I was checking out WebsitesThatSuck.Com since I'm in the process of designing a new, professional website. I usually stop by here to check out the do's and don'ts of website design and to see what the latest, greatest annoyance in design is. I'm a big fan of clean, simple design with consistent navigation on every single page with no more than three colors, maybe four if used judiciously.
My top five web design pet peeves:
- Flash. Flash. Flash. Gah. Not necessary, slow, and just because it moves doesn't mean it's useful or necessary.
- Using 'wrapping paper' type backgrounds. You wouldn't write a letter to a friend on wrapping paper so why are you using it on your site?
- Frames. Unnecessary. The same effects can be done in tables, and seriously, there's nothing worse than being 'framed.' And then there's the other problem -- opening multiple browser windows, which can be completely confusing and annoying to a user who suddenly has 80 million browser windows open.
- No navigation menu or link to the home page. Getting from here to there is important. Stranding the clicker somewhere, not a good thing.
- Graphics that aren't defined by size so that the browser has to load the image before it can start on the content. Specifying image dimensions is a very nice thing to do. And oh yes, alt tags are an image's friend as well; they go hand in hand.
I could probably come up with more pet peeves, but these are the most likely that would make me run screaming from a website.
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