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Web Rage...

Untitled Document

Okay... here is a list of stuff that i find completely idiotic and just plain annoying that i've found on the web. Click the links for more information.

In no particular order:

 

Sites that aren't cross browser compatible: Top
Basically the problem is (for you non-techies) that microsoft holds somewhere upwards of about 60+% of the market of web browsers (remember that big law suit a while back?). Now that wouldn't be such a terrible thing if it weren't for the fact that microsoft doesn't like to follow the w3c standards for css and other web technologies. I'll get to more on that in my next complaint. The problem is that a whoooole bunch of web developers (myself included when i'm lazy) use code that only looks and functions properly in internet explorer. Now with firefox catching up in the browser race hopefully this won't be a big issue but you can see the effects all over the web. Some examples are: transparent images, lighter/darker images, misc. other color effects, inline frames and a bunch of javascript stuff. Another side effect of lazy coding and not checking for cross browser compatibility is that handicap-friendly browsers can't read it. Imagine trying to be blind and surfing the internet when none of the pages will get interpretted by your browser!
One day the world will be a wonderful place where we all get along and everyone will code using the w3c standards... after all that's what they're for!



Internet Explorer Top
Wow. where to start. damn... okay... microsoft is a big evil corporation (god i hope the link is still up when you click it) and they don't play by the rules. This makes things terribly difficult for web developers and ends up hurting the users in the long run. Now we are getting a much better browser out there: mozilla firefox but they actually follow these rules which is good but it means that a vast number of websites are not compatible with firefox.



Blogging and Vlogging Top
I'm not sure when it was that EVERYONE became so interested in what EVERYONE else has to say... but i do know that it didn't use to be like this. No one really cared what it was that johnny-web-surfer had for breakfast but now that information is out there. all out there for you to read... hmm... why? i have no idea. also now that everyone is using blogs to do stuff a lot of websites are taking that approach to creating a site. WHY?! The idea is that a regular site has all their info in blog entries instead of straight forward pages. I can see the usefulness for this kind of thing on pages such as this one... but why would you build your whole site like that?



Flash Top
Macromedia flash is by far one of the most mis-used and completely wasteful tool out there. Flash is great to be used if you were say making a marketing demo, presentation, game, animation or children's site, or for a commercial site that uses it SPARINGLY. Another use, which most people don't even realize flash can do, is for building certain types of web based applications. The problem is that everyone is "wow-ed" by the bells and whistles animation provides. Hmm... if you're one of those people... look over there --> something shiny! hehehe... Clients are always looking for designers to make them flash-filled sites with animated buttons and wild looking animations. This serves no purpose for the usefulness and most often aesthetic appeal of the site. If you look at some of the biggest and most successful websites out there, you'll see that hardly any of them use flash. Most people put flash on their site just for the sake of having flash on it. That is like saying that you want to have a $500,000 paint job on your car just for the sake of having it. It is a complete waste of money, diskspace and bandwidth.
The main problems are:
Flash movies are much bigger than images and take longer to download. for the poor souls still using dial-up this can be a real pain.
Flash movies are distracting from the content of the site.
Flash movies often take the place of good content. It doesn't matter how wonderful it looks if there is no information on the site.
Sites built completely with flash (you've seen them and you designers know who you are!) are NOT search-engine friendly.
Flash movies require macromedia's flash player plug-in to run.



Flash Intros Top
Why would a lawyer, landscaper, car dealership, or restaurant need an animated introduction to their website? If you want to read about why Flash is such a bad idea... just read the complaint above, but this complaint is completely different. Here I'm talking about animated intros. Why oh why oh why do we have these? This serves no purpose but to delay the access to the information the visitor is looking for. Delay = Bad or at least that's what they always teach you in web-designer school... but then they teach you to make those rediculous and often slow-loading animations for the sites. Most people (i might be wrong about this... but most people i talk to) have said that they don't ever even watch the intro. They simply push the "skip intro" link... that is... if there IS a "skip intro" link. Not putting one on there is just irresponsible and poor design. Be weary of any designer that makes you sit through the intro. Also when the animations have music that starts play right away.... this is just annoying and it can get you into some serious trouble at work. -[looks around nervously]-



