Many blog posts have been written about this problem, webmasters writing and designing in horrific ways. Yet many people, usually bloggers, do this mistake all the time. On some sites it’s so bad, their visitors starts fleeing before the entire page has loaded. Therefor I have decided to write about things you should avoid when creating your website.
Long sentences, bad grammar and typos
Ok im sorry i gotta say suck but ace doesnt have an army he keeps saying he does he just stinks i was on mammoth and ace was there so we were battling i was just bored so you know then the fgr leader came and helped out then tra ace ran away once then when he got back he didnt attack o and a whole bunch of random people were attacking us so thats all.
Sweet banana! When trying to read that text you meet some trouble. At first you’re struck by the incredible bad grammar and typos which make it hard to read. On top of that you have to struggle reading a 71 word long sentence. How can that guy talk so much without breathing. I left that site right away(after copying the text) and will never ever return.
This text was found on a blog on the Internet and is a typical example of what rubbish you can find.
Another annoying thing is when bloggers write in teen language with shorts for everything. Off course, seeing that type of text is usually an indication that it’s not worth reading.
Like myself, there are foreigners struggling with the English. As long as the text is readable I like many others can live with that. It’s the meaning that matters. You do however come across native English people from time to time that get bugged out by every grammar mistake you do.
Bright colored text
Bright text which is really hard to read and causes you massive headaches.
I know I can’t read text with that low contrast for very long without getting a headache. Maybe you can but shouldn’t a website be accessible for all people. I can understand if you feel a nice bright color is very neat and you think it’ll spice up your site. Consider to place that color on another place than as text color in the main content though.
How about a header in that color. It’ll be easier to read and better design.
Long posts, no subheadings
To increase the readability of your blog you should split your posts into pieces. Divide them into sections, each with it’s own subheader. That will make the posts more visual appealing and easier to read.
Also, for those users looking for something specific(probably finding your site after searching Google) they’ll find what they’re looking for quicker. Otherwise they will leave your site without finding what they were looking for and that is never good.
Lack of referring to other sites
Say that you write about something interesting like a football team or a city. If your lucky and a good writer, your visitor gets very interested in this topic and wants to know more about it after reading your post. But how will he find out more? He will probably look for links in your post to other articles and when he finds none he’ll get disappointed. That is not very good is it?
I think linking is very important and it always gives me some irritating feeling if there are no links. Should I need to go and search Google to find out more. NO! So please make life easier for me and everybody else. LINK!!!
No browser support
This is the most annoying thing you could ever do, making a website that doesn’t have support for the most common browsers. I get it if you don’t like IE 6 but there are still plenty of people using it.
Also, I get angry and disappointed when the webmasters require me to get Firefox “or this site wont work”.
Small text and narrow column for the main content
I believe many people leave websites today because of the small fonts used so much. The whole point of text is that it should be easy to read and when you barely can see it… that meaning goes away. Imagine what funny it would look like if everyone sat with a magnifying glass by their computer.
An increasing amount of blogs these days have a very narrow column for their main content. Possibly the reason is that “it looks a lot better” but I can’t say I agree with that. The text in it self is a part of the design and should be displayed as a major part on the site. After all, that is what makes it worth visiting.
Read More
Feel like investigating some further on this matter. There are lots of mistakes you can do and thousands of tips I would like to give you. Naturally I can’t post them all here so I’ve provided you with some great links.
- Twenty Usability Tips for Your Blog — Condensed from Dozens of Bloggers’ Experiences
- Things to avoid when creating a website
- Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes
- 10 Ways to Increase Blog Usability
Please tell me what bugs you the most when visiting a website by using the commenting feature below.
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24 responses so far ↓
1 Rachael // Nov 8, 2007 at 12:44 am
Lack of sub-headings is definitely on my pet-hate list… When I’m reading on the Internet, I scan read. I look for bits which are interesting and avoid long passages of text. That’s where the sub-headings help. I can easily see if the block of text that follows it is of interest to me. If it is, I’ll read it, and if it’s not, I can easily move on.
2 James // Nov 8, 2007 at 1:04 am
What about the sites that only allow you to view if you are running Internet Explorer?
3 Forrest // Nov 8, 2007 at 1:16 am
I have to agree on the headings … people read the internet differently than newspapers and books. We need to do all kinds of things to hold the viewer’s attention.
And I agree on bad writing, but that should be a given. Sad that it’s not.
4 Fergal // Nov 9, 2007 at 1:30 am
Are you serious???
Your grammar is atrocious (ant that’s being generous)!!!!
How can you possibly criticise someone else’s grammar?
5 Mark // Nov 9, 2007 at 10:02 am
@ Fergal - relax dude, at least Emil’s spelling is better than yours. I believe the word is “and”.
Good article.
6 Jessica // Nov 10, 2007 at 9:32 am
I break SO many of those rules all of the time. I’m a REBEL. Yesss. Just kidding. Those are good tips though, and I should make more of an effort to follow them.
7 Angel // Nov 14, 2007 at 4:00 pm
“I believe many people leave websites today because of the small fonts used so much. The whole point of text is that it should be easy to read and when you barely can see it… that meaning goes away.”
But your font size is small!
“Bright colored text”
But your hover color is almost unreadable!
“Long sentences, bad grammar and typos”
Yours too.
8 Dennis // Nov 14, 2007 at 5:43 pm
“I get it if you don’t like IE 6 but there ARE still plenty of people using it.”
haha
9 Justin // Nov 14, 2007 at 7:56 pm
Negative letter spacing on h2 tags bug me.
Anything over 3 words is hard to read.
