What users hate most

[John Scott]

1. Invasive advertising: Cunnington says users widely despise ads that cover content, ads that flash wildly and ads that chew broadband.

2. Re-inventing the wheel: people do not want to have to learn how to use a site before they can browse it, Cunnington said.

3. 'Leap of faith' links: that means disclosing information on content and file size.

4. Attention-deficit Web sites: "Users have a special hatred of flashing icons and banners, because they draw the eye away from what is important and hinder their progress," Cunnington said.

5. War and Peace length: "A common mistake in Web design is to just [convert] a brochure to the Web. But the Web is its own medium, and communication has to change to reach users. Users are known to read 25 percent slower on the screen than on paper, read fewer words and don't like long pages which require scrolling down," she said.

Another problem is site blindness. "We are now seeing right-column blindness, where users do not see information and links down the right hand side of the screen. This occurs because the right hand column has become known for advertising," Cunnington said.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/...ebsites_1.html

[Jamie Lister]

The right-hand side column theory is an interesting one...So anything important must be kept away from the right, i presume?

Funnily, I tend to use the right-hand side when i don't have a left-hand column or if its to be exclsuively for adverts. Maybe its me the websurfer instinctively "discrediting" the right-hand column content...!

[Louis]

Not I agree with right-hand side column thing...

[JamieJelly]

nor do I, my highest CTR is from the RH column.

[Izzmo]

Originally Posted by JamieJelly

nor do I, my highest CTR is from the RH column.

Wouldn't this harden the fact that the right side is for banners then? (DOH!)

[DaveyBoy]

The only reason for not using the right hand column for important stuff is that it might get cut off in lower resolutions, and hardly anyone will bother scrolling to the right to use the nav, they will just leave your web site instead.

I used to use the right side for the nav just to be different, but then i realised what was happening and reverted back to top or left navigation

[megamoose]

Originally Posted by DaveyBoy

The only reason for not using the right hand column for important stuff is that it might get cut off in lower resolutions, and hardly anyone will bother scrolling to the right to use the nav, they will just leave your web site instead.

That's an interesting theory too. I always try and make the width of my sites 800 pixels or less so most users will be able to see everything.

I also think it just depends what they see in that right hand column. If it is full of adverts and has no coordination then users will just skim read it and not even bother looking at what it is offering. If you make it blend in with your site. OFfer a "Picture of the day" or "News" section and then under if add some adverts which colour blend into your site.

That way guests will feel it is a useful part of the site, and spend more tiem reading it

Mark

[vtechno42]

Originally Posted by DaveyBoy

The only reason for not using the right hand column for important stuff is that it might get cut off in lower resolutions, and hardly anyone will bother scrolling to the right to use the nav, they will just leave your web site instead.

I used to use the right side for the nav just to be different, but then i realised what was happening and reverted back to top or left navigation

Sidescrolling does indeed suck. If you have your nav on the right though, you could position the rest of your site to default to the right as well, so it cuts to the left. I did that forever ago, but I'm not sure if the initial page load can be defaulted to the right. I kept it about 700px wide, so I never had that issue. *shrugs*

But anyhow. That's one of many problems with sites. My biggest beef is a lack of uniformity. Blinking crap sucks, heaps of flash adds also sucks, but when i click on the Contact page and it looks rediculously different from the News page (nav has changed positions, colors are different, links are outdated etc), I get really annoyed. If your front page rocks, make it rock for every page. This is not very widespread (thankfully), but I see it a lot when I surf band or indie label / production websites. It just looks cheesy as hell.

... that, and centered nav links. GRR!

[cabdirazzaq]

Originally Posted by DaveyBoy

The only reason for not using the right hand column for important stuff is that it might get cut off in lower resolutions, and hardly anyone will bother scrolling to the right to use the nav, they will just leave your web site instead.

I used to use the right side for the nav just to be different, but then i realised what was happening and reverted back to top or left navigation

Most people use a higher resolution these days anyway, right?

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by cabdirazzaq

Most people use a higher resolution these days anyway, right?

