Rules to Better Websites - Layout And Formatting - 61 Rules

Always indicate which fields are required. Users get frustrated when they experience a wasted trip to the server, just because they did not get an obvious indication of what was required first time around.

A designer will know the best way to indicate required field depending on the layout. However if you are in doubt and don’t have a designer around, a red asterisk is definitely the best option.

More information on ASP.NET implementation

You should combine these visual indicators with appropriate client and server side validators to make sure that your data conforms to business requirements. Adding a RequiredFieldValidator to the above textboxes gives you data validity check with minimal coding.

<asp:Textbox runat="Server" ID="email" />

<asp:Textbox runat="Server" ID="email"/>
    
<asp:RequiredFieldValidator runat="Server" ControlToValidate="email" ErrorMessage="Please enter an email address"
    
ID="emailReqValidator" />

It seems nearly all web developers are confused whether they should use hyperlinks or buttons on forms. The recommendation is that whenever data is being submitted (e.g. Save, Cancel, Apply) you should use a button, otherwise use a link.

This is because hyperlinks indicate navigation - "If I click this link, I'll be taken somewhere else".

Whereas a button indicates that something is being processed - "When I click this, I'm agreeing that something is being submitted"

Note: If you are using an automated link checker

It is important you use buttons for updating or deleting data on your website. The main reason is problems will occur when you run a link checker (we run SSW Link Auditor), and you have data driven pages with "Update" or "Delete" hyperlinks. The link checker will try to go to all associated links and potentially delete a lot of data from your website database.

But you say "My Delete links have JavaScript protection e.g. Are you sure you want to delete?". It is still no good because link checkers ignore all JavaScript validation.

Thus, we must have:

• Password protected areas on the website when we can update the database records via the web
• All update ability must be via buttons, not hyperlinks (as buttons are known on the web to submit a form).

That being said, there are a couple of exceptions to this rule.

1. If you want the user to be able to right click and "Open in New Window"
2. If you want a consistent design feel (and there is no confusion that the link is accepting data)

When designing your form, you should try to help your user whenever it's possible. So it's a good idea to include the number of results in ComboBoxes.

An image is worth a thousand words, it's true. So if you can remove text and replace with an image, do so.

So we need a better way to present an image on our website and it should be easy enough to create a decent look.

Figure: Bad example - Here we have text describing a flower

What else can you do?

• Use good captions - See Do you add useful and bold figure text (aka a caption) to avoid a lot of text over images?
• Use good HTML - See Do you use the right HTML/CSS code to add the useful figure/caption?

When you add an image to a website or application, it is so useful to add a figure underneath it to describe your image.

It's the best way of ensuring you catch users' attention to the content of your page. When you're scanning a newspaper for interesting articles, you'll check out the pictures, read the accompanying description, and if it sounds interesting you'll go back and read the article.

Users read websites in a similar fashion. Catch their attention with an image, and then keep it with a useful description. Don't just describe what the image is; say what it's used for in the context of the document.

It is especially important that images and captions serve a purpose, as opposed to graphics which are there solely for design.

Tip #1: Use prefixes

Prefix your caption with "Figure: ", "Video: ", or "Code: ".

If it is a good/ok/bad example (see the next tip), then the prefix should be something like: "Figure: Good/Bad/OK example - ", "Video: Good/Bad/OK example - ", or "Code: Good/Bad/OK example - ".

Tip #2: Give bad and good examples

When possible, use "bad" and "good" examples to clearly explain Dos and don'ts.

Tip #3: Bold your captions

Tip #4: Describe the actions in your captions

Especially for screenshots, it is a good idea to have your figure describe the action the user would take:

Tip #5: Add the titles + length on video captions

When embedding videos from others, include a caption with the video title + video length in brackets.

You should also prefix with "Video: [Title] " instead of "Figure: ".

This helps:

• Giving a brief text summary of the video
• Getting some extra Google Juice
• Letting users know what to expect in terms of time required to watch
• Serving as a reminder in case that video ever gets removed by its owner

Tip #6: Link people's names to their profiles

When you have someone's name in your caption, link their name to their profiles (e.g. SSW People).

