RE: [Q] META "Refresh" deprecated ?

> I use the 'idiocy' to provide a standard, simple, here-I-am 
> lead-in to the site.  I would like to ask (genuine interest, not
> rhetorical smartass), what's wrong with what I do and thus with
> Refresh?

This is a very good question.

The use of splash screens is simple but not "standard"; a lot of users
(myself included) don't expect them and will be slightly bewildered
when they see such a mostly-empty page, and as soon as they recover from
the surprise enough to read the text, *pop* the page disappears.

There are several other almost-convincing reasons to avoid splash pages.
Here is what one user says:

1.  No one wants to have to access it every time, so getting to it
    really annoys anyone who is not a first time user. 

2.  But for the first time user, it adds a useless step between them
    and whatever brought them to the site in the first place. So it
    really annoys them too.

3.  Most new users will come via a search engine anyway, so they'll
    probably miss the splash page.

4.  If you make it the default highest page in the server (eg.
    http://www.useit.com/ ) then when people try to find your home
    page by chopping off a URL, they get the useless splash page
    instead.

5.  They ruin the back button.

These comments are attributed to Mike Garrison; you can find them
on the web at Jakob Nielsen's site:
    New Top-10 Web Design Mistakes:  Reader Comments
    http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990530_comments.html

-- 
Jason Orendorff

Received on Tuesday, 22 February 2000 18:01:03 UTC