Top errors in building a website
 

I just wanted to see drives people away from websites.
1)Long Download Times: Flash and java create havoc for those who have slow computers.
2)Lack of navigation:You can't find the link back to the home page. It is like hacking through a jungle of information.
3)Poor color schemes:You can't even read what is being said.
4)Lack of cross-browser compatibility: Using all the special features that only works in Internet Explorer.
5)Poor Grammar:Using Haxor language or just not proofreading the website.
6)Frames
7)Other:This is all I can think of at this moment. Please post if you can come up with some more examples.

Re: Top errors in building a website
 

1. Flash = Root of all evil, my web design professor refuses to download a flash viewer on his computer and won't grade any projects that use any flash at all..its so evil if used for more then just a banner or something.
2. A lot of people don't check their links and they are dead because they forgot a letter.
3. I hate these extremely bright backgrounds on light text....so annoying..
4. Again, while I use IE mostly, I occasionally run into a problem like that with mozilla or opera..
5. I'm terrible when it comes to grammar, but on a professional website, come on...you have to do better then that.
6. Frames are evil.
7. Pop-ups and spyware! I hate having to run adaware because when I visit some music lyrics website, they have to be funny and install some stupid spyware and add 50 billion popup windows. So annoying!

Re: Top errors in building a website
 

8) Poor formatting: When you can obviously see that either a) the webmaster doesn't have much experience in laying things out aesthetically; or b) the formatting code itself doesn't work and everything looks screwed up

9) BROKEN LINKS!

10) BROKEN IMAGES!

11) Bad thumbnailing; i.e. they just use HTML to resize the image so you're still loading a page of two dozen 400kb jpegs.

Re: Top errors in building a website
 

Lack of content- You can build an amazing site but unless there is something there I want to look at I'll only be there once.

Re: Top errors in building a website
 

Too much reliance on flash that serves no other purpose than to dazzle.
Bad spelling and poor grammar.
Lack of information.
Numerous dead links.
Lack of updates.
That's what bad websites are made of.

Re: Top errors in building a website
 

Some other things I hate:

1) Guesswork navigation. I don't want to have to mouse over arbitraty symbols to see where each button goes. The home button should say "Home," the photos button should say "Photos", etc.

2) Improper use of backgrounds. A background image on a website is a dangerous tool. Some repeating tiled backgrounds can be effective, but most of the time I just see a large photo that repeats over and over, which can be annoying. If you must use a large picture, try the CSS no-repeat tag, and use photoshop to tone down the contrast.

3) Background music. Need I say more? I often browse the web while watching TV in another window, and there is nothing I hate more than my web browser drowning out my TV. If you must have music, have it off by default and use a link to turn it on.

4) Flashy animated GIFs. The only thing worse than Flash. One or two for dramatic purposes it fine, but I don't want to see this.

5) Bad Mouseovers. If you have a mouseover on your site, make sure that a) the image and the mouseover image are the same size, so the rest of your site doesn't all shift around when I mouseover, and b) you preload mouseover images, so I don't get red sqaures or a blank image when I mouseover.

6) Page Transistions. Yes, I know I can turn them off, but for those who don't, it's just a waste of time. (oh, and I am equally opposed to transitions in Powerpoint, but that is another rant).

Re: Top errors in building a website
 

we are a rookie team and i made our first website this year. i was thinking maybe some of you guys can take a look and tell me whats wrong or what needs work, etc. were at http://www.pyrobots.com

Re: Top errors in building a website
 

Ok as someone above posted you have to thumbnail your images better--right now everyone has to d/l the entire 1600x1200 image just for the thumbnail (I can see it loading line by line on firefox right now). You need to actually create a smaller image for posting on that page.

Re: Top errors in building a website
 

I will never visit a website a second time if it somehow manages to incorporate into it an intro page made with a 1mb Flash movie that has a lack of color coordination, poor grammar, frames that don't look right in Firefox or Safari, and lacks a link to "Skip this intro."