The best way to emphasize your point is to show the pain first, and then the solution. Use "Bad example" and "Good example" with crosses and ticks, respectively, in the captions.

To do this, we give a bad example and raise users' expectation first.

Then show the solution by giving a good example as the result, making them feel released.

Most developers put the image and the caption in a DIV tag, where the figure is just a paragraph - this is not correct.

<div>
  <img alt="">
  <p>Figure: Caption</p>
</div>

Instead, you should use <figure> and <figcaption> as per https://www.w3schools.com/TAGS/tag_figcaption.asp. This structure gives semantic meaning to the image and figure:

<figure>
  <img src="image.jpg" alt="image"></img src="image.jpg" alt="image">
  <figcaption>Figure: Caption</figcaption>
</figure>

The old way

For some internal sites, we still use the old way to place images: Using  <dl> ,  <dt> (which is the item in the list – in our case an image), and <dd> for a caption.

<dl class="badImage"> OR <dl class="goodImage">   
  <dt><img src="image.jpg" alt="Image"></dt>
  <dd>Figure: Caption</dd>
</dl>

Figure: Old way example

Why do so many interesting pages have no owner? There are countless articles on the web that have left the reader wondering: "Who wrote this? What is their background?

Sometimes, the only available link is author’s email, which doesn't say anything about them. Sure, contact info is often a good part of the biography, but it should not be the primary or only piece of data about the author.

Different article layouts can be:

• Articles with a column and no authors listed - Very Bad
• Articles with authors but no link to their biographies - Bad
• Articles with authors but only a "mailto:" link for direct email - Average
• Articles with an acknowledgements section and a link to the biographies - Good

Users often want to know the people behind information. Biographies and photographs of the authors help make the web a less impersonal place and increase trust. Personality and point-of-view always win over anonymity.

So every web page or document should have an owner and include a link with more information about the author.

As we know portable devices like tablets and mobile phones are being more and more used as reading devices, however printing web pages is still often necessary. In general web designers don't think about printing when putting a website up, meaning we're left with web pages that frustratingly don't properly print on to paper.

A print.css file works in the same way as a regular stylesheet, except it only gets called up when the page is printed, by setting the command media to be "print", as per below:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="print.css" type="text/css" media="print" />

The print.css file should have 100% width and is used to hide elements that you don't want to appear when printing a web page, such as advertising, background, menus, animations etc.

An oversized image or table on your page can greatly reduce your page's readability and disrupt its layout. It affects page loading and can also cause problems in printing, wasting natural resources.

That's why you should limit all your images and tables to a maximum of 800 pixels wide.

Some have said 800 pixels is too small, if you resized a large image you can't read the text - we think if you have an image that is large, then there must be reasons.

1. If we are trying to show an overall layout, then it is OK for the text to be too small to see.
2. If we are trying to show specific details - either a feature or a problem, then it is OK to crop the image so that they fit the size.

Also, if you are resizing in Photoshop you can easily resize the image and yet put the zoom out on a part that you want the reader to read (combining both options).

You may be nicely equipped with a 4k monitor at work, but many people will access your content via their mobile phone or tablet.

Your website should work nicely on any screens that vary from a mobile/tablet to a large PC monitor.

Google has a web tool to test how mobile-friendly your site is.

Know more at Responsive Web Design: What It Is and How To Use It.

Go beyond responsive design

Responsive Web Design is great. It lets you alter the display of a web page using CSS to better suit screens of different sizes.

When building websites targeting mobile devices it is only part of the solution, however.

Figure: Watch the clip with Dino Esposito to find out why

For a website that expects a lot of first-time visitors, it is wise to put the user registration form on the same page as the sign in dialog. This saves having the user click on another link to enter their details.

The image is a bad example of a dialog box because:

• You can easily enter the correct data and click the wrong hyperlink (i.e. Join or sign in)
• By well-established convention, buttons should be used whenever form data is to be submitted back to the server
• The "Forgot my Password" link is ambiguous - Does it take me to a new page or do I have to enter the email address field first?
• A button, not a link, should be used for submitting data, as links don't allow the user to hit "enter"

For a website that expects few first-time visitors, this is a good sign in screen, as it is clean and concise:

Note: Generally, the action buttons should be aligned to the right.

