Entrance Pages

The speed bumps of the Internet.

Opinion page by Duane Alan Hahn.

Many entrance pages are a waste of time. They're like the speed bumps of the Internet. An entrance page can be useful in a few cases, especially when giving visitors a chance to select a language or frames/non-frames or Flash/non-Flash, but those are the rare times.

If you must have an entrance page, please give visitors more than one option. There should be some kind of navigation. A useless entrance page that just sits there with only one option that says, 'click here to enter' is terrible.

Flash Intros

If you have a fast loading Flash intro that loads in less than 10 seconds using a 56k modem, that's great, but if you provide more than an "enter here" button when the animation finishes (if it ever does), that's even better. I love a fast loading Flash animation that plays once and then stops.

If you have one of those slow loading Flash "ego intro" splash pages, be sure to provide a skip intro button that actually works before the whole intro loads. You and your friends might think your intro is cool, but most people don't want to wait 5 or 10 minutes for your overblown ego stroker to load.