Web is a constantly changing medium, so does web design. Designers like to experiment from time to time. Some of the results may be attractive, but do they really add to the overall value of a design, or are they there just to decrease usability? I believe the latter is true for the following five design decisions.
- Automatically Maximized Windows:
Some web sites particularly the ones designed with Flash, have a habit of maximizing the browser window without bothering to ask first. Some even disable the browser menu bar and other Windows controls including the task bar, so the only thing you would see on your screen is the fabulous Flash web design. No, thanks.If you want to exit from a web site using automatically maximized windows, you usually have only one option: the infamous Alt+F4. But how many new PC users really know that? Even if you are an experienced user, it may get really annoying if you prefer to surf the web with a regular-size browser window. Every time a web site maximizes the browser window, you have to return it to its original size by hand. It is even more annoying for web designers like me who are using a standard 800 x something (e.g. 800 x 1000 pixels) window to see how others’ and their own web designs look like in the most widely used screen resolution.
- Pixel Fonts:
Pixel fonts have quickly become popular because the Flash player cannot render small types right. It almost always anti-aliases text regardless of type size, therefore in small type sizes text becomes fuzzy and hardly readable. The solution is using specially designed pixel fonts that do not require anti-aliasing as the standard TrueType fonts. Pixel fonts, despite the name, are not bitmap fonts like FixedSys (Windows) or Chicago (Mac); they are technically TrueType fonts. But since they were designed to be used only in small type sizes such as 8, 9 or 10 points, the designers of pixel fonts avoid using curves, and rely on rectangular blocks.
Until this point, everything sounds fine. Designers are happy because not only their fonts look crisp in Flash, but their designs have that neat robotic style which became synonymous with 80’s video games. On the other hand, if you ever tried to read a few lines of text rendered with a 8-point pixel font, you would have already realized that the text is very hard, if not impossible, to read. If the use of illegible pixel fonts only applied to Flash designs, one might ignore the problem to some extent, but they are now started to be used in HTML designs as well. - Scroll Arrows:
Who needs old school scroll bars when there are neat arrow controls that allow visitors to scroll only an area of the page rather than the whole browser window? Unfortunately scroll arrows have serious inherent problems. Because scroll arrows are not standard, first you must be aware of their existence on the page you are viewing. Some designers do a really god job to hide them. You may easily click on a ‘more familiar looking’ link rather than try to figure out why that piece of text looks unfinished. Once you successfully located the arrows, the next thing you would do is of course to try to use them. But you would quickly realize that you are not in control, you are the one who is controlled: You have to hold the mouse cursor over an arrow in order to scroll the text in the direction of the arrow. Because scrolling speeds generally range from slow to very slow, if the text you are scrolling is long, you may wait and wait and wait (you get the point) until you reach the part you want. Oh, there is no bar either. You simply cannot drag the bar to the desired position, nor can you use keyboard shortcuts such as Home and End. - Fixed Window Sizes:
Some web sites open a new window with no browser or window controls at all. Anyone remembers the early multimedia applications that run in a 640×480 window regardless of the resolution you are using? Web designs that rely on fixed windows are the reincarnation of those old applications. At a typical web site using a fixed-size window, you are not allowed to resize the window according your preferences, generally forced to click on Next buttons, or use scroll arrows (see above). - Sound Loops:
There are some web designers out there who think that their Flash designs become even more cool after they added a 3-second techno sound loop. It may get really annoying to stay on guard in order to lower the volume fast every time you visit a new site. Yes, there are usually sound off buttons, but for some reason many do not appear instantly, and even if you turn the sound off, some Flash designers like to keep those short menu sounds always on. You know… blip, ding, boing, etc. After moving the mouse cursor over a dozen menu items a couple of times, that behavior becomes really annoying as well.
First appeared at Wow Web Designs
Aycan Gulez is the editor-in-chief of Wow Web Designs
(http://www.wowwebdesigns.com), a web site that showcases some of the best
web designs of the world. Gulez is also the author of WowBB
(http://www.wowbb.com), a state-of-the-art bulletin board that offers
innovative features such as auto install/upgrade, a WYSIWYG editor with
integrated spell-checker, auto time zone detection, topic-level new post
tracking, smart caching, and native file format support for popular bulletin
boards