It is easier for users to remember their frequently accessed email address more so than one of their many usernames. For this reason, it is best to use email address instead of username for the sign in page.

"I do recommend letting users enter their email address instead of a user ID: It's guaranteed to be unique and it is easy to remember."

Jakob Nielsen , Ph.D. and Principal at Nielsen Norman Group

It's easy and common for users to forget their passwords, the vital key which grants them access to the services they are eligible for.To cater for this instance, it is important to have a 'Forgot my password' link on the sign in page.

Do you avoid a username enumeration attack?

This practice also opens up the risk of "username enumeration" where an entire collection of usernames or email addresses can be validated for existence on the website simply by batching requests and looking at the responses.You can read more on Troy Hunt's blog post. You should always aim to not disclose if a user is registered with your site or not.

It is always good to provide the user with an option to have their username and password remembered. Doing so means they don't have to type them again.

When you present visitors to your site with an opportunity to sign in, you should always include an option to have that person signed in automatically.

This should be implemented simply by using a checkbox. A cookie should be stored on the user's computer so that next time they visit your site the sign in process is automatic.

Although most of the sites have a 'Log off' submenu, we recommend adding a short cut next to the username, this will make the 'log Off' operation more convenient.

Every website out there has a page that displays the results of a search. I am amazed that no standard has been adopted throughout the Web as nearly every site seems to have a different way of displaying data.

However, Google is a very good example for displaying search results. Their result pages are clear and efficient, especially for a large result set.

So adopt Google's search result layout and it will give new and regular users a better navigation experience. Here's our standard layout for our search function.

Want the 'Google grid'? Then follow these rules to help users to navigate:

1. Filters at the top (if more than one search parameter,then add a "search" button)
2. The number of results found + how many seconds the search took to execute
3. A statement that explains the criteria that you used for searching (or keep the criteria in the text box like google does)
4. The number of pages found (hyperlinks centered in the middle), and these hyperlinks should be shown on the footer of the page only.

The table tag selector “width” is considered an inline styling, which should be avoided. In the cases you really need to specify the table width you should do it via the CSS file. 

Since HTML5, DOCTYPE no longer requires a reference to a DTD. Back in HTML 4.01, The DTD links were used in to specify the rules for the markup language (Transitional, Strict, Frameset etc) so that the browsers render the content correctly. It's no longer necessary.

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "https://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">  

<!DOCTYPE html>

For more information, see HTML !DOCTYPE Declaration on w3schools.com.

When designing your website, it's a good idea to help your users where possible. When you use a combo box, it's very helpful to be able to see at a glance how many results can be expected.

According to Design Specifications and Guidelines - User Assistance, the commands for navigating through a wizard should be "< Back" and "Next >".

When your site needs a link to iterate backward through records we recommend that you use "< Back" instead of "< Previous".

There are a few reasons for this:

1. This is the standard used in Microsoft Installation files. MSIs are the most widely used installation package available today.
2. Internet Explorer and several other lesser-known browsers use a Back button to iterate back through webpages, so your visitors will automatically know what your "< Back" link does.
3. It is important to keep consistency on your pages.

Below is an example of a Good "< Back" link versus some Bad variations.

When getting users to choose data from a medium-long list, or to enter data that has been predefined (such as Country names), it is a good idea to use a predictive-text combo rather than a normal combo or text boxes. A good implementation of predictive-text combos will also perform a type-ahead effect, providing the user with a richer experience.

Also, predictive text boxes can be used with validation, or without. In instances where you don't mind if users add data to your collection you can turn validation off; however, to keep your collection clean, it is recommended to use validation.

HTML 5 introduced a whole slew of new type properties for forms. Gone are the days of just using type="text" for every field in a form (barring buttons and checkboxes).

Although most of these don't do anything on desktop, on mobile devices they bring up the correct keyboard. As we move into a more mobile digital age, small things like the proper numerical keyboard or a keyboard with a quick ".com" becomes increasingly important.

