
Top Web Design Mistakes of 1999 - benackles
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/the-top-ten-web-design-mistakes-of-1999/
======
dredmorbius
I've said it before, I'll say it again: it's time to divorce the present
browser into several different regimes:

• A reading app. Styled on ePub readers, services such as Readability /
Instapaper / Pocket, or bibliographic tools (which serve to manage content for
searchability client-side). Inclusive of forums-oriented software and feed-
reading.

• An applications platform. Preferably with a consistent set of widgets (one
of the key failures of present Web design).

• An e-commerce platform, with payment and security features integrated.

• Free-standing media playback tools (already substantively extant).

[http://redd.it/256lxu](http://redd.it/256lxu)

Web design is not the solution. Web design is the problem.

If I could have a tool to 1) remove all styling from a site, 2) reduce it to
fundamental semantic markup (and here the HTML5 standard actually does provide
a solid framework), and 3) apply _my own_ preferred settings (fonts, margins,
font-size, foreground/background colors) to every damned page, with minimal
styling allowed, I'd be far happier.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Great text, and I agree wholeheartedly. I wonder how much work would it take
to script the browser to work mostly in Readability/Pocket-mode.

Off-topic: I've noticed you're using a subreddit as a personal blog/wiki.
Could you share more about your experience with such system, apart from what's
written at the end of your FAQ?

~~~
dredmorbius
On reddit as a blogging / wiki engine:

• Any time you don't have to set things up yourself is a win.

• The built-in features, including markdown, flairs, moderation tools, RSS,
and comments, are great. The more so with RES (the reddit enhancement suite
browser extension(s)).

• I'd really prefer a better management of images. I use imgur for image
hosting, and with RES these _tend_ to appear with content, but users not using
RES get a sort of bastardized version. Since I tend to use images for
conveying more information (charts, graphs, and similar data visualization)
this matters.

• Post archival. I'm reaching the point where some of my earlier posts are
going to get archived ("frozen") and will no longer be editable or commentable
(6 months after creation). Since I'm building a reference trove and want to be
able to revise content as I develop ideas (my Questions post in particular:
[http://redd.it/1v052g](http://redd.it/1v052g)), this is a bit of a drag. I've
got a secondary blog that I may rev up as this becomes an issue. I can still
access the source for those to port them elsewhere, but it's still a bit of a
pain.

• Post length. Turns out that for text-only subs it's 40k chars, not 10k,
which was kind of nice to realize. That's around 26 pages rather than 6 per
post (typewritten, 250 words/page), which should be enough even for me.

• CSS. I've clearly restyled the site a bit, and I really like being able to
do that. About 98% satisfied with what I've accomplished, and a few recent
fixes (such as being able to create hierarchical header and list numbering in
the Wiki) are really nice.

• Post flair. It's not as complete as tags would be, though the discipline is
somewhat useful. I wish it were easier to maintain, though all told it's OK.

• Draft mode: A negative. I really wish I could start to compose something and
save it _without_ publishing it. Blogging platforms offer this.

• RSS. I'm absolutely and unapologetically in love:
[http://redd.it/1sxfar](http://redd.it/1sxfar)

• Those short links aren't bad either.

• Engagement from elsewhere. After a few months I am routinely getting far
more (and better) engagement than I was on G+ ("the Other Place"). Links to
other subreddits (particularly popular ones) have grown engagement markedly.

• Better moderation and engagement stats. It's nice to see my traffic stats,
though it would be even better to have breakouts for 1) most visited posts and
2) specific user engagement stats. I use RES's user tagging to identify useful
and not-so-much people, color-tagging as well. But seeing who's really engaged
and contributed would be nice.

• Ways to deal with deleted posts. I've had a couple of instances of people
posting good information only to have the post later disappear. I'm aware that
there are some sites which archive reddit content, but I've learned to
reincorporate that content where and when possible.

• RES again: the RES post editor is fucking amazing. Side-by-side view of
markdown and rendered text, in particular, full page width and height. I'll
<F-11> the tab to full-screen and write without any distractions. Compare to
the clusterfuck that's G+ and weep.

• File storage. I've got a few things I want to be able to post which aren't
images, and sorting out how to do that is a bit of a stumper. I'm thinking

• Comments search. As noted in the FAQ, it'd be really nice to have that. Oh
well. Also a wiki search -- the wiki in general is handy but not particularly
full-featured. I'm curious as to why reddit went NIH on that instead of
incorporating, say, MediaWiki. I may branch out my Wikiing efforts to a
different platform eventually.

• Search syntax: What reddit lacks in completeness it gains in features. The
ability to look for content by user, subreddit, and other elements is a huge
win, and I use search _a lot_. The ability to key my own subreddit's search
URL into my browser's reddit search keyword means I get my own styling applied
to reddit site searches. Yay me!

• Community support. There's a ton of help to be had on moderation, reddit
features, CSS styling, and the like. That's been great.

• Expertise. I've got a former LLNL researcher and a nuclear powerplant
operator among my readers, which for my areas of interest is great.

• User voting. Sadly, abuse of up/down arrows seems to be growing on reddit.
While I'm a believer in _some_ user input on content quality rating, I'm
increasingly convinced it needn't simply be open to anyone. Though it also
lets me know when I'm touching on controversial topics.

• A projects board. Along with drafts, I've got a large number of writing
ideas I'd like to tackle, and sorting out how to keep track of those
(preferably integrated with the site) would be cool.

• Data liberation. I cap on Google _a lot_ , but the ability to extract all of
my content from the site (and having created an archive extraction tool:
[http://redd.it/21t7im](http://redd.it/21t7im)) is actually pretty cool
cheese. Reddit doesn't have a similar feature that I'm aware of, though I can
iterate over posts.

I'm not sure that another tool (possibly Drupal, which everyone seems to rave
about) might not address more of my needs, but on balance I'm still pretty
happy with reddit.

My primary challenges now are building a _relevant_ audience, actually
creating content (I've got a half-dozen to a dozen half-written postings
floating around), and the like.

------
chimeracoder
Almost all of this is still relevant today, except for _one_ part:

> 2\. Opening New Browser Windows

> Opening up new browser windows is like a vacuum cleaner sales person who
> starts a visit by emptying an ash tray on the customer's carpet. Don't
> pollute my screen with any more windows, thanks (particularly since current
> operating systems have miserable window management). If I want a new window,
> I will open it myself!

Nowadays, the bigger problem is on-page modal windows. Current operating
systems now have very good window management, and browsers have zero window
management, _except_ for the ability to block popup windows[0].

I get very annoyed by websites that break my ability to open links in multiple
tabs/windows by right-clicking, or force me to use their built-in modal
windows as a substitute for popups.

Most modern Google properties are culprits of this. For example: if you have a
website with Google Apps for Business, it is impossible to open most links in
new tabs - they force you to use the on-page navigation instead. The only
solution is to open a second tab and navigate to the same location.

We became so afraid of popup windows that we've swung too far in the other
direction, and are suffering the consequences.

[0] The solution is _not_ to create a window manager for the browser, by the
way.

