, it messes everything up and I will leave and never ever purchase your artwork.
4. Flash! Oh please, please, please don't use flash, Don't make me wait for stuff to load. Plus having to use flash's annoying little scroll bars to read text is really, really annoying when we have a technology that worksgreat for text called html. Also, flash really sucks on a mobile device.
5. Excessive Javascript! This is a similar mistake to flash - don't make things animate, jump around. Don't override regular html links and make them javascript links. Just keep it simple and let your artwork shine. (It's OK to usea little bit of javascript for statistics trackers and the like).
6. Out of date informationPlease don't make me read about the exhibits you had in 2002 on a"current exhibits" page. I'll just wonder if you've done anything since then. Make sure your information is current please.
7. Blurry images! If I'm actually going to purchase your artwork, it would be nice to know what it actually looks like.
8. Broken Links! If links don't work, then why have them? I don't have all day to figure out where you meant for your links to point.
9. Huge High-resolution images for backgrounds! In fact, don't use anything except a color for the background. Why do you want to clutter up the page? You wouldn't hang one of your artworks on top of another one of your artworks in real life.....so don't do it online!
10. Hard to Find Navigation Links! Please, just use plain text html navigation links. I'm not impressed that you can make your links look "shiny."
11. No Prices!! Don't make me guess how much to pay you.
12. Unreadable Text! Please make your text large, and with enough contrast to easily read.

This article is reproduced with permission. Copyright 2008 - Clint Watson.
This Article First Appeared at the Following Location:http://www.clintwatson.net/blog/2773<http://www.clintwatson.net/blog/2773>