Comments on: Stop! Before You Make Any Of These 5 Website Usability Mistakes

By: Improve Your Blog and Web Site - Need to Read Posts #5 | The Fatty Talks by Adam Hirsch

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 22:44:05 +0000

[...] Stop! Before You Make Any Of These 5 Website Usability Mistakes (Blogging Bits) [...]

By: Jeremy Steele

Jeremy Steele — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 05:25:16 +0000

Don’t use flash for your layout, don’t use lots of Javascript/AJAX to display content, things like that. Most text-to-speech software reads web pages the same way as text based browsers and search bots.

By: Mohsin

Mohsin — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 05:09:50 +0000

Jeremy, is there a special way to make your layout compatible for text-to-speech software?

By: Jeremy Steele

Jeremy Steele — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 17:40:33 +0000

Using way too many ads, and not making your layout accessible to disabled users (not making it compatible for text-to-speech software and such) is also a big no no.

By: Mohsin

Mohsin — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 16:11:01 +0000

Cool. I’ll link back to you and preserve the credit

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 16:04:37 +0000

I got carried away. Feel free to use any of my pet peeves; I’m sure that they extend to pretty much everyone on line.

By: Mohsin

Mohsin — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 15:56:05 +0000

Whoa Robert! Your comment contains a post in itself.

If you don’t mind, can I do quote you in another post about usability mistakes? I think we are going to make a huge list of ‘web usability mistakes to avoid’ with all the previous points, this post, and now all the points in your comment.

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 15:26:02 +0000

I have a few usability pet peeves, and these are the extreme ones – the ones that will probably turn me off your website all together and never return:

1) “Congratulations! You just one a free ipod” or any variety of sound based advertisements. I don’t mind the ones that are on silent and you can click to listen to the sound. But the ones that have the sound that automatically start – no no. Just yesterday I went to someones blog and they had that ad, and I closed off their site immediately.

2) The name slips my mind, but those ads that convert text to links for advertisement. Such as the word “coffee” would turn into an ad for StarBucks and when you roll over it, it pops up a little window.

3) Animated pictures all over the page. How many animated gifs do you need that say “Princess”? Geez.

4) Super, duper, tiny font. Or font color that blends in with the background.

5) Google Ads war. Everyone wants to make money from their blog/website. Hey, I get it. But do you have to bombard me with google ads every 50 pixels?! Or the animated banners that put me in a trance.

6) Different font face or size. I can’t stand when I’m reading a website or blog and the font is say Verdana and then right in the middle of the sentence it switches to Arial or Times New Roman. Or there is a mixture of big and small font all over the page.

7) Sites that force me to register so I can comment. “To combat spam” is their excuse. uhh there is a thing called “comment moderation” as well as plugins that help with spam. I don’t comment if I have to register.

There’s more, but I think those cover most of my pet peeves.