Forum Moderators: not2easy
So what do people consider yesterday's news when it comes to general site design/look? Are you tired of seeing fish-eye pictures of people from above? If so, what else?
Lots of centred <hr> lines, separating groups of paragraphs all the way down a twenty screen length page.
Starfields.
I haven't used <hr> for about 5 years >;->
I really hate it when these are flash "click here"s because not only do I have to "click here" to see what I'm looking for but now I have to wait for it. :o¦
Oh... background music. "Look buddy, I'm at work trying to goof off, don't try to get me fired by playing some stupid midi just because you found out how!" *sorry, just a little tangent there
I'm still stunned every time I see them still being used on Yahoo.com.au.
Black background / white text anyone? (ArsTechnica I'm looking at you)
Bookmark us pleeeeeeeeease!
Stupid javascript tricks in general.
How about tables for layout?
and no, i dont buy the "but some browsers..." excuse. If you develop websites, it's your job to know how to use the technology available.
Nick
Websites with absolutely no hint as to when they were last updated.
> How about tables for layout?
Especially when "important notices" are put in a big, ugly table with borders and a background colour that screams at you.
now kiddies .... just remember when you first started ...
Yikes! <confession> I still HAVE at least 3 of the listed peeves on my home page </confession>,
I do agree whole heartedley with most of the aforementioned, however, as also discussed in other "pet peeves/so yesterday" threads here on WebmasterWorld, some of these design features have their place, used judiciously.
Especially "click here", if the usability surveys and personal experience are anything to go by. I had nary a CH in sight up to 9 months ago, where I resisted using it, and click thru' rates began to suffer, under 40% sometimes.
As soon as I tweaked the design, with a keyword link in the par. ;-), and included a following "click here for more info ..." or "more info here ..." prompt, click thru rate went up to over 50%.
There's nothing wrong with an obvious call to action used appropriately, especially if your site is selling something. e.g. click here to view a pop up window of this large photo. (xkb), click here to order/make an enquiry etc..
Some people just don't initially know that an underlined word/s in a different colour from the rest of the text is a link.
Shocking - but true, I've seen it!
And if your site is the first one they land on when they go solo ....
So please, don't underestimate the newbie factor and knock the textual cues that some people will find helpful to get around what is essentially a visual medium.
Cheers and Hooroo
JP
Sometime in the late 1990's someone coined the phrase "dancing bologna" to describe superfluous and garish web design elements that marketing departments love, but the average customer will ultimately loathe.
aaaaarrrrrrggggggg
fullscreen=yes
NO!
*I do mean a very little. As a rule I hate Flash more than I have time to describe. And I promise not to have those stupid little thin lines dancing around!
How about the note saying something like, "These images are low resolution" in the mean time you spend the next 10+ min. waiting for the 14 images to load on your broadband connection because they are all over 2 Megs and forced into size within the <img> tag.
Just press 'ESC' at the same time you right click and 'presto!' the context menu appears.
"Save Picture as..." here I come.
Just press 'ESC' at the same time you right click and 'presto!' the context menu appears.
Ahhhhhh.. now I can stop mucking around in view->source.
Thanks
I agree with much of what everyone else has said, and I would add :
-font-size:10px;
-stock images of people on the phone/computer, in business suits, shaking hands etc
-grid patterns over these stock images
Template-based designs tend to have an obvious style which you see everywhere, even on sites that aren't from a template. I try to avoid this look. Websites selling templates are often a good gauge of this year's fashions (or the year before's). Next year requires something new.
[edited by: korkus2000 at 4:02 pm (utc) on Mar. 17, 2004]
[edit reason] [webmasterworld.com...] [/edit]
Or css layouts that are really only two or three bordered divs and no style. You'd think somebody intent enough to design their site with CSS would posses some creativity.
But I'm not sure if that qualfies as "90's", more like '00 - '02.
As for what someone wrote:
Another thing to add to my pet hates - the hidden online-support email address.
Typically to get to it you have to go through a lengthy help routine, going around and around, before you spot the obscure page on which they hide their email address.
[u]click here[/u]
They are very good when it Calls for action. ;)
after a couple of weeks you just get very tired of people asking the same simple question
I have used an autoreply with the top FAQs in it, and then a second step at the end of that email of confirming that these are not the issues therefore generating a real Trouble Ticket with success. But NEVER put the answer in the first line - for some reason the problem users always skip that line.
I'm guessing those who have never committed any of these "sins" just haven't been doing Web design long enough. So, just to categorize/sum up once again:
Cheesy/small/(hopefully early '90s) sites
Those who have the technology and think they might as well use it - badly
Just bad graphic design
Just bad Web design
Annoyances
Bloat
Coders should know better...
Bad use of text/content
Miscellaneous
atadams: I liked "Dancing bologna" - summed up a lot of these quite nicely
As a bad use of text/content, I'd add using "Welcome to..." in the title bar, main page, etc. It's bad for SEO and generally bad/bloated/useless content
(actually most of these '90s-things were garbage when they were coded... they just didn't know it)
entire pages that have been made in photoshop, sliced in image ready (or FW) and exported with messy tables, the one central image has been deleted and 10px fixed text pasted in instead. all the other images have been left in place instead of being sliced or marked up properly.
ive had to make changes to someone elses site like this recently and not only are they bandwidth hogging spaghetti code beasts, they are really difficult to update. especially when the info youve got to change is part of the "structure", e.g a phone number that is actually an image, or the whole things breaks if your go one line over the word count limit.
even worse when they dont even bother to replace the text, and you just get a big fat .gif for the content.
entire pages that have been made in photoshop, sliced in image ready (or FW) and exported with messy tables
LOL! My first site was exactly that. I hate to say it, but when I was doing my graphic design degree 5/6 years ago, this was how they told us to make web pages!
...and looking back from the end of this decade....
Online payment by card - because all payments will get linked into your bank account automatically using voice/fingerprint recognition with satellite or wireless or telepathy (don't ask me how, except that satellite already has the ability to locate you sitting at your PC).
Another caveat is that we are judging design from a Western viewpoint. For instance almost every Chinese site uses the expression "Welcome to...". In fact usually a stock 4 character phrase "Welcome gracious presence to...". It's considered good manners.
Similarly a design we consider elegant with an appropriate use of white space, to a non-Westerner may look empty. The majority of Chinese home pages are incredibly busy with hardly any space left uncovered. Almost all the text is a link, sometimes whole paragraphs.
I suspect that as the number of Asian websites grows, their influence will be seen in the design of Western sites, particularly where international corporations want a standard look. It happened to automobile design, so why not web sites?
