Pet Peeves about Web Pages

I can’t give hints about web design unless I let you into some of my pet peeves – and I would LOVE to hear about yours as well.

If you ever have 5 minutes to kill and want to be entertained by some of the worst webpages out there – go to webpagesthatsuck.com.  As my southern ED friends have encouraged me to soften any blow – Bless their little hearts – those webpages – they do suck…probably beyond anyone’s imagination.  Go to the site, look around and promise not to emulate any of those tactics.

Ok – pet peeves (and I have been guilty of these things as well – so I’m not claiming innocence)

1. Splash Pages or Flash opening pages…maybe I’m just ADD – but I do not have the patience to wait while your splash page opens and I get to wait along with a cute little flashing dog that tells me how long this is going to be..nope – moving on.
2. Click on the logo page – nope, I’m not going to…next vendor
3. Audio without my permission.  I hate going to a webpage and have Taylor Swift’s latest start blaring.  Not that I am against Taylor – I just choose to listen to music while I work or while I surf and I’d rather pick my own.  Worse is when the music or noises are just loud and I’m trying to be discrete, i.e. Christmas shopping while my kids are in the room.  They know immediately where I am by the stupid noise – don’t do this to me.
4. Flashing animations on a page – Yes, Yahoo – I am talking to you.  I hate reading my email while an ad with a dancing girl is going on on the left of the page – it’s annoying, it’s stupid and it gives me a headache and makes me avoid my Yahoo account.  Why would you scare of visitors or keep them away from the content with a dancing ad?
5. Pages that aren’t complete or under construction – If the content isn’t there – don’t link to that page.  You can tell people that more content will be there in the future if you need to have a place holder, but I think not linking is the kindest of all.
6. Yicky Backgrounds & Neon Fonts – I know you love flowers or rainbow gradients but for my old eye’s sake – don’t make them your background.  Think zen – think simple – think one color for the background and one or two colors for fonts – and make sure they are readable.  Make sure there is plenty of contrast between text and background for those of us who have a hard time reading neon on neon – I’m weird that way.

Tags: Peeves, web design