There used to be only a few things that made me cringe when I visited a website: animated GIF’s, Comic Sans font, and music/video that started playing automatically.
Today, I’m adding three more things to that list, which I hope doesn’t start to get too long:
Non-Standard Fonts – When I go to a website, I want to be able to read what I went there to find. That means having a site programmed to use clean, legible fonts like Arial and Verdana. These venerable, mainstay fonts are getting squeezed out by designers or programmers who think using fancier fonts make websites look better. One news site which was on my daily read list got scratched when they changed their main font to PT Sans Bold.
Non-iPad Friendly Sites – These days, it’s pretty easy to use browser detection to serve a mobile version of a website to a smart phone user and a full version to a PC user. But for some reason, sites continually seem to be programmed without this functionality built-in. If I hit a site on my iPad where a blank page loads with instructions on how to install Flash, my hemorrhoids flair up. Since the iPad and iPhone don’t support Flash, website owners who are not directing them to a non-Flash version are essentially telling these visitors to hit the road.
Intrusive Ads – Ok, ads are going to be around longer than Joan Rivers, but do they have to be so intrusive? You know the ones I’m talking about, the ones that suddenly expand and take over your screen making you frantically search for the “X” to close it. Or the ones you innocently roll your mouse over only to have it leap out at you. I guess they’re better than the “talking assistant” you can’t get to shut up, but they’re still annoying.
The web isn’t a perfect place and I don’t expect it to be. I just like my corner of the Internet to be hassle free and easy to use. I’m sure we all have our pet peeves… care to share yours?