~~~
dredmorbius
Any breaking of user-specified window management is bad. Producing pop-ups or
new windows/tabs when not requested, _or_ preventing them. The key isn't _what
the site is doing_ , it is _going against the user 's expectations and/or
express preferences_.

~~~
chimeracoder
> Producing pop-ups or new windows/tabs when not requested, or preventing
> them.

Agreed - the common pattern I'm referring to is to have a button that the user
clicks on to open a modal window.

This is ridiculously frustrating - it obscures the rest of the page,
preventing me from navigating around that page or to other parts of the site
without manually opening a new tab.

Occasionally those modal windows let me drag them around slowly with my mouse,
but that's really only marginally better. I don't want every website to try
and invent its own windowing manager, which is what many try to do.

------
ssmoot
On a related note: It's amazing how miserable many popular "mobile first"
"hip/modern" sites are to actually use on a mobile data connection/latency.

The modern web may be pretty, but it feels like general usability it at a low
point.

~~~
dubfan
And the related phenomenon that I've seen more of recently: layouts that try
to be mobile friendly, but then have some giant horizontal element sticking
way out and ruining the experience.

~~~
ekianjo
> some giant horizontal element sticking way out and ruining the experience

And more often than not, this giant horizontal element refuses to scroll down
properly and makes the whole page sluggish like hell. You gotta love 2014.

------
themoonbus
Websites: breaking my back button for 15 years.

------
awestley
I don't know if I should praise the author's insight or scorn the rest of the
world for not moving beyond these mistakes.

I'm just kidding... I know scorn is the right option.

~~~
mVChr
Maybe because we live in a world where Jakob Nielsen[1] is referred to by the
generic "the author." Not a good sign.

No scorn directed at you, just making a point that his myriad work should be
ingrained into anyone building for the web.

[1] [http://www.nngroup.com/people/jakob-
nielsen/](http://www.nngroup.com/people/jakob-nielsen/)

~~~
x1798DE
The picture in that link has the strangest quality - he looks like he's a
young person that has undergone some Hollywood makeup magic to make him look
older. Maybe it's something about the light or his skin or something that
makes my brain assume that someone just dyed a young person's hair grey. Very
strange.

------
bitJericho
"appropriate behavior of these design elements is defined in the Windows Vista
User Experience standard"

This isn't from 1999. Something's amiss...

~~~
notahacker
Here's the original
[http://web.archive.org/web/20000815063033/http://www.useit.c...](http://web.archive.org/web/20000815063033/http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990530.html)

In fairness, apart from removing dead links to Amazon books on the likes of
Win 98 UI guidelines (probably not a big seller any more) and adding in a
handful of internal links to slightly more recent iarticles, it's pretty much
untouched. Talk about evergreen content...

------
jakejake
It's interesting to read that, aside from actual design "mistakes" this
article also includes some, I would say, etiquette based suggestions which
seem innocence/naive in hindsight. It wasn't too much earlier than this that
registering a domain name carried some sort of responsibility to create site
that was appropriate for it. Boy, those days are definitely long gone!

Not using link-bait titles, always including a biography,not jumping on
buzzwords, etc. This is definitely still fine advice for a quality site. At
the time I certainly didn't image the future web would be cluttered with sites
doing absolutely anything and everything possible to get clicks and views.

------
gl
4\. Lack of Biographies "My first Web studies in 1994 showed that users want
to know the people behind information on the Web."

My first Web studies in 1994:

Internet Access

1\. Log into Ralph. At the % prompt, type the following: telnet FSCAT.OCLC.ORG
and press Return or Enter. FirstSearch responds “You are connected to OCLC
Online Reference Services. Enter your authorization.”

2\. Enter your FirstSearch authorization number and press Return or Enter.
FirstSearch responds, “Enter your password.”

3\. Enter your FirstSearch user password and press Return. FirstSearch
responds, “Welcome to FirstSearch.” Follow the menus to search any database.

4\. Use BYE to log off FirstSearch. