2007: War on Bad Websites
Everyone's got a "War on" phrase, so I decided to have one as well.
I made a late new year's resolution. This is the year I order people to fix their crappy broken websites. Here's my first draft at the "traffic ticket" style feedback for crappy websites. I am no longer just "putting up" with dumb design decisions.
I am contemplating a t-shirt for this as well.
Your website has been cited for usability problems. Your violations are checked below. Please correct these problems. You may have had good intentions in your design decisions, but they are just making visitors confused and mad.
FORMS
( ) Lists countries (usually starting with Albania) or states in a popup menu.
( ) Asks for irrelevant information, such as a County or Salutation.
( ) Incorrect use of "Confirm" textbox where text is not masked and defined.
( ) Does not state data requirements for form fields (such as password requirements)
( ) Entirely too picky about format of data entered in forms.
( ) Erases entered information if you submit a form incorrectly.
( ) Has an easily missed "Accept terms" checkbox on a form.
( ) Requests credit card information with month names instead of digits and/or uses a popup menu instead of textbox.
( ) Fails to send copy of correspondence to sender from Contact form.
( ) Form erroneously assumes pressing the enter key is equivalent of the submit button.
( ) Misuse of checkboxes and/or radio buttons.
( ) Inappropriately sized listboxes or text boxes.
( ) Popup menus with entirely too many items in them.
( ) Form responses too restrictive -- doesn't allow correct answer or "Other".
( ) Forms remove linewraps in text boxes.
( ) Contact Us form has a character limit.
( ) Does not validate data early to prevent wasting time entering more data.
( ) Uses a popup "Go" menu where selecting from menu clicks "Go" button.
SITE NAVIGATION
( ) Takes too long to load.
( ) Has links to a page on that same page.
( ) Improper use of frames.
( ) Contact information is non-existent or hard to find.
( ) Has advertising in inappropriate places, such as tech support.
( ) Employs unwieldy or unbelievably long URLs that cannot be easily emailed.
( ) Link Rot: bookmarks to pages on your site keep changing.
( ) So ugly as to induce epileptic seizure.
( ) Links go to the wrong location. Clarification:
( ) No search function, search results so noisy as to be useless, or relies on Google for site searches.
( ) Product information is too hard to find due to marketing B/S.
( ) Text on site is illegible.
( ) Pages do not wrap correctly.
( ) Forces user to paginate with "Next" and "Previous" links rather than scrolling up and down.
( ) Has distracting and unstoppable animation making pages hard to read.
( ) Uses a proprietary control such as scrollbars that do not work correctly.
( ) "Photo enlargement" doesn't actually enlarge anything.
( ) Worthless page titles or unbookmarkable page titles.
( ) Products are sorted in illogical manner.
( ) Used images where text is more appropriate.
( ) Does not list product price where it should be listed.
( ) Buggy scripts
( ) Most important information buried at bottom of scrolled pages.
( ) Navigation of web site mirrors organizational structure.
POINTLESS GADGETRY
( ) Uses non-standing links or colors for links or does not differentiate visited links.
( ) Prevents the visitor from bookmarking pages.
( ) Has a "Flash intro"
( ) Requires Flash to use even the most basic functions of site.
( ) Requires Flash where another technology would be much better.
( ) Use of PDF files when normal web pages would be better.
( ) Uses video when text and pictures should be used.
( ) Requires proprietary plugin for important site function.
( ) Illegible CAPTCHA
GENERAL RUDENESS
( ) Breaks basic browser functionality such as the back button, autofill, right-clicking, searching within a page, or copy/paste.
( ) Requires users to create an account unnecessarily.
( ) Opts-in the user for email newsletters.
( ) Uses a form for "contact us", instead of a real email address.
( ) Requires information in the "Contact Us" section that is irrelevant (e.g., requiring postal address for website problem)
( ) Pops up a "rate this site" windows after checkout.
( ) Jargon or other aspects of your process or intranet are leaking to your public web presence.
( ) Mysteriously and/or needlessly logs the user out.
( ) Needlessly opens new browser windows.
( ) Does not display order total before confirming purchase.
( ) Resizes browser windows.
( ) Needlessly asks for country before entering site.
( ) Places information in Microsoft Word documents when web page would be better.