10 links for 2007-11-14 — Marc Ashwell // Nov 14, 2007 at 11:24 pm
[…] Don’t do this on your website, it bugs me | Ejoh things you should avoid when creating your website (tags: blogging css design html usability webdesign) […]
11 The Peach // Nov 17, 2007 at 2:27 am
you forgot to mention when there’s no great difference between font-sizes of titles, menus, and content: this will make the visitor lose focus on what he was searching or browsing the site.
a bad made site structure (ie: an hard to understand categorization in the menu) together with no cross linking between sections can be make me hate the designer!
12 Kevin L. // Nov 20, 2007 at 10:18 pm
This is what you wrote: “If your lucky and a good writer, your visitor…”. That’s either bad grammar or a typo. In this case, I think it’s more likely bad grammar.
The correct sentence should be: “If you’re a good writer…”.
You also wrote: “At first you’re struck by the incredible bad grammar and typos which makes it hard to read”. Again, that’s incorrect grammar. Should have been “…which MAKE it hard to read”.
If you don’t know why that’s the case, you should relearn grammar before criticizing others. (OK , I am not entirely sure if ‘criticizing’ is the correct spelling. But if I’m not in such a rush, I would have double check it)
13 Kevin L. // Nov 20, 2007 at 10:24 pm
Me again. I found another mistake and based on what I see during the last 5 minutes, I don’t think it’s the last one either. You wrote: “I think linking is very important and it always give me some irritating feeling…”. The correct sentence should have been: “I think linking is very important and it always GIVES me some irritating feeling…”
Do you know why ?
14 Kevin L. // Nov 20, 2007 at 10:29 pm
Me again again. “This is the most annoying thing you could ever do. Making a website that doesn’t have support for the most common browsers.” should have been reworked into one sentence. The reason is because that second sentence “Making…common browsers” is not a complete sentence.
I just notice that you’re Swede, so I think your mistakes are mostly understandable.
15 Dave // Nov 20, 2007 at 11:21 pm
I’d love to read more, but man those links are so brightly colored - especially when I mouse over them.
Just an observation :).
16 gregf // Nov 20, 2007 at 11:30 pm
Well, your hover links are so bright if you mouse over you can no longer read them. Your site is also so narrow a few paragraphs have turned into pages. Go wide screen! Then maybe repost this after you fix your own issues.
17 Tb // Nov 21, 2007 at 12:12 am
First of all, most of the sites I’ve seen are IE only, and not only they do not say that, you just guess that from the way the site crashes when browsed with opera or firefox. And most of all, theese are very bad programmed sites, with lots of bugs who rely on non-standard Microsoft only programming quirks. This would not be a problem in a Microsoft only world, but, there are milions and milions of computer owners who use Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, *BSD, and don’t have IE installed and who do not want to use wine or vmware or whatever to run win so that the can access a simple website.
18 mccoyn // Nov 21, 2007 at 4:14 pm
What are the rules for plurality for adjective-noun combinations? As a native speaker I can usually spot mistakes by instinct, but I don’t know the rules and I can see why foreigners struggle with it.
“…reading a 71 words long sentence.”
Sentence is a singular noun with a adjective clause. Should the adjective clause be plural? Then, within the adjective clause there is another adjective-noun combination. 71 is a number, is it automatically plural? Does that mean that the noun “words” should be singular? My gut tells me that “words” should be singular, but please don’t ask me to show my work.
“…reading a 71 word long sentence.”
19 SCAWA // Nov 21, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Excellent article. The strange thing is these are all BGO’s (Blinding Glimpses of the Obvious). So many people overlook them.
In this day and age of IM and text messaging, people have forgotten the art of writing. William Faulkner may have gotten away with long sentences, but they usually don’t work. My wife is a university professor and I often get to read student papers. Their ability to write is abysmal and they expect A’s on those papers. However, by keeping a copy or two of the papers that we both wrote in college, it keeps those papers in perspective.
Perfect grammar is the ideal, but getting close is the actual target. I have read many articles in major newspapers (the Wall Street Journal and New York Times) whose grammar is imperfect. But one can prevent glaring errors through reading, practice, re-reading…. and re-writing. Don’t be adverse to editing what you have already written.
I also use Mac and Linux and love Firefox for most of my personal work, although I am required by certain clients to work in IE 6 and IE 7. Using browser neutral development and javascript frameworks like JQuery or Prototype to handle much of the browser javascript incompatibilities. So, writing code for multiple browsers with Web Standards is frustrating, it is not impossible.
Again, I do like your article.
20 Netvestor // Nov 28, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Adsense ads blocks bigger then posts in the blog is usually what gives worst first impression for me.
21 Kate // Dec 1, 2007 at 4:51 pm
I hate websites where the background is so bright and big and cluttered, I feel like I’m being yelled at. And as far as reading what’s on it, forget it.
22 Rebecca // Dec 19, 2007 at 3:39 am
Definitely horrible layout skills.
After that, if I even venture on to read the thing, poor grammar and spelling; just like your first example.
“Lyke omgZ todya i wnt shoping and got shoes and a bag and socs and perfum and stuff!”. /cringe
23 Andrew // Dec 29, 2007 at 9:10 pm
I completely agree with all of your points. Especially the “narrow column of tiny text” issue. I thought I was the only one who hated that! I’ve got a wide screen monitor and it just irritates me to no end that 80% is wasted and I’m scrolling like a mad man to read 2 paragraphs of text! Of course the flip side of that coin is the site that forces you to scroll horizontally! Egad!
24 LindsWorld // Jan 29, 2008 at 4:19 am
Nice and direct to the point! Thanks for reminding us.
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