Don't Be Annoying
Why You DON'T Need a Splash Page
These were really cool in the 90s, oh wait- no they weren't. Jakob Nielsen also warns that splash pages "are a sure sign of bad Web design". Splash pages add an annoying and unneccessary obstacle between your website and the people that are trying to get there. Mike Garrison wrote the following which is posted on useit.com, "I especially hate it when a page I have bookmarked (say: //blah.com/ ) gets moved to some URL like //blah.com/content and my bookmark suddenly starts taking me to a splash page. Then I have to edit my bookmark so that it will take me to the real home page." What a way to annoy visitors!
Splash Pages are Usless! Really, what is the function of a splash page anyway? In the 90's these were used as an introduction, flash sites being the worst offenders. Most people nowadays add little whitty sayings and requirements such as "IE, frames, and Love for Dolls", or "optimized for 1200x1600 resolution, and Firefox", or even "coming soon". Your website should be cross-browser compatable and accessible to ALL standard screen resolutions anyway. And requiring that someone "like" the same things you do before they visit your site is just rude and somewhat redundant. Either they found your site by accident and they don't care what you think and immediately leave, or they are into dolling and of course they enjoy the same things you do.
And others use their splash page to divide the different websites they own- one for pixeling, one for their professional art portfolio, etc. It's bad practice to have all of this on one page. Make your sites completely separate, and link to them in appropriate places. Do you really want your employers to see your pixel art site, facebook link, and myspace account, when they're looking to see your professional portfolio? So really there is no reason to use a splash page.
Other reasons why you should NEVER use a Splash Page
Mike Garrison gives the following list of why splash pages are one of the "top useless web fashion" mistakes:
- No one wants to have to access it every time, so getting to it really annoys anyone who is not a first time user.
- 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.
- Most new users will come via a search engine anyway, so they'll probably miss the splash page.
- 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.
- They ruin the back button.
Need I say more to convince you these are a thing of the past?
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