<label for="phone">Phone</label>: 
<input type="text" name="phone" />

<label for="phone">Phone</label>: 
<input type="tel" name="phone" />

Here is a table of some useful input types and what they do:

Type	What
Color	This is a color picker. This is not supported on mobile or in all browsers.
Date	This brings up the date picker on mobile
Datetime-local	This brings up a date-time picker on mobile
Email	This adds ".com" and "@" to the keyboard on mobile
File	Use then when you want a button to upload files. This will also allow users to upload from their mobile device’s photo library.
Month	This brings up a month and year picker on mobile
Number	This displays as a number selector on desktop and can be set with upper and lower limits. However, it does not work on mobile yet.
Password	This masks the characters and should be used for any privacy sensitive information
Range	This will show a slider control and works on mobile
Search	This should be used to define search fields
Tel	This brings up the number pad on mobile
Time	This brings up the time picker on mobile
URL	This adds ".com" to the keyboard on mobile

The <font> tag is supported in all major browsers, however it is deprecated since HTML 4... so it should not be used. Learn more at w3schools.com.

Tip: The best practice is to CSS classes to define the font family, size, and color.

We have a program called SSW Link Auditor to check for this rule.

In some cases you may need to display text content on your page with a specific font. Unfortunately web browsers don't provide an easy way to deliver rich typography without sacrificing some functionality. Common approaches include:

1. Display the text as an image
2. sIFR
3. Font stacking
4. Google Fonts
5. Self-hosting
6. Webfont services

Each method mentioned above has their disadvantages. We discourage #1 - Images are bad for Google juice and cannot be selected; and #2 - sFIR uses old technology based on nearly dead Flash.

For more information on the differences between the other methods read: The best way to serve fonts to your website.

If your styles are going to be different, then make it obvious that they are different. Don't be timid about it! This is a great time to be daring!

"Different" can mean many things: different font family, different style, different size, and different color. But the most important thing is to make it obvious that they are different.

Partial differences make people get confused and start asking things like "this looks a bit strange, but I don't know why. Is that intentional?"

Compare the follow two examples:

Picking your fonts carefully applies to all forms of design where text is involved. Unfortunately, deciding what sort of differences look good and what doesn't is extremely subjective and is a skill that gets developed overtime.

Why do web pages have "Reset" buttons? I have been entering forms on the web for more years than I care to remember, but have never needed to click this button. The worst thing is I have accidentally hit it a few times after - I have a habit of doing 3 things at once - it happens just after I have finished entering everything and click the first button.

More detailed information about this rule can be found in this article: Reset and Cancel Buttons.

We have a program called SSW CodeAuditor to check for this rule.

We have a program called SSW LinkAuditor to check for this rule.

When a user downloads a file from your site, they should see a progress bar along with the total size and estimated time, this way they will see the size of the download increasing and will knowing when it will finish.

When you ring up a company and ask “do you sell boxes?” it is not expected to hear them say “no” and hang up. They should answer the question and suggestion something, for example: “No, but we sell plastic containers, would you like that instead?”

Websites should do the same by giving more information instead of just say “404 – page not found” or “your search did not match anything”. It can be a simple “Try one of these instead” giving a number of links.

You should avoid any extra style tags in your heading text, because it is unnecessary and generates inconsistency.

Tip: You can do all the styling via CSS.

One of the most annoying things when you're surfing a site is to have to use a horizontal scroll bar to view all of the information. Not being able to view all the information from left to right of screen, makes the web page harder and slower to read. The Reader should find the web page easy to navigate, to make viewing the website an enjoyable experience.

Therefore it is bad web design to use a horizontal scroll bar. When designing your site, the page text should respect the user's desire to resize the browser window and have text wrap correctly. Also, you should take into consideration the effect that different screen resolutions will have on how much can fit onto the screen.

Remember to format time and date on your website in a human friendly manner:

Use a consistent format when writing addresses.

The structure should follow: Number, Street Name, City, State (abbreviation) Postal Code, Country

• Beware of the commas positioning (inexisting between State and Postal Code)
• Don't use dashes, slashes, or bars to separate the elements (OK if it is in the Street Name part)
• Country is not always necessary depending on the audience
• If you have enough space, it is OK to write it in 2 lines
• We're in Australia and this should work for most countries' addresses, but some specific locations might have different address structures that won't allow following this rule

Most developers seem to validate a URL and tell the user what they have done wrong only after the error happens. URL fields should show how the users must enter it.

