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This article is part of the Joy Gems series which originally appeared in The Joy Gems Newsletter and/or The Home Page Helper Network on ryze.com, a business networking community. |
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I don't want to make this a useless rant about what drives me nuts about the web. I'd like to think my approach is a little more instructive than that - something that might be on your mind as well.
Let's face it. This is not an exhaustive list. What could be? And let me not fail to mention there's a lot of the web that I love. I simply could not do this rather tasty subject in one Joy Gems so tune in next week to get the other half.
In no particular order I present the things that drive me nuts in a spirit in which it's intended - to have a little fun and say something useful.
Pop-Ups
I start with the no brainer of all time. Like most of my hates there are exceptions when they might be used but rare is the case successfully made for the use of browsers that open unexpectedly.
If it were a mere annoyance I might learn to live with it but Pop-Ups notoriously ruin navigation and have browser controls (such as the address box) removed.
Underlined Text
Have you ever clicked on text that was underlined because you thought it was a link? I have and it usually makes me feel foolish.
Unless you absolutely can distinguish underlined text from your links so that it couldn't possibly confuse a user like me then don't use the U tag. I know that creates a problem when you need to refer to the title of a book.
Poor Multimedia Controls
When an audio and/or video presentation starts is there a way to shut if off? A way to pause, rewind or forward the content? Does it play in a continuous loop? In our world of CD/DVD players, tape machines and similar devices we've come to expect control over how multimedia content is presented.
Why shouldn't we have the same controls when we're online?
Redirects
Specifically, I have in mind client side redirects, that is, pages which load for a few seconds only to move you automatically, without your control or consent, to another page. This technique is frequently used when the site owner wants the user to see content that replaces content no longer on the site.
There are better ways (like server side redirects) to fill the need to move your user to a page other than the one requested.
Splash Pages
People who use a Splash Page for their site probably have no idea that many of their visitors will not take in their first view of the site from the Splash (or Entrance Page). So why do it?
In a web site, every page is an entrance page. You have no control over which page is first seen by a user.
Besides, frequently Splash Pages contain no content which can be catalogue by search engines thereby wasting a golden opportunity to leverage everything from an "index.html" file.
Graphical Text
Speaking of search engines, using graphical text will definitely impede your ability to be found on the net. Such text cannot be "seen" by the spiders which traverse servers to collect information about your pages. The only information they can pick up and understand is HTML/XHTML text. An image which contains a lot of text is invisible to search engine technology.
Not to mention that people who are blind or visually impaired won't like it either (unless you make use of the "alt" attribute).
