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25 February 2007

webthingies you hate - list'em![More:] I can't stand places where the comments open in a wee popup window. I hate too much fancy ajaxing where all the content is there and you click to make it appear. Flash-splash is a horror. Youtube embeds just irk me. Pop-unders should DIE. Blue links. That stay blue after visiting - in fact any links that don't change color! What do you hate?
- javascripted hyperlinks. I hate trying to open a window in a new tab and it not working because of some whacky javascript.
- Any popups. Any screen resizing.
- Registration to get to free content (a-la NY Times links)
- Really big Webpage Headers. I don't want the first third of the page to be your company logo.
- Flash ads that float around obscuring text.
posted by seanyboy 25 February | 12:56
Embedded midi files that blast you without warning.
Sites that disable the back button.
Registration - I am so sick of registering for stupid things! I just want to RTFA!
posted by mygothlaundry 25 February | 13:00
* Flash in general, because my work computer won't load it, which leaves some websites completely inaccessible. At least put some html in there, too!

* Pretty much everything else seanyboy said.
posted by occhiblu 25 February | 13:05
I too hate those JS links that break open-in-new-tab. Flash I don't much mind as I use the Flashblock extension. Registration is fine by me too, I just use Bugmenot. On most sites I don't mind creating an account as usually when you're logged on you can set preferences like number of threads per page and so on, which I find handy.

Forced preview, however, must die a horrible death in fire.
posted by Rhomboid 25 February | 13:19
I hate the lack of a preview option. Often I don't preview, but when I write an epic, I want the choice of previewing it. And what everyone else has said.
posted by goatdog 25 February | 13:25
Music that plays without warning, for sure. I can understand that on, say, a band's webpage. But anything else is completely unacceptable.
Links that don't have any sort of differentiation between them and normal text. Flash without a non-flash option. Screen resizing.

Oh, and BROWSER SPECIFIC DESIGN. I can't view my health insurance stuff or bank online without switching to IE. And both admit there is no mac version. Bullshit, and lazy. No excuse for such things.

Although my last design job made me guilty of the large header. It's for a local band, and the header incorporates their logo/name, and photos of the members done by a local high-fashion photographer. But they're a goth electronic band, so image is a big part of their live shows, and I figured in that case it was understandable.

My webthing I hate, from a designer standpoint, is no PC version of Safari available, at least for testing and validation. And that my new widescreen monitor throws off layouts sometimes so I need to double check everything on the roommate's computer.
posted by kellydamnit 25 February | 13:36
Flash sucks most of the time because you can't link to specific content... I'm not going to type into a post, "go to the front page, then click on the thing that looks like a toenail, then click the fourth 'snot' looking thingy on the top, once you get to that page you want to click the seventh pubic hair on the left menu." I mean who wants to say that?

I detest javascript popups for content. They're blocked my end, and if I want to see what that's supposed to be there I have to sing and dance to get my computer to agree.

I loathe pages that have a thousand little images for all their click navigation. You have to sit there and wait for all these fiddly things to load - and 9 times out of 10, there is no other clue what those links lead to - so you just wait, wait, wait 'til finally a little image that says "portfolio" loads up so you can click it. Dude, just use text links. Images are for other stuff.

You want to disable my right click so I won't steal your crappy, crappy graphics? I'm sending huge, slavering black dogs with razor sharp fangs and blood red eyes to haunt you in your sleep. I use right click for a million things - and none of them are to get your stupid photo of a flower.

I have more, but I have to go eat supper.
posted by taz 25 February | 13:42
* seanyboy's list
* disabling the back button
* Amazon's album cover popup thing where (increasingly smaller) large versions of covers are presented in a popup making it harder to drag into iTunes. (Although I've just discovered Wikipedia has much better quality scans of stuff and now my Radiohead covers are complete!)
* The phrase "web2.0"
* The misuse of the term "Ajax"
* The fact that I can't change my account name or import everything into a new account on last.fm
* lazy wankers who only design for one browser. I hope all your old work dies in IE7 and you have to fix it for free because it was your negligence that caused it to break.
* Google owning massive rafts of my information
* More and more of the sites I read are disabling comments because they just cannot deal with the avalanche of spam that they get
posted by TheDonF 25 February | 13:52
heh - I'm probably one of the ajax-term misusers, I honestly don'
t knowwhat is ajax and what ain't. But all that hidden-until-you-click-here stuff is beginning to bug me. Over at dig, when you dig something and the numbers go up without the page reloading, that's neat and useful. Dunno if that is ajax tho.

Oh and flash, can one honestly not make links to specific areas of flash sites? I though there was some way to do it but it hasn't caught on. Prolly wrong on that too since i know nothing about flash really.

That shiny 3D shady plasticky look is getting on my nerves, but this isn't reserved to web only. It's just an annoying design trend that probably began when Apple did it.
posted by dabitch 25 February | 14:43
Pretty much what y'all said.
posted by arse_hat 25 February | 14:44
I recently came across a flash menu with drop-down links that covered over other links -- which would have been fine, except that when I clicked on the link in the drop-down, it launched the link underneath. That was annoying.