The better way is to have the user avoid the error with a good default.

Do you know how to form HTML/XML tags on webpages?We need to make sure that all HTML/XML tags which open once, must be closed properly.

Figure: Good Example

Figure: Good Example

Figure: Bad Example

Figure: Bad Example

There are many scenarios where you need some extra space in a web page. No matter which one you are at, CSS is the answer.

Sometimes the first thing that comes to the developer mind is to use the "break line" tag <br />, or the ASCII character codes for "space"   /   to create these extra spaces. It's wrong!

CSS is the way to go. You can use both "margin" or "padding" CSS properties to get the result you want.

<ul>
  <li>&#160;&#160;&#160;List item</li>
</ul>

<ul>
  <li>List item</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
<br />

ul {margin-bottom:15px;}
  ul li {padding-left:10px;}  

Tip: You might be not familiar with editing a CSS file... In this case, contact a designer, they will be more than happy to help you.

The attribute "name" allows you to link to specific places within the page, via the <a> tag.

This is especially useful in long pages that can be separated into sections. You can create a named anchor in each of these section headings to provide "jump-to" functionality. In other words, you can have a different URL for each piece of content on the same page.

<h2><a name="get-started"></a>Get Started</h2> Figure: This is how you add an anchor name to an specific section of your page. Note it doesn't have the hash mark and the anchor tag is empty You now have a custom URL that points to the specific section of the page. It is the page URL followed by the hash mark and the name you chose: http://www.yourpage.com#get-started Figure: This is how your custom URL will look like You can use this new URL to point users to that specific section of your page.

To create a link to your anchor named section inside the same page, simply add a new "href" anchor tag - now with a hash mark followed by the name you chose:<a href="#get-started">Go to Get Started section</a> Figure: This is how you add a *link* to that anchor name you created inside the same page. Remember to add the hash mark

You should design a website to look good when being viewed in Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, the latest version of Edge and Safari unless the client specifically requests otherwise.

There are a lot of other browsers available, but it is important to consider that most other browsers are based on the most used browser nowadays.

Note that readable is not perfect. There may be some page elements that are less than perfect, but it's just not worth of time to fix small bugs in every single browser, except for Google Chrome.

You must test your website on the major browsers, though, because that there will be more differences and problems than you would think. The typical things that you will need to fix are:

• Menus
• Dynamic HTML
• VB Script

You should be able to fix all formatting and layout bugs by editing the CSS file.

When a user looks at a search result, they expect to see a list of items to look into. If there are no results, don't give them noisy text because it can be taken as a search result. An icon also can be understood as a broken page. Your "no results" page should be clean.

Note: In case the message you're showing is a "pass" or "fail, it is recommended to use an icon as per Do you use icons to enforce the text meaning?

There are two ways of arranging labels and inputs on an html form, but each should be used in a specific scenario.

When arranging labels and inputs on your html form, align labels next to the inputs on medium and large displays.

When arranging labels and inputs on your html form, align labels above inputs on small and extra-small displays.

Bootstrap makes this easy. Read Do you use the css class "form horizontal" to arrange your fields and labels? to know more.

The HTML list tags <ul> and <ol> should be used for unordered and ordered lists only .

Tip: If your list tag (<ul> or <ol>) doesn't have a list item (<li>) inside it, then it's not a list. Consider using another HTML tag (E.g. <p>).

Figure: Bad Example - Using the <ul> for a text

Figure: Good Example - Using the <ul> and <ol> for lists

To keep profile management simple and make it easier for users to have a consistent experience across applications, you should use Gravatar for showing profile images in your application.

Your Gravatar is an image that follows you from site to site appearing beside your name when you do things like comment or post on a blog.

Setting up Gravatar in your application

It is simple to set up and if you are developing an MVC application, there are even several Nuget packages to make your life easier. The GravatarHelper is recommended.

@Html.GravatarImage("MyEmailAddress@example.com", 80, new { Title = "My Gravatar", Alt = "Gravatar" })

Also, check out the Gravatar API documentation for all the options available.

