Web designs shouldn't be scary. Yes, the content can scare the bejeezus out of your customers if that's what you want, but the design itself shouldn't be scary. I have come up with 14 design techniques that scare me whenever I see them, can you think of more? Happy Halloween! Little Web of Horrors
And if you don't think web design is scary, you should consider this. When I evaluated 10 random sites on the internet, there was only 1 page that I actually liked. There is a lot more UGLY out there than not. Why Are Web Pages So Ugly?
I dont think its so common to see these mistakes these days…
do you really find them frequently ?
For some reason at one time a young high schooler was advertising his web design busniess using a page with a dark green background and a black font color, with some sort of tiled patern to it.
No threat from him!
Pablo: While I don’t see them as often on corporate sites – I still see them all the time on beginner’s sites.
What types of mistakes do you see on the Web these days?
Within the past year I saw pale gray text on a black background at Apple.com. Surprising coming from a company known for elegant and user-friendly design.
Another thing for the list of horrors is blocks of text with scroll bars where there is no need for them, like in a page surrounded by empty space. It’s a bad use of CSS, and very irritating if you want to cut down on mouse use.
Thanks for a good post on a topic that can be constantly refreshed. As new technologies emerge, so will the misuses.
Jakob Nielsen comes up with many mistakes too.
But you have explained it with an easier way. I liked.
I tend to agree with Pablo, it’s not like we’re living in 1995. Of course beginners make these mistakes, but then again, they always will.
A common mistake on corporate websites is an overload of badly structured information, although it seems to lessen these days. A good example is the previous CNN.com design, it used to be cluttered with tons of links, the recent redesign is far more user friendly.