That depends a lot on your particular visitors, but even 10% of your visitors is a lot of people to ignore.

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp

[2mymall]

Originally Posted by DaveyBoy

I used to use the right side for the nav just to be different, but then i realised what was happening and reverted back to top or left navigation

Use the left for navigation if it suits your site but beware of using your top for navigation because some search robots use the words at the top as your site's keywords.

Just my 2pn worth advice.

[JamieJelly]

I just use a fixed width of 760px, that will deal with 800x600 users perfectly. No horizontal scrolling needed.

[jeet]

There's no need to use a fixed width of 760 px when you have all this stylesheet features handy...
Example go to second link in my signature, (use 800 screen size), Now resize your screen. It automatically fits...

Basically when you fix the screen size to be 760, either you are compromising on your choice of banner design/ size or leaving a large empty space at the right side of screen when website is viewed in 1024 size.

Originally Posted by JamieJelly

I just use a fixed width of 760px, that will deal with 800x600 users perfectly. No horizontal scrolling needed.

[gatorgritz]

I hate scrolling too. It's a huge annoyance and drives me nuts. And being on dialup (yes I'm still in the stoneage) slow loading pages kill it for me. Why not give me an option of loading large items? And believe it or not, there are still quite a few people still using dialup.

[waffles]

He didn't mention music at all though. I hate it most when someone hijacks my speakers. The only time I don't have something I want coming out of them is when my roommate's asleep. And it always turns out that I forget to turn them off and something comes blasting out.

[jxb10]

Originally Posted by waffles

He didn't mention music at all though. I hate it most when someone hijacks my speakers. The only time I don't have something I want coming out of them is when my roommate's asleep. And it always turns out that I forget to turn them off and something comes blasting out.

I agree. I can't stand when I load a site and some one starts talking or they have music playing. I'm listening to my own music I don't need yours! If you have someone or something talking, make it easy to shut off or give an option to turn it on. I will leave a site right away and not come back when something starts talking.

[spyderscripts]

One of the things I hate most about web sites is the use of PHP. I don't buy products or services from companies who use PHP to any extent across their web site.

[chicgeek]

Originally Posted by spyderscripts

One of the things I hate most about web sites is the use of PHP. I don't buy products or services from companies who use PHP to any extent across their web site.

Why is that?

[WagerX]

Originally Posted by spyderscripts

One of the things I hate most about web sites is the use of PHP. I don't buy products or services from companies who use PHP to any extent across their web site.

When I originally read this I thought it was fantastic link bait material. You use "hate" and post an extreme biased view IN a forum that many users know or use php.. you actually made php a contoversial subject.

Good lateral thinking .. very creative.

[spyderscripts]

There are many reasons I don't like it. The big one is it's miseuse in the web community. Then follows security.. soon after, creativity and who knows what comes after that.

How is it misused? A simple PHP counter, guestbook or forum never hurt anyone (well it has, but we're keeping this simple). And on this note, a simple Perl or ASP counter doesn't hurt anyone either.

But when it's used to CREATE a web site, it starts getting misused. No language was meant to do EVERYTHING for a web site. A web site was meant to be a page that you create and add scripting technology TO when needed. Not a scripting-based site you add html TO.

With the coming of PHP CMS, the uniqueness of web sites have dropped tremendously. Any Joe Smith can have a web site if they pay someone $10 to install a PHP CMS for them.

The truth is, most people who use PHP to base their entire site on, never change the template! This is what really aggitates me. If your site looks like everyone elses, what's the point? What are you accomplishing by saying you have a web site that you had no part in making? Simply copying and paste text doesn't qualify you as a webmaster.

Now, I'm not picking on PHP for the CMS. This would go for any CMS, but few sites are a CMS of a different language.

Then I could go into the security of PHP, with the introduction of the PHP Nuke disaster and past exploits in the PHP core.

In the end, why don't I trust sites that use PHP? It's mainly due to the security issues they have, I wouldn't trust having my CC or other confidential information on a site using it. If it's a PHP CMS, I just believe the web site owner didn't care enough about us visitors to change the template or to learn how to design a site themselves.