Also, your site has forced the creation of several new offenses:
I made a late new year's resolution. This is the year I order people to fix their crappy broken websites. Here's my first draft at the "traffic ticket" style feedback for crappy websites. I am no longer just "putting up" with dumb design decisions.
I am contemplating a t-shirt for this as well.
SITE-ATION
Your website has been cited for usability problems. Your violations are checked below. Please correct these problems. You may have had good intentions in your design decisions, but they are just making visitors confused and mad.
FORMS
( ) Lists countries (usually starting with Albania) or states in a popup menu.
( ) Asks for irrelevant information, such as a County or Salutation.
( ) Incorrect use of "Confirm" textbox where text is not masked and defined.
( ) Does not state data requirements for form fields (such as password requirements)
( ) Entirely too picky about format of data entered in forms.
( ) Erases entered information if you submit a form incorrectly.
( ) Has an easily missed "Accept terms" checkbox on a form.
( ) Requests credit card information with month names instead of digits and/or uses a popup menu instead of textbox.
( ) Fails to send copy of correspondence to sender from Contact form.
( ) Form erroneously assumes pressing the enter key is equivalent of the submit button.
( ) Misuse of checkboxes and/or radio buttons.
( ) Inappropriately sized listboxes or text boxes.
( ) Popup menus with entirely too many items in them.
( ) Form responses too restrictive -- doesn't allow correct answer or "Other".
( ) Forms remove linewraps in text boxes.
( ) Contact Us form has a character limit.
( ) Does not validate data early to prevent wasting time entering more data.
( ) Uses a popup "Go" menu where selecting from menu clicks "Go" button.
SITE NAVIGATION
( ) Takes too long to load.
( ) Has links to a page on that same page.
( ) Improper use of frames.
( ) Contact information is non-existent or hard to find.
( ) Has advertising in inappropriate places, such as tech support.
( ) Employs unwieldy or unbelievably long URLs that cannot be easily emailed.
( ) Link Rot: bookmarks to pages on your site keep changing.
( ) So ugly as to induce epileptic seizure.
( ) Links go to the wrong location. Clarification:
( ) No search function, search results so noisy as to be useless, or relies on Google for site searches.
( ) Product information is too hard to find due to marketing B/S.
( ) Text on site is illegible.
( ) Pages do not wrap correctly.
( ) Forces user to paginate with "Next" and "Previous" links rather than scrolling up and down.
( ) Has distracting and unstoppable animation making pages hard to read.
( ) Uses a proprietary control such as scrollbars that do not work correctly.
( ) "Photo enlargement" doesn't actually enlarge anything.
( ) Worthless page titles or unbookmarkable page titles.
( ) Products are sorted in illogical manner.
( ) Used images where text is more appropriate.
( ) Does not list product price where it should be listed.
( ) Buggy scripts
( ) Most important information buried at bottom of scrolled pages.
( ) Navigation of web site mirrors organizational structure.
POINTLESS GADGETRY
( ) Uses non-standing links or colors for links or does not differentiate visited links.
( ) Prevents the visitor from bookmarking pages.
( ) Has a "Flash intro"
( ) Requires Flash to use even the most basic functions of site.
( ) Requires Flash where another technology would be much better.
( ) Use of PDF files when normal web pages would be better.
( ) Uses video when text and pictures should be used.
( ) Requires proprietary plugin for important site function.
( ) Illegible CAPTCHA
GENERAL RUDENESS
( ) Breaks basic browser functionality such as the back button, autofill, right-clicking, searching within a page, or copy/paste.
( ) Requires users to create an account unnecessarily.
( ) Opts-in the user for email newsletters.
( ) Uses a form for "contact us", instead of a real email address.
( ) Requires information in the "Contact Us" section that is irrelevant (e.g., requiring postal address for website problem)
( ) Pops up a "rate this site" windows after checkout.
( ) Jargon or other aspects of your process or intranet are leaking to your public web presence.
( ) Mysteriously and/or needlessly logs the user out.
( ) Needlessly opens new browser windows.
( ) Does not display order total before confirming purchase.
( ) Resizes browser windows.
( ) Needlessly asks for country before entering site.
( ) Places information in Microsoft Word documents when web page would be better.
Also, your site has forced the creation of several new offenses:
posted by Rob at 11:37 AM
1 Comments:
So we need a list of penalties as well, for example a webmaster who's site has a required country pop-up starting with "Afghanistan" or "Angola" has to actually move to one of those countries for a year, and so on.
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