My favorite co-worker is disruptive and has thrown up in my laptop bag.

As website design folks who work from our respective homes, John and I have co-workers of the furry variety. Our cats keep us company in our offices. Mine has zero respect for personal space and a clear distaste for my old laptop bag, while John’s cat just appears to judge his choices.

The last time Foosball (my cat) was perched on my desk trying to take control of the mouse, I wondered – what if cats designed websites?

So. Much. Gated. Content.

I’ve worked harder to win a cat’s affections than I’m proud to admit. Sure, cats will sit on your lap unexpectedly or nuzzle you without prompting and it’s magical. But they often make you work for their love. My cat will walk right up to me, meow for attention, and then walk away as soon as I lean down to pet her. Seriously?

With that type of attitude, I would expect feline website designers to make users work for their content. They might require you to accurately answer cat trivia, and complete a challenging “captcha” before getting past the home page.

And if you want valuable white papers or cat-related research (the equivalent of the rare kitty belly rub) you better believe you’re paying for that.

If I Fits, I Sits

Once you get past the myriad gates in front of their content, brace yourself. An innate cat trait is the desire to sit within small boxes or other containers. If they fits, they sits. Why would we expect any different in cat-designed websites?

Expect a lot of long-scrolling pages with dense content. Because if a cat can fit all their stuff in one place, they will. Even if they can’t, they’ll try.

Meowum Awesome

I imagine cats would have their own take on Lorem Ipsum filler text. They’d stumble upon it by accident, when taking a snooze on the keyboard or sprinting across the desk. Then they would then turn it into an art form revered by the people.

For Example: sdkjfhadkf dfkjh sdflkj eipv lsd sasss odiag ladlke. Asdlkhj djhck eoe dd alke bojsy elkjbpeh. Jsdlkj swmx. Kwz alkj tlkw; xjicug poc.

Sdkjfhadkf dfkjh sdflkj eipv lsd sasss odiag ladlke. Asdlkhj djhck eoe dd alke bojsy elkjbpeh. Jsdlkj swmx. Kwz alkj tlkw; xjicug poc. sdkjfhadkf dfkjh sdflkj eipv lsd sasss odiag ladlke. Asdlkhj djhck eoe dd alke bojsy elkjbpeh. Jsdlkj swmx. Kwz alkj tlkw; xjicug poc.

They’d probably call it meowum awesome.

Freaking Laser Beams

Because they freaking can.

Static Content

Don’t expect cats to redesign their existing websites. Creatures of habit and routine, cats are adverse to change. Just ask Foosball how she behaved when we moved her from Ohio to North Carolina. She pooped, guys. She pooped where she shouldn’t have. We got the message loud and clear.

Their static content could mean that their websites don’t evolve to keep up with the times. But science has proven that the internet loves cats, so I still think they’d do just fine as web designers.

Now that I really think it through, I probably won’t be training Foosball to take over my job anytime soon – the mouse alone would be a major barrier to productivity. So instead I’ll just enjoy her odd demonstrations of love and show her mine by letting her chase my cursor around the screen.