So here goes the offical listtm of things I don't like about websites:
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Frames: I really hate frames and don't see a real reason for their existance. Frames make bookmarking nearly impossible, are totally counter-intuitive for beginners and aren't supported by all browsers.
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Flash-driven websites: Sites that only consist of one big flash movie are absolute nonsens. They take hours to load, aren't accessible without having some extra plugin, are not bookmarkable and usually they look crufty imo. Apart from that not all important browser support the flash technologie.
Some points of this do also apply for Java applets. -
Intro pages: Starting pages that only display the company's logo suck: For the surfer they just mean a annoying extra click to get the deserved information. This becomes even worse if the intro consists of a 10MB flash movie with no "Skip the intro" button.
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Too small fonts: Even tough I have very good eyes, some sites simply use too small font sizes in my opinion. This makes it hard for me to concentrate on the content, I get tired of the site soon and usually leave it soon. A example for this is Jeremy Zawodny's weblog: When reading a weblog I need to concentrate on text for a longer time. Using such a smallish font size like the one Jeremy uses, doesn't make this job easier.
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Strange color contrasts: Sites that use green font color on black background (or something equal) are like rat poison for my eyes. Unless there is no *really, really* good reason to stay at the site, I usually leave it immediately.
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DHTML abuse: I don't hate DHTML in general, but I don't like sites that replace the usual scrollbar with some fancy DHTML scrolling system. In such a case I often have to dig long before I find a way to scroll down the content. In contrast to this I really like DHTML windows that pop up when you hoover over a link in order to tell me some more information about the link. Even navigation menues that are made of DHTML sometimes are nice.
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Popup windows: If you want to show me ads, please don't use small browser windows that open when a site is loaded. My browser is configured to ignore this crap.
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Java applets: In 99% of all cases, Java applets are not necessary: Browser need long time to load and execute them and they often aren't very usable because of their crufty user interface. A good example for this is the homepage of the university where I'm enrolled. They use a big applet for creating their navigation menu on all pages. This job could have been done better by using simple HTML. Something similar applies to newstickers that most time tell me information I don't want to know. I like Java applets when it comes to map services and the like, where interactive content (like maps with zooming etc.) are used.
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Music on websites: Never use background music on your sites. When I want to listen to music while surfing, I'll take of that myself.
Written on 05 Sep 02 10:51 PM.