:)

Re: Top errors in building a website
 

Hehe that reminds me of the simpsons episode where Homer makes an episode with all those animated pictures.Here is a question since I don't have access to a Mac computer. Would making sure the website works in Mozilla be enough to make sure it works in Firefox and Safari? Also, which do people prefer more. A vertical navagation bar or a horizontal navagation bar.

Re: Top errors in building a website
 

I voted for:

• Lack of Navigation - I don't like moving around websites that involve hitting the "Back" button a lot.
• Lack of Cross Browser Compatibility - I use Mozilla whenever I'm using the Web at home (although school computers use IE), and it's nice to be able to see the pages in the same way that anyone else will.
• Poor Grammar - If you can't take the time to spell-check and grammar-check something before you post it on your website, I doubt you've taken the time to make a decent site. I understand for forums when you are posting quickly, but you should take a bit of time to make your website grammatically correct.

Re: Top errors in building a website
 

It's not definite - what will make it standardized is if you validate your website html, css, etc. with www.w3c.org It'll automatically check your syntax.

Re: Top errors in building a website
 

Yeah I know that. Im saying that the differnce between what Internet Explorer and Mozilla displays is a little noticable. Its the way they are programmed to display the CSS and HTML with Mozilla being the closest to the standard. I also read that Netscape has a nasty bug that when the window resizes the CSS formating dissapears. Is that still the case?

Re: Top errors in building a website
 

I HATE frames. Well, the "old-school" frames that have scrollbars and everything in them. If you can't tell at first glance that they're frames, then they might be ok.

Poor color schemes may sound like a trivial criticism, but I think it really makes the difference between professional and unprofessional. Like when you see personal webpages that have like, black backgrounds and bright green fonts. Granted, I use that color scheme on AIM =), but that's not my webpage. Also things like really silly looking background files bug me.

Poor grammar turns you off of anything, not just websites.

I personally prefer vertical. I don't know what "people" prefer, but that's what I prefer.

The only "real" problem I have with your site is the image of your name at the top of the page. The font is ok, but the image itself is hard to make out.

Other than that, what I have to say next may just be personal preference, so don't take it too seriously, except as the opinion of just one user of the site. I personally don't like the way you used so many frames. They're set up very nicely but I think it's just a bit too much to have them on the top and on both sides. I also think things like the calendar belong in the sidebars and not on the main body of the page. This may be my personal preference, so you'll want to ask other people what they think about it.

In terms of coding, I definitely have to congratulate you. It's very well done, very professional looking. I really like the look, I just don't really like the set up. (I hope that made sense, because I don't really know how else to explain it.) Off-topic question: in your member list, what's the difference between a "team" member and a "club" member?

Re: Top errors in building a website
 

You forgot the most annoying: blink tags.

Re: Top errors in building a website
 

we kept the numbers down for the team, so we also have a robotics club who do work with legos etc thanks for your critique!

Re: Top errors in building a website
 

I like it. I especially like the light silver background. I hate sites that have busy backgrounds. (Dark is usually bad too.)

I also hate sites that require, say, IE. (like the MS site) I use Firefox for all my home computers and I like it much better that IE. And to answer an earlier question, I think that if a site is Mozilla compatible, it's pretty much Firefox compatible. (pretty much meaning Firefox isn't yet at the 1.0 release. :))

Re: Top errors in building a website
 

I really hate webpages with bad color schemes and grammar put together. Those two together make me question why I am wasting my time at the site in the first place.

I really like frames, because they are the right way to layout webpages. No fancy-schmancy CSS here. All frames. Frames were meant for layout, tables for data, and CSS is my archenemy.

But thats just me - and I don't design webpages.

Very good job to you guys at Pyrobots. I really like the color scheme, and the site looks very professional. I also like the calendar a lot. The site renders very well in Mozilla Firefox and MSIE. And whoever laid out the site deserves a cookie.

