Web sites is as web sites does.

I subscribe to a lot of web developer sites that offer a myriad of web building techniques and critical commentary. The other day, a column appeared extolling the ten worst things one could do when designing a web site.

At the top of the list — the 'highest' sin — was the disabling (or 'breaking') the BACK button; that is, purposely taking control of a visitor's browser's BACK button so that the visitor could not get away from a site without extreme difficulty. This 'gimmick', to put it kindly, is a favorite trick of pornographic web site designers. The user realizes they made a mistake and stumbled in to a porn site. They want to exit as fast as possible and instinctively click the BACK button only to find themselves confronted with an newly opened window featuring more porno sites. When attempts are made to close the new window, more windows appear leaving the visitor trapped in a morass of shocking imagery. Oftentimes, the only way to escape from such entrapments is to close down the browser and if that doesn't prove successful, to actually reboot the computer.

Common sense tells the majority of reputable web builders that breaking the BACK button is not the thing to do. However, the remainder of the "10 things..." quickly slid out of the realm of the 'verboten' and into the amorphous world of 'wait a second, that's not always the case....' Issues of graphic design were covered; issues of taste; issues of crass merchandising and issues of adventuresome web designing came to the fore.

Initial 'talkbacks' to the article started out with wholesale acceptance of what the article's author preached. But as the list of 'talkbacks' grew, it became clear that not by a long shot was everyone in agreement with the author's position. Web designers were the first to respond to the article. Then the designers were being supplemented by designer-businessmen and the businessmen took issue with the article's author.

When the article's author stated that sites should not be constructed with certain gimmicks, many web designers would agree but the businessmen-web designers would strongly disagree. The web designers stated that sites should not have entertainment clap-trap and the businessmen retorted SOME people actually go to web sites just to be entertained; that SOME people really dig playing with animated .gifs, marvel at Flash productions while ooohhing and aaahhing over some wild and crazy dynamic hypertext. Which side is correct, the web designers or the web-designing businessmen? Well... both are right.

All of this web designing business balances on one fine point: What, exactly, is the web site to be used for? What's its purpose? Objectively, a web site is as a web site does.

By now in your web surfing career, you should have noticed that some sites are nothing more than glorified magazine journal advertisements. Other sites are purely informational, others are educational, others entertaining and others are indescribable junk. Good taste aside for the moment, it has to be asked: what is the purpose of the web site? This is not always so easy a question to answer. There are many web sites existing on the Internet today that were funded and built, but no one ever asked the question: What's the real reason we're building this site?

Some sites we visit cost a fortune to build, and yet, they communicate very little. Some sites are so over-engineered with 'bells and whistles' that they become extremely difficult to navigate and seem pointless in whatever it is they are trying to accomplish. As pretty as it is, the site for Canon imaging and photography is one of the slowest downloading I have yet to come across and is an excellent example of 'over-engineering'. The site for Shiseido cosmetics and perfume from Japan, is a stellar example of navigational confusion and error-prone web design.

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