Stupid Web Tricks

[Gruntled]

What is your number one pet peeve when it comes to site design?

There are plenty of web tricks that make your surfers leave, but which annoy you most?

It used to be endless popups for me, but now I mainly use browsers that block almost all of them.

I'd say currently that flash banners that talk or play music incessantly does it.

[blazi]

if the site doesn't look appealing, I'm turned off immediately. many people just whip up sites in minutes and they look like crap, that doesn't entice me at all to stay.

[sweet7]

Originally posted by blazi
if the site doesn't look appealing, I'm turned off immediately. many people just whip up sites in minutes and they look like crap, that doesn't entice me at all to stay.

as a webmaster that may be true but some surfers are attracted to what would be considered horrendous to us.


I don't know what I hate besides popups. I'll have to think about this one.

[nanda]

Definitely the pop ups and flash...too damn annoying...

[Magnus3x]

Text in Flash.. boooooooooooooring..and that was great 6 or so years ago and any ape can do it. Flash is very robust and should be used properly. Oh and not having the option to skip intro's is foolish.

[Panky]

• When the colors on the site majorly clash
  
  When the navigation is not well thought out
  
  When the site plays intro music irrelevent to the site
  
  No option to skip Flash intro or view site as html
  
  When the site is unorganized, cluttered, and contains spelling errors

When you cant find the links.

[Mefo]

music on sites, goddam that's annoying.

and popups

auto install crap

bad navigation

bad colur scheme

[McAttack]

Good points so far. I agree.
Pop-up hell
overused flash (done because they could, not because it makes sense)
music that's incredibly repetitive and can' tbe shut off
noisy banners (talking banners, chimes, whatever)
autoloading toolbars or whatever. hate that crap
A "cool" site that's such a disaster only the original maker of it can navigate it.

[Gruntled]

The autoinstall crap *has* to go. Installing binary applications on people's systems transparently on a drive-by basis is just inherently wrong. I can see serious property rights violations and legal issues with that.

The embedded looped music is very irritating. There's usually no stopping it, and most people are listening to music when they surf anyway.

What about the endless block of search engine bait at the bottom of the page?

[kaustic]

I will have to agree with all of the above... the auto install bullsh1ts the worst... followed by popups.... and I would say missleading links... that take you to some free site garbage that then has auto installers from popups that pierce their fangs directly onto your hard drive cpu and poor innocent RAM! They suck you dry! Seriously, the internet needs its own condom.

But cheers to popup blocking browsers that protect against auto install garbage as well!

Thats about all I can add.... im out ppeace

[ocho-ocho]

same here...pop ups!

[Black Dog]

Sites I hate:

1. Sites that use audio, especially if it cannot be turned off
2. Sites that force you to view a stupid Flash intro before you enter
3. GFY

B

[Gruntled]

What was the turning point for you, BlackDog?

Did you seek XNations out of a distaste for GFY or did you happen upon XNations first?