Lack of "Down State" Top
This is one of the things that drives me crazy more than nearly any other one of these listed complaints. The problem: coders create navigation that doesn't have a "down state". A "down state" is the image or color of your link in the navigation when a user is on the coorisponding page. For some reason a lot of programmers and even a large number of designers don't take this into consideration. The code to make this happen would take any experienced programmer all of 34.7 seconds to create. The effectiveness of the GUI is increased infinitely by this simple modification. The down state is what lets users see very quickly what page they are browsing. It is always good to put it at the top of the page above the content or at least one other place in the design.



Mysterious Navigation Top
Vincent Flanders sums it up best in his article titled "Mystery Meat Navigation" on his website "Web Pages That Suck". Thanks for that great article Vincent. I read that when I was just starting out in this world wide web development thing back when I thought that "Mystery Meat Navigation" was really cool. (this is the kind of shit that art school brain-washes you into thinking)



Front Page Top
Microsoft Front Page is just bad. Evil Corporation Microsoft, created this software as a wysiwyg website builder. It outputs really poor code plain and simple.



Amatuer Designers/Developers Top
Okay.. I'm giving a disclaimer up front for this one: I'm sorry if i offend you with this.... I personally have been doing graphic design for 11+ years, web design for 7 years, and web development and programming for about 4. I know that I'm still not able to work to my fullest potential but I try. I suppose that we all have to start somewhere but when a person just starts doing design they most likely aren't going to be too good at it. These days with the advent of sites like myspace and extremely cheap webspace, everyone and their kid think they are "amatuer web designers". This is fine if you are making a site for your family photos or just a site like this to bitch about all sorts of stuff, but using an amatuer designer is no substitution for an experienced web developer if you are getting a site for your business. I offer websites at the most competitive prices you can find anywhere. If your business can afford chairs for several hundreds of dollars or a six hundred dollar ad in a newspaper which gets thrown at by the end of the week, you can afford to get a professional site. Remember, Just because someone can make A website doesn't qualify them to make a GOOD website!



Poor Color Use Top
The use of color* is essential in design. Many developers are just programmers that make websites meaning they have no idea how to use color. Its not their fault though, a programmer is great at what they do because they can think the way a computer would think. A computer as you know doesn't care what color things are. A person looking at a website does.
One problem is that people use dark colors on dark backgrounds or light colors on light backgrounds. Another is that they pick outrageous colors. Bright Pink, Bright Orange, Bright Red, Bright Yellow, etc. are terrible colors to use... especially on a white background. People also have a habit of picking colors that don't "go" together at all. What I don't understand is that a lot of these people wear matching clothes to work... is that because their wife lays it out for them or just because they only have a bland selection to pick from?
(*note that they don't follow their own advice on that link blue on blue text? The info is good though.)



No Set Background Color Top
Going along with what I was just complaining about above, I thought I'd mention this too. The default color for your background is white in internet explorer and most web browsers. You can change that though through the "internet options". My background is light blue. Why? So I don't do what I'm talking about here.
A lot of designers just assume that you have a white background and therefore will not bother setting a background color on the pages. This looks really awful for anyone that doesn't have a white background especially if the site uses graphics with white backgrounds. CSS is here for a reason. Also we have been able to format the colors of almost every element on a website for a very very long time. There is no excuse for this.



Huge Background Images Top
Background images can make a site look really nice but at what cost to the user? The thing most people don't consider is that every image on their site has to be downloaded by the user. When I say "huge" i mean large in file size. A lot of people do this for their myspace pages and blog pages. These pictures take forever to download and often distract from the text or even makes the text illegible.



Animated Cursors and Backgrounds Top
Animated cursors generally look awful and do not add anything to the website. Animated backgrounds are TERRIBLE!!!!!!! this is a huge distraction. How can you read text that is on a constantly changing background?



Poor Grammar and Spelling Top
Poor grammar and spellling, which i'm sure this site is full of, looks very unprofessional. Basically 90% of these mistakes can be found if the developer just proofread the content before finalizing the site. There are tons of resources to check spelling. Dictionary.com, spell checkers, etc.



