There Will Be Bugs

A list (in no particular order) of what to expect and what to watch out for when launching your brand spanking new website!

Typos.

They’re everywhere. You hate them. We hate them. Find a typo free website and we will give you a free website! (just kidding – we won’t.)

Some Robots thing appears in Google under your name.

The dreaded robots.txt file has been uploaded without removing the disallow(s) from your test server and you’ve just been eradicated from Google. Deep sweats from your developer. Deep sweats from all involved. Easily fixed.

It looks *haaaayuuuuuuege*.

Welcome to the hellish and grisly world of different screen resolutions. They are not your friend. Standardisation is up there with eternal life in the wish list of all developers. The industry standards are based on the 960px grid system or higher.

It looks *T-eye-kneeeeee*.

You just saw it on your designers beautiful Retina Macbook Pro in the ‘more space’ resolution of 1920 x 1200 where the world is full of smooth fonts, fibre broadband and ‘the fold’ doesn’t exist. Welcome to how the internet should be. Make sure to beat your designer if they have gone above the 960px grid system. Hard.

‘Things’ are below the fold.

The best web designers will reply with “f*** the fold” but unfortunately it’s just not that simple. However, that doesn’t mean the answer is to stuff everything above the fold – our old pal the screen resolution has his own opinions on things too and he’ll put the fold wherever he fancies. Couple him with all the useless toolbars and spyware the last person who had your machine installed and your fold is about 200px high!

It looks nothing like the nice swanky PDF your designer sent you!

This is where sh*t gets real tricky. You are more then likely using an old browser that neither Google or Facebook supports and thus your web designer or digital agency does not cater for it. And rightly so. This is standard practice, it’s part of how the internet drives itself forward – get IT in to update your browser. Stop using Internet Explorer. Get a nice new version of Chrome, Safari or Firefox and see the internet like you’ve just cleaned your glasses after a snow storm. Also change your security settings to medium and for the love of the web ALLOW COOKIES. They taste gooooooood. Tea isn’t the same without them and they are the final piece of a great cup of hot chocolate.

The fonts don’t look the same as the JPEGs or PDFs.

Font consistency across machines and browsers does not exists (typo!). Internet Explorer and PC’s in general render fonts badly. No one can guarantee font consistency without creating a site as a graphic and this is very, very bold. Google will not give you the love you deserve if you don’t have html text.

It works on your computer but not your mums.

This is called browser compatibility and it is the root of all evil. Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8 being the worst offenders. If you want to enjoy the web you must have the latest browser. Either that or all the great stuff you asked for on your site won’t work. If you want to design for old browsers then that’s cool but you will sacrifice all the sexy stuff that you want like bouncing menus and fancy marquee windows.

It doesn’t work on your phone.

If you have a Nokia 3210 then you are to stop reading this article and go to your local Carphone Warehouse where you are to hand yourself in and plead guilty. If not – your site is not created in responsive design. Get on it. Mobile traffic has never been higher. However – prepare for a bumpy ride. In the words of David Bowie: It ain’t easy.

The Contact Form doesn’t work.

The likelihood here is that the form is set up to go the developer’s email address and it just hasn’t been changed. Fear not! All your data is safe, you just have to make your way through all the pizza boxes, cans of red bull and temperamental, over-worked, cranky world of the dev team to get it fixed!

And here are a few others to keep tabs on too…

When the contact email address is changed you don’t receive the emails because of your spam settings.

There’s still Lorum Ipsum or placeholder images somewhere.

The copyright year is now out of date.

The Facebook open graph image hasn’t been set.

The Google Analytics hasn’t been set up.

Something is broken in Internet Explorer. (something is always broken in Internet Explorer – Internet Explorer!)

Something is broken on mobile.

YouTube / Vimeo embeds aren’t responsive.

List styling hasn’t been set because an example wasn’t included in the design and the developer forgot to put it in.

There are broken or placeholder links somewhere. Probably in the footer.

You will quite possibly hate your CMS / Content Management System and accuse it of not working!