Web annoyances

3 Comments / rant

This should probably be a part one of five hundred, but I need to vent about these three.

  • Having to create an account/personal profile to purchase a product. While printing out my salsa recipe for this week’s cooking festivities, I saw a google ad for a company selling chipotles. How serindipitous — I just ran out! I clicked through and was going to buy a batch for an upcoming fiesta. However, the company insisted I create a profile before I could buy their product. Hey, Marketers, this is fomplicated.
    I want to buy chipotles, not apply for a mortgage.

    I wouldn’t be so annoyed at having to create a userid, except they enforce their DBA’s concept of what’s an appropriate login name and password. For example, my login choices of root and Administrator were already taken. smartass was available, but my password, do_you_want_to_sell_me_the_chipotles_or_not was rejected as being too long. What’s up with that?


  • Macromedia Flash. A lot of corporate sites are still embracing the Creating Killer Websites “front door” concept. Hint: “Killer” means “something that kills,” not “rad d00dZ!11!!”
    The problems?

    1. I have to download an additional plugin. This interrupts my browsing session and spams my desktop with upsell icons from the plugin manufacturer.
    2. The poodles-dancing-on-the-ceiling animation usually lacks any useful information. It’s either written in Marketese or its content is focused on “corporate identity.” Nobody cares about your corporate identity except you.
    3. About 25% of the time, the designer was so awed by their creation, they forgot the “skip the corporate identity spiel” link.

  • Java applets — When I visit a new website and hear that distinctive disk grinding, it can mean only one thing: the… Java… just … in … time… compiler… is … (groan) … load … in … g. Why is this a good user experience?

    And you know what? It’s usually a disappointing and fluffy item like a blinking clock. Okay, we have our own issues with the time continuum here as the minutes features of my watch, computer clock, and oven timer all disagree. But I wonder why people feel compelled to tell me what time their server thinks it is. Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care? (“As I was walking down the street one day….”)