Tampereen Teatterikesä, Screenshot from front page. Serious issues.

Front page has a picture of masquerade  lady with some human tissue (heart?) at her hands. Groovy!
But that’s not the point.

I got this uncomfortable feeling from just looking at the page, something is wrong. Must be. And yes, something indeed was wrong.

No, I don’t mean the lady with the heart.

I mean the technical side.

What’s wrong, then? Smallish copy-paste helps, like always:

</style><map name="frontpic">
	<area shape="rectangle" alt="" title="" coords="844,590,923,626" href="/suomi/" target="" />
	<area shape="rectangle" alt="" title="" coords="859,630,923,666" href="/in_english/" target="" />
</map>

<table align="center" class="front">
<tr>
	<td><img src="/res/etusivu_new.jpg" width="940" height="680" border="0" alt="" usemap="#frontpic" /></td>

</tr>

What is the problem, really?

Image maps used at 2009? WTF?
And what’s even worse, no alternative texts for links nor the image.

Why does it matter, then?

Well, Google sees nothing at the front page. I think that’s pretty big a deal. See the Google result.

The actual site is pretty ok, according to footer made by my old friend/foe, Optinet. (Screen grab below).

What amazes me, however, is the title for actual front page.  It says “Suomi” (Finland).

WTF?

Otherwise site is pretty ok, technical side is ok (as with Optinet-products most of the time is) but not great.

It’s the small details that irk me.

Small details make the site more invisible to Google and other Search Engines.
Small details make the site inaccessible.

Why not fix them? Just add title- and alt-attributes to front page image map (if it’s really, really needed. If not, why not get rid of the image map and just do texts the normal way, you know, html? Image replacement techniques anyone?)  and fix the title of the actual front page.

Not that hard.

Conclusion

• Small details matter. If you are order a web site, make sure it’s visible to Google, too.
• Small details matter. Make sure you know what you are ordering. If you don’t know, ask. Any decent web company will tell you. Ask about the pros and cons of this design. Ask about search engines, ask about mobile use.
• Ask, ask and ask. If the webdesigner knows what he/she is doing, they’ll answer. Then you’ll know.

Related posts:

1. On Viral Marketing (and Finnish Air Force)
2. Pretty URLs (or Aamulehti redesign)
3. Nokia Sports Tracker (or Why I Strongly Believe in Nokia Being Stronger in Mobile Markets, Not in the Internet)