I'd like everyone's opinion on small things that they hate, or that annoy them, on other people's websites (no need to name them). I'll start us off:

1) Really small font sizes. I depise people who make their font size like 9px and actually expect people to read it all without getting a headache.

2) Spaces in filenames and directories.

For example, here is a nice URL:

http://www.somesite.com/content/webmaster/articles/seo.html

Here is a not so nice url:

http://www.somesite.com/content/webmaster articles/search engine optimisation.html

The reason I hate it is because for every space in the url, a '%20' is automatically added in its place, making the url unnecessarily hard to read. Also, capitalisation of filenames and directories can become annoying when overused..

3) Flashing banners. I absolutely hate any form of flashing banner (or some annoying animation, for e.g. advertising "get 10000 smilies FREE" ). I mean seriously, most of them flash in a dual alternating fashion and say "you may have already won". But I am saying "you may have already annoyed me enough to block the ad server so I can retain my sight beyond the age of 20".

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Anyone else have anything to add? :rolleyes:

I hate..

poor design (looks like 1995)
unnavigable navigation
navigation menus that change from page to page
target _blank
having a search on your site that doesn't find anything
java rollover buttons
tables for a whole page layout because "css is TOO hard"
limiting page width to 800px and not centering the content (does anyone use 800x600 anymore?)
pt sizes for fonts instead of px or ems
colors that could induce seizures

I could go on.

Many of mine are covered above.

One thing really quick I will add is not so much a thing done with a website, but particular websites themselves...

...I can't stand sites that just sell junk. Sites that have hundreds of thousands of products that have nothing to do with each other -- things like coffee mugs, t-shirts, day planners, golf balls, fans, etc etc. They annoy the crap outta me. These sites are usually spammed with text, generally a huge body of text on the main page full of the 100+ product category names they have along with a bunch of "sales" copy. It especially annoys me when they don't even have their own inventory, but rather are just a reseller who's massive, cluttered sites simply point to other sites or draw their inventor from others.

Sorry to any out there who operate these kinds of sites, but these sites drive me crazy :P

Java rollover buttons and goofy page transitions. Also, long flash intros.

Bad navigation, too much white space, way too much Flash compared to the actual value of contents,etc

Turnkey websites and junk websites that have no useful content but lots of ads, amazon affiliates, templatemonster affiliates, etc... Search engines are flooded with that junk so when I need to find something I usually get few of those on top.

Also IE-only websites that don't work properly with other browsers.

DISCLAIMER: This text doesn't fully represent my emotions, cause if I wrote what I think of these "features" - that would be just a looong line of asterisks. :)

Firstly and mainly, SOUND. No gawddamn sound on websites!!! No loops, no rollover clicks, - nothing. It is NOT needed, period.

Secondly, pop-ups. Luckily these are not very widespread now, but I really hate that stuff. The only exceptions are where it's really useful and natural - like on 'help' buttons while filling in a form (so that the helptext wouldn't screw whatever you've already filled).

Thirdly, false keywords. I'm crazy when a site selling coffee mugs has "hardcore teen sex" written white-on-white somewhere around the page - just to attract visitors.

Fourth, unnecessary registrations. "Sorry, you have to register, validate, authenticate and activate your account before you can read our three lines of barely-useful crap". Go to hell.

And finally, false links. I'm mad of those sites saying "FREE DOWNLOAD", fancying the link like a direct d/l, then pushing you to some third-party site, where there is a direct d/l link that may push you to a fourth-party site, where... well, see my sig. :)

That's just a few of those - may be more.

Flash for navigation and banners. There is no point to it. It makes the site 10x bigger that it needs to be and breaks if you use something that doesn't support flash.

Yeah, sound... well, actually, when it comes to fully flashed, for example, portofilos, I don't mind some nice (ambient) music in the back (not too loud)... other than that - alt f4.

I hate to see color shemes that would hurt even a blind person, those get closed right away too.

