Five Web Design Choices I Hate

When I get handed a web project, I usually do my own design.  That's not to say that my design is good, but I think it's decent.  Anyway, there are a few things I hate when it comes to web design, and every week I find a website that implements one or more of the five top pet peeves, which are:





#5.  Ads Every Where

I understand that people like to make money off of their effort, and I'm completely ok with that.  But for fucks sake, three ads per page is pushing it, not to mention if you have more than three ads.

I was going to put an example, but I realized I
didn't want to give any of those websites traffic.
So here's a Corgi instead (Source).

You know what I hate about the whole "Ads Every Where" situation?  Owners will employ in-line text ads and pop up ads to maximize revenue.  I'm pretty sure I hate in-line text ads the most.  In fact, I hate in-line text ads so much, I always make sure I can disable them (or that they are absolutely not a feature) when I register for ads.

Oh, nope, I spoke too soon.  There are other types of ads I hate more than in-line text ads...

#4.  In-Coming/Out-Going Ads

This offender gets it's own heading because it's just that annoying.  You go to click a link, and what happens? An ad pops up before you leave the site or an ad pops up before you enter the site.  And it's never just a simple pop up ad.  It's one of those "cover all content full screen size" ads that make you want to kill some one.  Or it's in a completely different page.

What ever exact type of ad is, it always has the ad covering 99% of the screen with a tiny link that says "Skip this ad" shoved in a corner some where.

I'm starting to think these ads are meant to deter me from using that site; because I know I usually close the window out of frustration after the umpteenth ad.

God these ads make me so ma-

Awwwwww... 

#3.  Over-sized Headers

"Wow, one of your top five pet peeves of web design isn't about advertisements?"

Yes, now shut up.

When it comes to headers, some people just get it right.  Facebook does a pretty good job, as does Stack Overflow.  The header is clean, simple, and small.

However, no matter how many good examples of web design there are, there still exist many that just take a piss on design and say "fuck it" and create a header that takes up half the page.  Or they learned some clever CSS and made the header absolutely positioned at the top of your screen (just in case we forgot what website we were on).

#2.  Sidebars on the Left AND Right

Yet another design choice I hate.  The reasons I hate dual sidebars is twofold: one, they drastically diminish the size of the actual content I was trying to look at, and they are usually filled with a barrage of useless information ( or worse, ads ).

A lot of blogs use the dual sidebars in an attempt to make as much money as possible and interest their audience due to lack of actual content.  I don't want to play with your fucking virtual fish bowl, I want to read an article or laugh at cat pictures.

I DEMAND MORE CATS.

Which finally leads to my number one pet peeve about web design...

#1.  Portal Pages

I dislike Portal pages.  You know, the main page you land on for a website that says: "Click here to enter."  And I guess it makes sense for porn sites to employ this technique since they need to have a warning somewhere that sexxywomen.* is a porn website (in case you couldn't guess from the URL).

I'm not exactly sure why this bugs me so much.  Maybe it's the fact that non-porn websites use it for absolutely no reason, or maybe its because it's just another goddamn click I need to do to get to the content I was looking for, but, whatever the reason, they just make me madder than a cat on a sundae (new expression, coined by mio).

I'm going to stop now before I pop an artery.