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Splash Pages: Do We Really Need Them?

Yes, sometimes we do. Should we use them? No, we probably shouldn't. Splash screen (or splash page) is a front page of a web-site that don't provide the actual content, but offers visitors some kind of intuition or background information for what the site is about. Designers use splash pages in their portfolios to impress potential clients with eye-candy. Companies tend to make use of them to draw users' attention to their latest products. And users literally can't stand them, because splash pages usually take a long time to load and provide (almost) no navigation options — except of "entering the site".

Depending on designers' creativity, splash pages use more or less attractive visual elements, sometimes with interactive Flash-movies which sometimes start to play automatically. Splash pages usually have a very simple structure — mostly just an image with few text lines and links. The design of these pages sometimes isn't related to the overall site design. And although most sites don't use them, splash pages are sometimes necessary and therefore remain popular. In fact, there are some situations in which we might want or might even need to use them. Even although we shouldn't — for our visitors' sake.

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10 Designer’s Checkpoints To Be Aware Of

Automatic tests, checks and analysis services can be extremely valuable if you're looking for bugs or try to avoid them. To make sure everything is just the way you think it should be, you need validators. To improve the value and quality of your content, you need to be able to analyze the behaviour of your visitors. And to perform better in the future you have to know exactly, what your competitors are doing, how they're doing it and what you should learn from them.

In this overview we'd like to present some useful analytics services, validation tools and monitoring services you should be aware of. Some "standard" tools - such as W3C Validators - are skipped; instead we've tried to focus on tools you probably don't know that much about.

Please notice that the results provided by these services can include mistakes. Some rankings don't have to be right. And some calculations don't have to be based on correct statistical data. In every case the results have to be examined carefully; however, often they can inform you about current tendencies you might be willing to be aware of. And thus you can find some useful starting points from where you can really improve your web site. All listed tools are free or at least have a free "basic" version.

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Exploring Design: Outstanding Start Pages

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