My only complaint? The FIRST logo in the corner. I don't like the way it looks jagged. Maybe a little Antialiasing on it might help.

Re: Top errors in building a website
 

This is not really html design, but for people who use php and perl, i see so many websites that wont run properly because the person who wrote them either didnt check they ran properly or didnt check enough for all conditions.

On the other topics, I dont like frames and defnitely agree that bad color schemes are extremely annoying.

Re: Top errors in building a website
 

FOFMGOFMGOFM NO!!!!!!!11111

I just realized... by combining some of our most major pet peeves with websites, the most AWESOME and AMAZING site can be made! Don't diss my friend's site... it's the funniest thing since... well... since Don't Do What Seanny Don't Does...

http://www.geocities.com/cloudweapon/

IT PWNZ!!!!!!!!111111222@

This is liek... one of my favouratist sites EVER

Re: Top errors in building a website
 

...Whoa, and we all thought those Japanese cartoons were bad with the whole "inducing-seizures" deal.

Re: Top errors in building a website
 

Although admittedly headache-inducing, that website is fully compatible with Mozilla.... :p

Re: Top errors in building a website
 

Why do you hate css. You can do things with CSS that you can not do with html and it is pretty simple to learn.

Re: Top errors in building a website
 

I need to point out the fact that CSS is god. If you ever try doing something like

your text input will turn out imprecise. I've had experience where one input on top of another (one for username and another for password) varied in length by about two pixels, which was extraordinarily annoying. Only with a CSS addition, changing the code to

could I achieve both text inputs to be of equal length. Essentially, HTML is the building block and CSS adds precision. And sure, you can write a beautiful website with no CSS at all, but CSS adds managability with classes and ids. If you ever undergo major site operations and want to change fonts or font colors (possibly because you've been told you have a bad color scheme :eek: ), simply modify your master CSS classes and you're set--contrary to using font tags in every page of your site and having to CTRL+H your way through every page you maintain. CSS is built to be powerful, flexible, efficient, and ... godlike. :rolleyes:

Another example: I really hate is HTML's superscript. Whenever writing the "SM" in FIRST, or any superscript for that matter, HTML has the very annoying habit of messing up your vertical line spacing. I almost completely avoided using superscripts altogether until I did a bit of CSS experimentation. The result was that I now use the following as superscipts for my code, of which my "home-made" CSS superscripts do not interfere with line spacing:

Now granted  is a heck of a lot simpler, but I did say that CSS is the god of precision. CSS extends way beyond my simple examples here--CSS helps with padding, spacing, table borders, text manipulation, image manipulation... it goes a lot farther than it may deceivingly appear. As for an opinion on CSS, I'm completely all for it.

As for elements of bad websites, bad color schemes give away immaturity in web development. Also, I agree that slews of animated GIFS tend to get very annoying. I completely detest frames, especially if they have scrollbars. A lot of the time you can just look at a site and tell the skill level of the person who made it (or look in the source and find FrontPage META tags... hmm... tsk tsk :) ). A website really looks professional when the site executes consistent color schemes, fonts, and template usage. And whoever mentioned getting rid of background music on sites, I FULLY AGREE! I hate when sites interrupt my crankin' SRV. :D

And as for you Adam Y., I can't believe you're still on ChiefDelphi even AFTER the build season. ;)

Re: Top errors in building a website
 

Wrong font sizes, and bad color scheme => Worst SITE EVER!

Re: Top errors in building a website
 

Grammer does annoy me, but what really makes me frustrated is the lack of navigation. Somtimes I feel like I have to hack into the next page because of bad and/or non-existant links. Long and unessisary video intros are also upsetting, at leat for me, with a 56k. I can't belive that somtimes I have to wait half an hour just to get to the homepage.

Re: Top errors in building a website
 

Shouldn't you have left the page long before you waited half an hour :p?

(At least I have Cable...)