I love web design. That’s why I design my own websites. Well, also because I fervently believe in self-torture. It builds character. Everyone (as in most writers I talk to) has their own list of website design likes and dislikes. We need to think about such things so when we build our sites (or hire others to design them for us), we only drive our browsers nuts, not ourselves. Here are my website bugaboos:
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It should be spelled website. I don’t care that some dictionary says it’s Web site. I will never purposely spell Web site on my website (except I just did).
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I don’t understand tag clouds. What’s the purpose? To me, they look like someone threw up their vegetable soup. And the words that are bigger than the others? They look like they’re on an ego trip. I know tag clouds are (practically) the latest thing, but no way, no how, not ever (or at least until I change my mind) am I including a tag cloud on my blog.
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I can not abide moving navigation menus. You know, they hang on the side of a web page, and when you scroll down, the menu scrolls down, too? It’s a very clever idea. I liked it the first time I saw it. Then, as soon as I began scrolling, the moving menu creeped me out. The moving menu is far too Hitchcocky/Big Brother for me. It makes me feel like the computer screen’s alive, and we all know I have far too active an imagination to sleep comfortably after that. Honestly, moving menus can make me leave a website nearly as fast as…
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Music on websites. It drives me bonky. Whenever I vist a friend’s MySpace page, the first thing I do is shut off the music. I hereby vow that I will never ever ever install music on my MySpace page. I know the idea is that the song individualizes the page, but I find the songs make the pages take too long to load. And, well, I’m not one of those people who writes to music, so I don’t want to surf the ‘net to music, either. (Note, I rarely visit MySpace anymore, but when I did, the music most assuredly drove me nuts.) And music on real websites drives me nuts, too. I really, honestly don’t understand how browsers can focus on the words on the screen with music crowding up their brains.
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Animations… I can handle one or maybe two animations per page. Any more than that, and I start to get dizzy, no matter how cute or clever the animations are. I must say that I do like rollovers and remote rollovers and even animations that are somehow built into the web page banner and…this is very important…aren’t intrusive. However, give me more than one thing bouncing around, or, God forbid, following my cursor all over the page, and I don’t stick around very long. Especially when hearts or clover leafs or jack o’ lanterns start following my cursor around! I can’t get away from them! Drives me nuts!
I sometimes joke that I have adult ADD. I DO know I have HAWD (Hyper Active Website Disorder). Because there’s a commonality in my list of website don’ts. Too much visual or aural activity and I go nuts.
What are your website bugaboos? Oh, and “Writers Who Complain About Websites,” “Cindy’s Website,” and “Cindy” are not acceptable answers.
I agree that floating navigation menus are annoying. And music is bad simply because if you have readers who have slow connections, it makes your page take forever to load, and thus your reader may go away in frustration without ever having read your website. This is a bad thing!
Like you, I don’t care for music or animations on websites. Besides the fact that I might not like the person’s choice of music, it’s not a smart thing to do. I know many people who check websites or blogs at work. Even when you don’t have the speaker on, you get a tinny sound of the music. So of course the viewer will close it down right away.
And animation makes it harder to load. Even with my fast loading computer, sometimes it’s not as fast as it should be. Irritating.
Mostly, I like website to be simple and easy to navigate. Don’t clutter it up.
I think you hit all my website bugaboos. Moving navigation bars freak me out – especially when I’m not expecting them. I scroll down to read further only to find out the darn thing is stalking me. Eek. LOL, I’m totally with you on the HAWD, too. That’s a much better way to say it than my ‘input overload’. =o)
Hi Ellen,
A writer I admire has a moving navigation menu, and I like to visit her website, so I try really hard to ignore that the menu is following me as I scroll. I don’t allow her navigation menu to impede me visiting her website, because I already knew her before the navigation menu came into play. But if I don’t already feel a loyalty to someone with a moving navigation menu? I’m outta there.
Edie, that’s precisely what I don’t like about music on websites. It alerts the world (when maybe you’d rather they not know) that you’re surfing the net when perhaps you shouldn’t be. Same goes for animated people heads that start talking as soon as I hit the site. Holy hoopla! I turned down the speakes or shut off the animation immediately. And I work from a home office! There’s no one but me to supervise myself. Only I can give myself heck for surfing the web when I should be writing. So it kinda doesn’t make sense, but there it is.
Like I said on Facebook (my blog posts also show up there), if it’s a musician, then I can totally understand music on a website. However, I STILL like when *I* control the music. When I can choose from a play list and hear snippets. I don’t like having to turn something off. I want to choose what I hear.
B.E., I’m glad I’m not the only one who finds moving navigation menus creepy. You’re right, it’s like they’re stalking you!
I agree with everything except #3. I like tag/label clouds! If I’m understanding them right, the bigger the word, the more often that tag/label has been used.
What I dislike on websites is if you have to log in or type in a search box, but the cursor isn’t automatically in that box so you have to click in it first.
Natalie, I’ve never considered having to put my cursor into a search box. Too used to it, I guess.
I honestly do know the purpose of tag clouds, but they still look silly to me, especially if there are a lot of big words.
Cindy, we must be twins, or at least close sisters because I have the same website bugaboos. I also dislike dark backgrounds with dark text (very difficult to read!). Your website design is clean, simple and easy to navigate. Yup, we’re related. LOL
Thanks, Jeanne. I checked out your site, and I love the background colour. Very soothing. That’s some story about the snow fence!