Pattern 27: No frames on public sites *
AKA:

You are building a dynamic site. In this context one needs to keep track of how changes in one part affects others. Frames are useful for viewing multiple things on one page. It is tempting to use a frame to display the NAVIGATION BAR (25) permanently. Some sites (e.g. letsbuyit.com) try to help users to stay linked to them using a frame. This is good for business but not always what the user wants.

I have to display multiple things on the same screen. You know that a TWO-YEAR OLD BROWSER (10) may not be able to cope with frames and the appearance of your site on them will be messy and unpredictable. There are also problems with sizing, such as when using new bars at various resolutions. Quite often, using the back button may cause multiple copies of a frame to be displayed: looking messy and reducing the space available for content. Using frames also makes printing a mess. One can get trapped in a frameset when linking to another site. Frames can interfere with the back button and with bookmarks.

Therefore

Don’t use frames unless you have to and the site is an internal one. Use layers and tables instead.
When there is multiple content, cut-and-paste it to multiple pages. Where this content is dynamic automate the pastes.
If frames are essential then make sure that all links have a TARGET="_top" attribute in their anchor tag (e.g. <A HREF=xxxx.htm TARGET="_top">). I.e. replace all frames with a new frameset so that bookmarks and other navigation work properly. Always try to develop a site version that doesn’t use frames or include a <NOFRAMES> section in the code.
If you must use frames, the make sure the server supports HTTP keep-alive.

You will also need to use SEPARATE PRINT PAGES (47).

Contributors and sources
Andy Harbach, Jari Worsley, Nielsen (2000)

This is a typical design trade-off. Expending a little more effort to use something other than a frame will slow the project down but, for a public site, will make the site more usable for more people

If you do include a frame, and the justification is sound, then if it is resizable, say so. For the page pictured above (on trireme.com) the justification is twofold: TriReme’s customers are mostly in high tech industries and therefore likely to have modern browsers; also the use of frame’s to index tutorials is something of a standard

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