Scrollbars where they aren't needed at all... plus all of the above :)

For web reader. I do not agree with Nuke about spaces in the URL (hate #2), because web viewers rarely pay attention on the URL. They don't care what the URL look like. They just follow the links to navigate.

The main thing I hate is when a webpage is filled with so many ads that you have to scroll 3/4 of the way down just to see the content.

another is annoying navigations that when you put your mouse over you hear rampant beeping.

They just all suck, never use rollover sounds

Originally posted by dnguyen
For web reader. I do not agree with Nuke about spaces in the URL (hate #2), because web viewers rarely pay attention on the URL. They don't care what the URL look like. They just follow the links to navigate.

Well actually, it's more than just the spaces. I forgot to also mention that I hate messy directory structures, which in turn leads to navigation that is spread out all over the place in a random fashion.

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Page inconsistancy is also another thing I hate. I like to know that I am still browsing the same website when I go from page to page.

Few things which I do not like in a webste:

1. Popups
2. Music/Sound - instead of forcing the music on each visitor, using a Play button would benefit more.
3. Tiny web designs, lack of information, old website designs, frames, huge flashy advertisements.

Pages that don't fill the browser window. I've been running at 1600*1200 for the last few years and very few pages seem to expand to fill the space. Nothing worse than a large page with a small band of content in the middle of the page. Most monitors these days will do 1024 * 768 or higher.

Identical templates usign the same stock graphics. Why ? Design's not that difficult and if it's important and you can't do it, then surely it's worth the investment to get a designer ?

Tables with embedded slices of a graphical image, these can look dreadful as the page loads and slowly builds up the image.

Tables for layout. What's wrong with CSS, it's not that hard to do.

Pages that take long to load. Make the first page quick to load.

java without warning
bad use of tables
bad colors (ie: yellow on white)
frames
irrationally large (file size, and resolution) graphics
pages that require flash
pages that take more than 6 minutes to load on a 46.6kbps connection
When a website looks great in IE, but terrible in firefox


I also hate designers who sell services and use bad code. If you're going to do it, do it right.

I hate hate hate hate sound on a website. Turn the gosh darned thing off already!

A site that's owned by one person that says WE, US or OUR, example: We can do a design for you. Please contact us. Our hosting plans are...

Jeffreyw hehe, yeah... there's just one thing that is worst than what you've already said. If someone goes in one line : We can do a design for you... blablabla... some 10 - 15 lines lower it goes: I've been in design business over...

That stuff really makes me laugh :)

Originally posted by nuke
Well actually, it's more than just the spaces. I forgot to also mention that I hate messy directory structures, which in turn leads to navigation that is spread out all over the place in a random fashion.


I once had an argument with a web designer about the spaces. He claimed the url is irrelvant, but whitespace enables him to be more productive.

Originally posted by monaghan
Pages that don't fill the browser window. I've been running at 1600*1200 for the last few years and very few pages seem to expand to fill the space. Nothing worse than a large page with a small band of content in the middle of the page. Most monitors these days will do 1024 * 768 or higher.


Some of us still have to make print outs directly from the web pages.

Firefox is smart enough to resize on printing so you can print even 1200 on one page. IExplore which is the top 90% out there just chops up the web page in middle.


The solutions is having two layouts, but then, it extra work.

I hate websites made entirely in photoshop, and graphic intense websties, and websites that aren't valid (x)html

People need to learn the photoshop was not created to make websites with.

I would add the flash pop-ups, it's those that float over the content of the page and those you have to click on teeny tiny X CLOSE button next to huge SHOW ME MORE button in order to see the maybe-useful info on the page. Sometimes it so bugs me I regret that Flash was invented :)

Originally posted by aaneta
I once had an argument with a web designer about the spaces. He claimed the url is irrelvant, but whitespace enables him to be more productive.

ROFL. I find that quite ammusing..