in defense of splash pages
Forget all this web stuff for a second. Let me tell you something about comic books.
When I was little, there was nothing I liked better when I flipped open a new comic than a big, bright splash page -- some scene that was so important and compelling it took up a whole page, dropping me right into the thick of the action.
Today, some people use "splash pages" on their web sites, too -- a main entrance to their website that, arguably, does nothing, except provide you a link into the site.
A lot of people hate them. I mean, hate them. An interview on Slashdot with web designer Jeffrey Zeldman featured a user taking him to task for one of the "cardinal sins of web design" -- putting a splash page on his site that does "nothing but suck bandwidth." (Jeffrey's splash page sucks a whole 4k of bandwidth, in case you were wondering.)
So obviously, we're talking about a design issue that inspires a lot of passion. So I may be looked at with as much horror for this as I would be if I admitted I liked puppy chowder, but:
I like splash pages.
No, really. They serve the same kind of purpose to me that those comic book splash pages did -- namely, they give you a moment to orient yourself. To establish a style, a tone, a mood, a purpose.
I think this is important. We already understand the importance of this in other media -- would an episode of The Twilight Zone feel the same without Rod Serling telling you that you're "travelling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind"? Wouldn't an old Star Trek rerun feel weird without William Shatner telling you you're about to "boldly go where no man has gone before"?
This moment to take a breath, to be shown where you are, is, I think, even more important on the Web, where the process of moving from link to link and site to site is so inherently seamless that it all becomes a blur; your website doesn't necessarily feel like a distinct place to a user, but just simply a part of their entire web-surfing experience.
If that's not what you want, then consider a splash page. It's a page that provides that sense of place -- that communicates a style, a purpose, a mission statement, a manifesto. It says, "Hey, you were somewhere else a minute ago, but now you're here. And this is where you are."
I think that means something.
Let's tackle the main complaints against splash pages one at a time, so you know how you can make effective ones:
They "suck bandwidth." Sure, but they don't have to. If you've created some massive Photoshop graphic in millions of colors that you feel expresses the whole idea of your website and gives it that certain je ne sais quoi, trash it and make something smaller and tighter. Look at your site over a slow modem, if you can, and see how much of a pain it is to load your splash graphic -- and then go make something that people won't have to wait all day for.
They "waste a click." Oh please. If we've gotten that lazy stuffed into our ergonomically-designed chairs in our veal-fattening cubicles that the twitch of a wrist to click a mouse is enough of an effort to ruin your whole day, then I'm willing to write off the whole human race as a bad idea.
I do realize that the deeper you bury the information on your website, the more frustrated a user can get, but I think the tradeoff of what a well-designed splash page can gain you in terms of the user experience is worth the trade-off on this one.
They "break the back button." Okay, this one's actually a good point -- this means that a lot of sites have splash pages that automatically redirect you deeper into the site in a couple seconds. Or less. Don't do this -- it means that someone trying to use the back button on their browser to get back out of your site to wherever they came from will just get shoved back down into it. Pretty rude. If you must use an automatic redirect like this, at least have a delay of five seconds or longer, to give people a chance.
One last tip -- provide an alternate text link on the front page, too, so you have a point of entry into your site that loads immediately so that users can cut past the entrance and head straight in if they're feeling impatient.
That's it. So go ahead -- be a little splashy, if you want to. No one's stopping you.
