Yes, yes all this talk about Web 2.0 is fine. But what about all the differences you see on the web because of it. Does anybody remember what the web looked like in 1999 when IE 5 was all the rage and it came bundled up with Windows 98 SE.
Apart from the most obvious things like better design, usability along with standards there are 7 things about the way a website just looks and feels different now because of most of the below annoyances that have been phased out by better designers. Here's the breakdown -
Best Viewed In - Remember that phrase, you would see it everywhere! This site is "Best viewed in IE 5.5 or Netscape 6" coupled with the screen resolution also being stated. This warning was enough for me to just leave the site and never never return. The only sites that still use that wording are the ones that haven't updated their sites in years, or still employ the same people who run Win 98 SE on their computers. Hello! People it's 2007...see we have this thing called Firefox, you can even see it from the sky. In fact here is a community message from Pizza Hut. { Update: This link doesn't work anymore, please read this article to find out more }
Get Flash Player - I'm so glad that Web 2.0 sites don't have splash pages that say please download AJAX and CSS before proceeding to view our site. That would be a sweet parody though for whoever has time to kill.
But yeah, Web 2.0 has done away with giving you instructions on how to download it due to the fact that everybody put those get flash player badges on their sites, so we don't need to see it anymore. 98% of the internet population has flash installed.
Tables - With the advent of CSS the web just got more cleaner. There are still some people who refuse to give up using tables to design a web layout, and then there are those that you are just left asking yourself - Why? Pixel perfect positioning with a lightweight web page are just some of the benefits of using CSS to build your websites.
Click here to Enter/Launch - The dreaded splash page that had all the first two requirements was not bad enough - they had to add another click to the experience. One click too many for me. When people visit your site they want to see, read and experience not told to do a bunch of things before they can view your site.
That's like going to a restaurant and the chef tells you to cut the potatoes so he can fry them and then serve it to you. A great many sites still do practice this evil and they are mostly in the shopping, fashion segment.
The only good thing about a splash page, in the example of fashion, is the language redirection of the visitor.
Flash Intros - Oy! Yay! Yay! I'll admit I'm guilty of this too. Making those swishy swashy flash intros to please clients of some zippipty chappada pad pa in their sites was a requirement. I have only one company/man to solely blame for this trend. Eric Jordan of 2Advanced.com which brings me to the next one...
Loading please wait...Sigh! Flash you seem to dominate this post. Waiting forever on those 56K modems a couple of years ago was AGONY! Not only that but then sometimes the designer would get creative and break the flash apart and give the files various loading sequences and name them like so - getting navigation...navigation done...getting sound...sound done...finalizing layout...layout created...oh shut the heck up! Exit...
Resizing Browsers - Imagine if you went to digg and they would automatically resize your browser and then you jumped over to delicious and they would do the same, then CNN and so on and on. The chances of you ever visiting those sites again would drop to 0 in a heartbeat.
I could go on and on about more stuff but I want to encourage you to comment and tell me the stuff that I have missed or didn't think about.
Update: Some additions based on user's comments of stuff we don't see anymore on websites today -
- animated 3D gif's { flames also highly missed...or not }
- blinking text
- Frames
- Marquee's
- Hit Counters
- Please sign my guestbook
- and many more left on the comments over at digg.
Please also read 10 Elements of Web Design Today.
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Hi My Name Is ivaxnp.
Very interesting read. Yeah the 56k days were hell. Back then it was all about who had the coolest loading screens for their flash sites.
Hahaha, this is awesome! I remember those “Sign my Guestbook” pages. Great post.
Test myfunction comment
Quite poor.
As compared to what???! Stop spamming my blog with your web design links.
I’m not a spam. I’m just telling my point of view.
“You are attempting to steal copyrighted material! Right Click is disabled on this site.”
…actually I was trying to right click.
This is very interesting. As per my experience most of the site we have provided content too are working on Php that is most of them are dynamic content. The plain Html pages are just gone….
Hello
Very interesting information! Thanks!
Bye
“Animated 3D gif’s” man they have been some shocking examples of these in the past.
Web 2.0 is better than Web 1.0. It contains more useful services and less trash.
Actually, thanks to firefox, the browser wars are back in business. there’s way too many website that display a best viewed fro firefox or deisgned for firefox, other more or less subtle ways (http://www.explorerdestroyer.com/) to push firefox and prevent other browsers to actually use the website.
When I encounter a site that tells me to switch to firefox instead of IE to browser their site while I’m actually using opera, is a real pain in the ass.
The 3d Spinning ‘@’ sign is a personal favourite of mine! I think its a good job all of the above has gone out of the window because they probably rank pretty highly in the ‘Webs most annoying list’. Do you think web trends will come back around like fashion does & in 10 years time every1 will be sporting 3d spinners again lol!
Nice list.
@Bensky: In 10 years you’ll wear 3D-glasses and the spinning ‘@’ is coming out an inch of your screen.
But if you are annoyed, you can reach for it with your hand and toss it into your real/virtual dustbin which is located under your real desk.
If you like the spinning ‘@’ you have your hand and in doing so you switch to your own webbpage and then locate the @ wherever you want
Ha we all laughed at this …although secretly we miss gifs, although they’re making a comeback!
Great blog, being web designers in leeds this made us smile. Thanks TB Team
Don’t you just hate the world “buffering” 10% ….29%…32%
Dear god the days of 56k were painful…I hope we get even faster internet sooner its still not fast enough by any means.
Back in the day, Flash intros were like iPhones…..everyone wanted one. We were the ones to come to for a Flash intro. Not ashamed
Single column, text aligned center, various neon fonts on a very dark background… sounds familiar?
And yeah! over used of javascript as glitters on mouse trailers status animation etc. etc….
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