There’s some trends on the Internet that just wont die. I swear sometimes I don’t even know what decade it is when I click on a link and find an archaic HTML 3.2 driven site layered with frames and animated gifs. But what is even more disturbing is when you stagger into a site that was written only weeks ago and it looks like something you made in Grade 9 on your Packard Bell desktop.

Every day I find my way on to some terribly produced site that makes me gag. Here’s a short list of web design mistakes that drive me up the wall:

10 – JavaScript Links

This one isn’t always noticeable, when you use the website the way the designer expected you to use it. What they did not expect was for you to ctrl+click or middle click a link to open it in a new tab. Perhaps you just wanted to copy the URL so you can send it to a friend? Unfortunately far too many developers leave off the href attribute when they use an onClick, or they needlessly make their links use JavaScript in order to do something silly like open it as a popup.

9 – Denying Right Click

I can’t help but laugh every time I see this one. Almost all browsers these days override the developer’s attempt to stop you from right clicking. Instead what happens is they get an alert saying its not allowed at the same time as the right click menu. If you are that worried about me stealing your image, there are better ways to stop it. Trying to deny right clicks just annoys the user, and provides them no benefit.

8 – Under Construction



Virtually every website is under construction, they continue to evolve and add content. Putting an Under Construction header (or worse, an animated gif of some stick men construction workers) on your site is like putting a Caution – Hot sticker on a stove. What makes this problem even worse is when you eventually abandon your website, because you got bored of it or ran out of clip art, it will permanently bear this Under Construction warning until the end of time.

7 – Splitting Content

I appreciate the fact that you might be trying to break up the article to make it seem less intimidating to read, but you can solve that issue by just adding some white space. I can handle more than three paragraphs at a time. We all know the real reason you broke your single page article into six pages was just so you could get more ad impressions. But guess what, when I got the “continued on page 2” link I just closed the page.

6 – All Flash Websites

You’re a graphic designer, not a web designer. Stop trying to be both. Not only is the noise and “flashiness” of your website annoying, but it’s extremely hard to navigate your site. How am I supposed to know that if I hover my mouse over bird another the link to the gallery will appear. To make matters worse, once I find the section I need I can’t even bookmark it because your whole page exists as one URL. So each time I come here I have to watch your long and useless intro, then stumble through your horrible menu system.

5 – Splash Pages

Wow, you know Photoshop or Flash. I’m not impressed. In fact, I’m annoyed because I just had to perform yet another click to get to the content of your page. To make matters worse, you tried to be creative with your placement of the enter button and I can’t find it on your splash page at all.

4 – Resizing the Window

I like my window the size it is. If its maximized, it’s because I wanted it maximized. If it’s only taking up half my screen, it’s most likely because I needed the other half for something else. Yes, your crappy flash page was meant to be viewed at 800×600, but I will resize it myself if I need to.

3 – Videos that Auto Play

Chances are that I have no interest in the videos you’ve put on your site. If I wanted to find a video I would have searched on Youtube or a similar engine. Your video may be relavent and useful to me, but please give me the option to start it when I’m ready. I often open many tabs at once and don’t get to them for some time. Having to click on each one, scroll through pages of posts and try and find the source of the talking I hear, and then stopping it is really annoying. What’s even more annoying is when you have 10 videos on your main page that all start playing at once — seriously, what made you think that would be a good idea?

2 – Music

Even more annoying than videos is background music. We all have very different tastes in music, I probably don’t like what you like. In fact, I probably hate it. And what I’d probably hate even more is for it to scare the living crap out of me when I open your site at 3 am and have neglected to turn my speakers off. I have never seen a website that needed background music, never. I don’t care if it’s a website for your favourite band, it doesn’t need to auto play. If you feel you need sound on your site, follow this one simple rules give the user the option of if and when they’d like to hear it.

1 – Click Here…

Some of you will think it’s silly that I put this on the top of my list. But this one is huge for me because it is a plague that has infested the majority of the Internet. It’s become so popular and normal to see on a website that I continuously have intelligent, highly educated clients handing me text full of “click here…” links. There is no need for this, link the title or action as you mention it, you will look far more professional if you do.

So, what are your pet peeves?