Flash Ads Top
Okay so I know i've griped about flash and flash animations but what is the deal with these damn flash "target shooting" ads? Some of my amusementisements seen on this site are spoofs on this type of ad but this is a serious problem. These things are all over the web and most aren't very good. They have sunk to the level of "generic target" shooters. How many different variations of the "target shoot" can we possibly have in order to win a free* ipod.
*by free they really mean expensive. I know that doesn't sound right but that's what makes america great. hahaha.



Automatic Music Top
Sites that automatically start playing music when you go there are some of the most annoying sites out there. This feature could be nice... except that when people come to your site they often are listening to their own music or in an environment where they don't want music to be playing. Unfortunately many sites (including a lot of amatuer bloggers) put music that auto-plays on their site. The worst use of this is when it is a low quality midi file. Midi sounds terrible... if you are going to put music on the site please DO NOT use midi.



Web-Safe Color Palette Top
This topic happens to be one which I have the opposite opinion as many experts. The web-safe color palette was a color palette of 216 colors that were deemed "safe" because they looked the same on mac and windows platforms. First of all NO colors are "safe". Everyone's monitors are calibrated slightly differently therefore even the "safe" colors aren't really "safe". This brings up the question as to why you would use them. Well that's exactly why I argue that designers shouldn't even bother limiting themselves to these 216 colors when most monitors display 16.7 million colors. Another problem is that when you create an image with a gradient in it, the colors almost always break this palette unless specified by the designer. This rule is very out-dated and therefore shouldn't be considered valid.



640 x 480 Design Top
This is a principle of design saying that it is best to design your websites for a 640 pixel by 480 pixel resolution. When someone came up with this, the standard monitor resolution was only 640 x 480... then it went up to 800 x 600 (which some will say is the current standard) but most everyone i know has their resolution set at the very least 1024 x 768 pixels. I use a 21 inch monitor and have it set at 1152 x 800. I design for 800 x 600. It is a good size to use since it will be compatible with most monitors/browsers and you can see the entire design in my favorite design application (when your monitor is set at 1152 x 800).



Deprecated Code Top
A lot of developers and designers, amatuer and professional alike, still use HTML tags such as the <FONT> tag. These tags are nearly completely deprecated and are not used as a standard by serious designers and developers. In place of using tags like <font> <b> <strong> etc. we use CSS. This makes the design much smoother. Unfortunately editors such as front page and many others are still using these tags.



Developer is not the same as Designer Top
A "Web Designer" is not the same thing as a "Web Developer" as opposed to this common misconception. A designer is someone who does works on visual elements of websites. A lot of web designers are just graphic designers who learned html. Web Development is much more in-depth than that. A web developer develops the code used to build the websites. They may be doing advanced programming or simply making web applications. A web developer may also be a designer yet designers are seldom considered developers. This common misconception drives me up the wall because I have worked really hard to move beyond being a meer "web designer" to be able to call myself a "web developer".



Non-Standard Fonts Top
This is a common problems for novice designers. When you design an image on your computer you have access to every font available on your computer however when you are surfing the internet you are also limited to the fonts available on YOUR computer. A lot of times designers, especially amatuers and beginners, will use fonts in their HTML that aren't standard fonts. They don't notice this because when they view the site it looks just as they designed it. When someone on a different computer views it they will not see the font. I recently went to a local pizza shop's website to see if it was any good. I could not read 90% of the text on several of their pages because i don't have some font called something like "fantasmaliatia". The simple solution to making sure that everyone will be able to view the page is to use standard fonts or to at least use what is called a "font family". A "Font Family" is a list of several different fonts that may be used to display the text. I.e. "font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" In that example the user could have only one of the fonts listed and the text would still show up.



Little Dashed Lines Top
Okay... so look at the left and right sides of this white section of the page. You'll notice that the lines are dashed/dotted. This is so stupid. Why does everyone use this style? Why does everyone think its so cool? hmmm... I will never understand but I think I've seen about enough little dashed/dotted lines to make me sick.

 

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