And seanyboy's list, although I've been contemplating a redesign of my portfolio site that would have content start about halfway down the screen. Is half OK, if two-thirds isn't? ;)
posted by me3dia 25 February | 16:46
Javascript stuff that doesn't work in Safari. (Google Apps and Vox, I'm looking in your direction!)
posted by sveskemus 25 February | 17:00
Has anyone mentioned links in Flash? Because I *hate* the fact that I can't see the destination URL in my status bar and also that I can't choose whether to open it in a new tab or not. Gah. Worst thing evah (at this point in time).

I want to be able to run IE7 on the Mac without having to but a copy of Vista AND a copy of Parallels. That amount of insane expense just for a browser?!
posted by TheDonF 25 February | 17:44
I HATE anyone seriously or ironically mentioning WEB 2.0. The term is so nebulous as to mean nothing.
I hate social networking sites in general, web 2.0 or no.
I hate link farms, especially ones that pop up when you click a link that goes to an expired domain.
I hate people that think that having a blog means that he or she is in some way important.
Several years ago I saw a post on some website from someone touting their own blog, and they wrote something like, "Yeah, I'm going to be blogging the Superbowl ads." The hate boiled up from my stomach so fast I just about lost my lunch.
I hate sites that have those useless keyword popups. They wouldn't be so bad if they actually told you anything.
And this is somewhat off-topic, but I hate software that you pay good money for that nevertheless insist you register online so that they can spam you or sell your info to someone who will. (Intuit is especially guilty of this. I only wish I could get my $30 back from them. Microsoft's Windows Live is in the same category.)
I hate hardware companies that do not have their product promotion site and their support site cross-linked, so that I can get to, say, drivers and downloads directly from the page bragging about their new gizmo that I just bought that doesn't work right.
I hate bloggers who think that the aesthetics of their site is more important than readability, and put a narrow column of light grey text against a white background down the middle of my screen, leaving vast oceans of unutilized real estate to the left and right, and forcing me to squint and scroll constantly. I usually just skip sites that do this.
I HATE sites that decide that I need to see and hear some random video immediately upon visiting their home page. ESPN does this, and it drives me nuts.
Any site that makes its living off chasing celebrities around (TMZ.com comes to mind). Just because people are willing to buy something doesn't mean you have to sell it to them.

This is a partial list; I'm sure I can come up with more.
posted by deadcowdan 25 February | 17:59
One thing I love, though, is companies registering domains for people with crap fingers. For example:

www.ebat.co.uk
www.gooogle.com
amzon.com

And others. I typed in ebat.co.uk this morning and instantly my heart sank as I thought I'd end up on some link farm squatter domain. But, no! Ebay forwards straight to that. Huzzah!

posted by TheDonF 25 February | 19:46
-Popups and popunders
-Flash ads that obscure text and that scroll as you scroll.
-Flash intros on websites that don't have a "skip intro" option
-Myspace layouts that freeze my screen
-Link farms
-Especially link farms (or any page) that try to reset your homepage
-Pages that resize my window
posted by sisterhavana 25 February | 20:18
Flashblock (for Firefox) is cheaper than therapy.
Greasemonkey has a few pertinent scripts - including a pop-up stopper, a script that strips all the user preferences from myspace pages, a Salon premium pass, a Black Box search option (anonymous searching), and a bunch of ad skippers, among others. Also, AdBlock Plus irreplaceable.
I haven't had a pop-up or under since I've installed them.
posted by Zack_Replica 25 February | 21:06
I hate the 'word' "blog".
posted by Eideteker 25 February | 21:25
MySpace. Putting to one side the crimes against taste and decency committed by it's members, the site is so badly designed and coded.
posted by dodgygeezer 26 February | 04:51
I actually kind of like flash. It looks pretty and makes the pages feel more alive and organic.
posted by pieisexactlythree 26 February | 13:01
Snap Preview
posted by TheDonF 26 February | 16:54
Oh, I have a lot of hate and only some of it is reserved for the following:
Popups, popunders, popanyfucking thing. If I didn't open it in a new window, don't you fucking dare force it.
Javascript hyperlinks.
Screen resizing/moving.
Registration for free content.
Embedded midi files.
Disabling the back button.
Images for navigation (when using dial-up particularly) - at least have the decency to put some alt text so I can predict where the buttons go, or don't hide the location of the link in the status bar. Or just die a horrible, painful death. Any one of those would do me fine.
Disabling right-click. If you do that, I will make a point of stealing all your crappy pictures just so I can have the pleasure of deleting them from my HDD, you fuckwad.
The phrase "Web 2.0" or any derivative.
The word "weblog" and any derivative.
Banks that rave on and on about security and on-line banking, then try to force me to use IE to do my banking. Guess what? Your competitor doesn't do that and they were happy to have my business.
posted by dg 27 February | 00:27
DownThemAll allows you to grab all the pics on a page, regardless of whether or not right-click is disabled. I wish it could follow thumbnails to the larger pic, but I don't think it can.
posted by Zack_Replica 27 February | 01:38
The frequency with which I want to copy pictures from Web sites is so low as to make it useless for that, but thanks. It is more that I get so pissed off by people thinking so much of themselves that they disable a (for me) critical function on my computer to "protect" their stupid pictures that I feel compelled to steal them out of pure spite.

But then again, after actually looking at the link, that would be really handy for off-line MeFi browsing, I think. Thanks!
posted by dg 27 February | 17:16
Curious Bunny: || Bunny Butt! OMG!

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