The below short video shows how to get up and running with Gravatar in your ASP.NET MVC application.

If possible you should always use hyperlinks to open new pages on your site instead of using JavaScript.

There are two good reasons for avoiding JavaScript-powered links:

1. Copying and pasting sections of the site to an email or a document will maintain the clickable links
2. There's an (ever-decreasing) chance a user won't have JavaScript enabled and won't be able to click the link

<div onclick="window.open('mynewpage.html');">Open a new page</div>

<a href="mynewpage.html">Open a new page</a>

The text of a URL should make sense and relate to the content of the relevant page. Apart from helping with Google Juice users frequently read URL's.

There are a few options for how you format the text of a URL. The following suggestions are in preference order:

1. Dashes between words: **rules-to-better-website-layouts.aspx ** [RECOMMENDED] This option appears to be most common and Craig Bailey's  preferred way
2. Capitalize each word (Title Case): RulesToBetterWebsiteLayouts.aspx
3. Upper case for appropriate words: RulestoBetterWebsiteLayouts.aspx
4. Underscores between words: rules_to_better_website_layouts.aspx
5. Lower case for all words: rulestobetterwebsitelayouts.aspx

More info

You can install the IIS URL Rewrite Module for IIS7 you can make ugly URL's much more friendly.

The caveat here is that it will only work if the URL is in the clear on the page.

Note: This could only be done with certain links as others are postbacks as well.

The best way to show the features of a product is creating a video. The information you are able to communicate in seconds of a video would take hundreds of words of text to explain.

Videos are also important for services, but for products, it should be on the homepage .

Videos are also good for SEO

By embedding videos onto your website it will help get the videos more views, which is a determinant for Google nowadays.

The following table shows the right format for writing video time lengths (hours, minutes, seconds) on the web.

Duration	Correct format	❌ Bad examples	✅ Good example
Less than 1 minute	{{x}} sec	30s / 30secs / 30 secs	30 sec
1 to 59 minutes	{{x}} min	25m / 25mins / 25 mins	25 min
1 hour	{{x}} h	60 mins / 1 hour / 1h 00m	1 hr
More then 1 hour	{{x}} h {{x}} m	1h 05m / 1h5min / 1h 5m 10s	1 hr 5 min

Notes:

• You should ignore seconds for anything longer than 1 minute
• Although "mins" is a commonly used abbreviation for minutes, you should be aware that it is not correct for scientific use. See when to use "mins" or "min" as an abbreviation for minutes for more information

Consistency across your similar pages (such as standards pages in this case) is very important and should be made easy to implement.

Guidelines and standards for the SSW website pages can be found at SSW Web Design References .

A stylesheet file (.CSS) should be used to dictate how the fonts, headings, tables, captions and everything else on your HTML should be displayed.

This makes your site very easy to maintain. If you ever want to change the entire look and feel you should only have to change one file.

We have a rule on using relevant words on links. How to make sure people will know which words are links and what the links are after printing a page?

As a good practice, you should use CSS to print the URL's next to each link when printing:

@media print {
  a[href]:after {
    content: " (" attr(href) ")";
  }
}

In specific cases, like on breadcrumbs and logo, you don't want these URL's, so you should override the style:

@media print {
  .breadcrumba[href]:after {
  content: none;
}

When you embed a YouTube video it will increase your page size from 500kbs to 1.5Mb or more, depending on how many videos are embedded on the page.

<iframe
  width="560"
  height="315"
  src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eu0qhzevEXQ"
  frameborder="0"
  allowfullscreen
></iframe>

There is a clever, lightweight way to embed a YouTube video, which Google itself practices on their Google+ pages which reduce it to 15kbs.All you have to do is, whenever you need to embed a video to a page, add the below tag instead of the YouTube video embed code. (Remember to replace VIDEO_ID with actual ID of the YouTube video)

<div class="youtube-player" data-id="VIDEO_ID"></div>

Note: This script needs to be added at the end of the document:

