Lets face it, there's a lot of ugly websites out there. The Oatmeal published one of my favorite articles about the life of a web designer which can be found here: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell. There is a fine balance between doing what you know is best as a professional web designer and doing what your client wants in order to please them.
Most of the time you can come to a happy medium, but sometimes you just have to give in and do what the client's wallet wants or risk not getting paid for your work. I definitely have several websites I have completed that I feel are not worthy of my portfolio because my client butchered a really good design with crazy web crap. So here's a fun little list of the top 10 things I HATE to put in a website.
1. Animated Gifs. These were cool in 1992 on a personal geocities website... not in 2010 on a professionally designed business website. I would rather fire myself from a job than have 60 dancing bananas all over a website I designed.
... kill me now...
2. Scrolling marquee text. People hate to read, so why would you want to force them to read MOVING TEXT!! So counterproductive....
Websites by Kristen does not condone the use of scrolling marquee's. Make it stop!!!!
3. Large font size... I'm sorry, but most people can read 12-14 point font. Just because you are blind and can't read your own website doesn't mean the rest of the world can't. That's why they make accessibility tools in your browser.
Your body text font should not be this big! If you think it should, get some glasses!
4. Blinking text... it reminds me of a 1982 car commercial. Just don't do it.
Blinky blinky blinky!!
5. Scrolling iFrames... With the advent of CSS, these should have died long ago.
6. HTML table borders... once again CSS people, CSS.
| I | Am |
| Really | Ugly |
7. Animated backgrounds... No. Just no.
8. Mouse trails. If you're not annoyed with this by now...
9. Visible hit counters. You can make them invisible now... so why not do so!
10. BACKGROUND MUSIC! Not everyone likes your taste in music, and even if they do, they don't want to be forced to listen to it while viewing your website. I hope the horrible MIDI song playing will force you to agree.
width="2" height="0">
By now, I hope you have seen the light and will not force your web designer to implement any of these "features". Why use a betamax when there's blue ray?
Hi,
Initially, I was intrigued with your business name cause my wife is Kirsten-ok..slightly different, but just the same..and she was a reseller of sites for a short time.
Then I saw this and couldn’t agree more with your assessment.
Best,
Craig
Love the post.
Lol genius
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