Photo by digitaltrickery
I’m gonna take (and use) my usability stick for this post, so please bear with me.
It seems everyone and her mother love a quirky, pretty 404 page these days. Tons of digital ink has been spent in showcasing pretty 404 designs, but how many of those are really what we could call a useful 404 page?
I’m certainly not the first to talk about useful 404 pages and I won’t be the last (plus, shhhh, my current 404 page sucks, the whole theme sucks basically but I promise I will get to it soon). Others have done this before me, in a more clear and concise manner.
But somewhere along the road, we decided that the funnier or fancier a 404 page is, the greatest it is. It has almost become an inside joke between designers and we’ve lost our aim: to provide users with clear information on how to escape from that Internet dead-end. But funny is not always useful, people.
From the top of my head, here are some rules I remember for 404 pages:
- Strip its design down to the basics, cut down anything that does not belong there. Your logo and main navigation will be fine, but that fancy sidebar? Not so.
- Explain in a few words what led people there. Maybe a mistyped URL or a legacy link? Tell them what’s wrong. Don’t just 404 them. What the heck is 404 anyway?
- Provide ways to return to your frontpage and / or contact pages. A search form could help the “search-first” people too.
So, in a nutshell: a lolcat is not a proper way to greet users, however funny. A lolcat with a proper explanation, some “emergency exit” links and maybe a search form: now we’re talkin’.
3 comments on this post
Basilakis #1
4.Feb.09
beatifull Post… Even if we share all these greate 404 erro pages, it seems, we are doing something worng!
lexx #2
13.Feb.09
Great post. I would also suggest adding some related pages or some other useful/popular pages, for the user to follow. It is possible that the user will eventually find something interesting.
Rory #3
18.Feb.10
I actually am just in the process of working on a 404 page that cuts down the clutter to main nav and does a site search for them based on the page they typed in and displays the top 10 items returned. It includes a link to site map etc just in case they are really lost. That way hopefully the user can find what they need quickly.
In contrast our current 404 page displayed a 404 message for 10 seconds and then redirected users to the home page – not so useful
While I do like a funny 404 page I agree when I get one on a site it is frustrating, I just want to find what I was on the site looking for. Kind of like crazy creative business cards, nice eye candy but not always practical.
R