<script>
  /* Light YouTube Embeds by @labnol */
  /* Web: http://labnol.org/?p=27941 */
  document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function () {
    var div,
      n,
      v = document.getElementsByClassName("youtube-player");
    for (n = 0; n < v.length; n++) {
      div = document.createElement("div");
      div.setAttribute("data-id", v[n].dataset.id);
      div.innerHTML = labnolThumb(v[n].dataset.id);
      div.onclick = labnolIframe;
      v[n].appendChild(div);
    }
  });
  function labnolThumb(id) {
    var thumb = '<img src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ID/hqdefault.jpg">',
      play = '<div class="play"></div>';
    return thumb.replace("ID", id) + play;
  }
  function labnolIframe() {
    var iframe = document.createElement("iframe");
    var embed = "https://www.youtube.com/embed/ID?autoplay=1";
    iframe.setAttribute("src", embed.replace("ID", this.dataset.id));
    iframe.setAttribute("frameborder", "0");
    iframe.setAttribute("allowfullscreen", "1");
    this.parentNode.replaceChild(iframe, this);
  }
</script>

..and this needs to be added in the CSS:

<style>
  .youtube-player {
    position: relative;
    padding-bottom: 56.23%;
    /* Use 75% for 4:3 videos */
    height: 0;
    overflow: hidden;
    max-width: 100%;
    background: #000;
    margin: 5px;
  }
  .youtube-player iframe {
    position: absolute;
    top: 0;
    left: 0;
    width: 100%;
    height: 100%;
    z-index: 100;
    background: transparent;
  }
  .youtube-player img {
    bottom: 0;
    display: block;
    left: 0;
    margin: auto;
    max-width: 100%;
    width: 100%;
    position: absolute;
    right: 0;
    top: 0;
    border: none;
    height: auto;
    cursor: pointer;
    -webkit-transition: 0.4s all;
    -moz-transition: 0.4s all;
    transition: 0.4s all;
  }
  .youtube-player img:hover {
    -webkit-filter: brightness(75%);
  }
  .youtube-player .play {
    height: 72px;
    width: 72px;
    left: 50%;
    top: 50%;
    margin-left: -36px;
    margin-top: -36px;
    position: absolute;
    background: url("//i.imgur.com/TxzC70f.png") no-repeat;
    cursor: pointer;
  }
</style>

"Adaptive placeholders" are form labels that become into placeholders and vice-versa, depending on which fields have been filled or not. It gives your website a great UX.

It's also a nice way to save space and achieve a neat visual appearance. Using this method users can easily to tell which field has been filled in and which data has been entered.

Checkboxes are presented as small square box in user interfaces. It has two states: checked and unchecked.

When to use checkboxes in UI design

Checkboxes are used in forms to indicate an answer to a question, apply a batch of settings or allow the user to make a multi-selection from a list. Alternatively, a single checkbox may be used for making single selections – such as Boolean True or False statements (e.g. “Do you agree with the terms and conditions? Yes or no”).

CheckBoxes are also suitable to use for enable or disable sections and to tell the user that these sections do not need configuring for the application to run.

Checkboxes allow the user to select one or more from a wide range of options. Applications use a series of checkbox groups to help the user filter search criteria.

If there are only 2 options available on the form (usually a yes/no answer), the use of a checkbox is more intuitive than radio buttons. Usually, use radio buttons if there are more than 2 options; or if the labels information are more complex than a yes/no.

When to use options group Radio Buttons instead of ComboBox?

When the options are static items (not database driven) and they can fit on the screen (about 2-5 items), they should be radio buttons.

The bad thing about having a ComboBox in this scenario is the user needs 2 clicks to change the value...

1. Click the little "v" button to see the available options
2. Then click the option to select

The good thing about an options group is that the user can see all the available options without clicking, and select the option with just 1 click.

For multiple items selection, multi-select dropdown listboxes have a number of behavioral quirks that make it difficult for users to get used to them:

• They require users to know that you select more than one entry by holding down the Ctrl key
• They lose all selections if you click in the wrong place
• You can't tell if a Listbox is single-select or multi-select at first glance

Note: It is OK and recommended to use dropdown lists for single item selection, when there is no more than 10 options.

Checked Listboxes are the ideal alternative for multiple items selections. They're much more pleasant to use and are a good deal more intuitive - compare to the list above. Checked Listboxes tell users immediately that they have the ability choose multiple options.

