Unusable Web Pages
October 20, 2009
I noticed a growing annoyance—maybe problem is a better word—with public facing Web pages. Let me do a quick run down of what I noted.
Too Much Code
The assumption that a person visiting a Web site has a broadband connection that is fast and without latency is a bad assumption. I experienced severe latency using Internet connections in hotels, at a conference, and in a public Internet café in Paris. Pages would not render. I looked at several search vendors’ Web sites and was unable to access the splash pages. I am not sure what the firms’ Web team are trying to accomplish. One result was that I could not answer a client’s questions about a service, so I just deleted these companies from the procurement list for the job I was doing. These vendors were not pushing crazy animations. The sites were trying to make the sites more “useful” I suppose with too much JavaScript or lousy programming. I want to mention these vendors but my attorney is a spoil sport.
Pop Ups
A number of Web sites such as those from the publishers of Network World and Computer World use full page ads that display before a story appears. These are delightful when I have a high speed connection. These are less delightful when I have to use a sluggish Internet connection or a connection with latency issues. The pop up may or may not go away. After accessing the story, hitting the Back arrow often presents a blank page. In one instance, the blank page would not go away. My solution was to avoid reading the stories from this publisher. A related issue surfaces on some tech news sites where underlined words, hot links in videos, and dense type of other nifty articles from a publisher are presented on a Web page. I use a Toshiba netbook, and I simply cannot cope with the presentation and the pop ups that take three to 10 seconds to go away. Once again my solution is to * not * read articles from these publishers.
Hard to Spot Ads
I have to tell you that I get pretty angry when a story is not a story. Ads are inserted in content flows and poorly marked. Maybe a person with perfect vision can see the tiny notices, but at my age, I can’t deal with these. In one instance my normal habit is to click on the top five or six links regardless of topic. I scan the item and then move on. A recent change on Digg.com embeds a sponsored link in a content flow. Here’s a screenshot with the paid listing marked. I added the yellow highlight so this would stand out.
My fix has been to stop using Digg.com.
Autorunning Videos
I also avoid any Web site that autoplays a video. I don’t have much of a speaker in my Toshiba so noise is not the problem. The issue arises from the sluggish performance I have experience.
Search vendors and sites running content related to search may want to think about the implications of annoying users. I am content to fly alone, but real customers and prospects may decide to join my flock. The cute and bloated, therefore, produce the opposite of what the companies want to achieve. When the videos require that I download or update special programs, I get really testy. I can’t mention a certain large software company that wants to displace Adobe Flash, which I also dislike because of its really wonderful “Flash cookies”. Grrr.
Stephen Arnold, October 20, 2009
Dear US government, no one paid me to write this article. My dog did lick me when I was inserting the screenshot so that may count as compensation in some instances.
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