• In ASP.NET, use System.Web.UI.WebControls.CheckBoxList. If you're having problems with there being too many items in the list, use a scrolling div
• In Windows Forms, use System.Windows.Forms.CheckedListBox

We have a program called SSW Code Auditor to check for this rule.

When asking for an opinion do you give people the option of having no opinion at all? If you only provide "Yes" or "No" as answers to the question "Do you like apples?" then you force people to make a decision which may not be correct.

Maybe they only like cooked apples not raw ones. When asking any question in which "Don't know." or "Don't care." is a valid response, always include an option to opt out of answering.

Additionally, when the user don't answer the question at all, the response you would get would be determined by the browser the user was using. Give them an answer they can agree with and you'll reduce the chance of bogus responses.

A button should be disabled if it is unavailable, if clicking it would generate an error message, or if it would carry out no function. However, buttons should not be hidden from view simply because they are unavailable, as it confuses the user.

Different button states must have clear and distinct styling that differentiates them from each other and emphasizes them through the creation of a visual hierarchy.

When buttons are in a disabled state the accepted standard is to “grey it out”. Using colour to create contrast like this serves to lower the emphasis on disabled buttons in favour of active ones. Lowering opacity or outline-only greyed buttons are other common ways to indicate a disabled state (Note the latter is only effective if outline buttons are not present elsewhere in the UI). Disabled buttons should also never display on-hover or on-click styles, to further convey their disabled state to the user.

There are two aspects to this rule:

1. Arrange Vertically
2. If your user must choose from a variety of responses, or select from a number of items, using either radio buttons or check boxes, arrange the items vertically rather than horizontally as it makes the association much clearer. NOTE: You might want to disregard this rule if screen real estate is at a crucial premium.

Do you like apples? Yes No Cannot say

Do you like apples?		Yes
		No
		Cannot say

3. Text on the Right The Option Group or Check Box should always be on the left, with the text following on the right. Once again, this makes it easy for the User to work out what is going on.

The widths of the fields indicate to a user the data that goes in it. Do not use a large width field when you know the entry will have only few characters (the same for small fields and large entries)

In menus (including context menus) or buttons, there are generally two types of actions:

1. ones that carry out an action without any further user intervention upon clicking;
2. and those that require further user input before the action is carried out

Microsoft applications use this technique to indicate whether or not the action will be carried out without any further user intervention. Your application should also follow this well-established standard, so users will not be caught off guard when an action carried out immediately after they click the menu item.

Do you have checkbox (on the top) that let users select or unselect all checkboxes underneath it? If you have a list of checkboxes, you are going to frustrate users unless you provide an easy way to select all. The best way to achieve this is to have a checkbox at the top.

Private Sub CheckBoxSelectAll_CheckedChanged(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) _Handles CheckBoxSelectAll.CheckedChanged'Select checkbox in each rowFor Each sDataGridViewRow As DataGridViewRow In Me.DataGridViewCustomer.RowssDataGridViewRow.Cells(0).Value = Me.CheckBoxSelectAll.CheckedNextEnd SubCode: Code for selecting all checkboxes in a windows form

<script type="text/javascript">function SeleteCheckBox(){for (var n=0; n < document.form1.elements.length; n++){if (document.form1.elements[n].type == "checkbox" && document.form1.elements[n].name == "gridview"){document.form1.elements[n].checked = document.getElementById("CheckBoxAll").checked;}}}</script>Code: Code for selecting all checkboxes in a web formWe have suggestions for Visual Studio .NET about this at A top CheckBox to "select all" in windows forms and A top CheckBox to "select all" in web forms.

ComboBoxes are better than List Boxes for data entry because:

• They occupy less screen space
• They are less trouble to scroll through, owing to the fact that you can afford to have more room for the list (as it's collapsed most of the time)
• As you can see in the figures below, using a combo also makes the required field indicator (*) easier to see.

Note: When are single-select list boxes OK?

As mentioned before, there are exceptions to this rule. It would be hard to imagine the Include/Exclude boxes in the SQL Server Enterprise Manager's Server Registration Wizard being handled with ComboBoxes, for example.

We have a program called SSW Code Auditor to check for this rule.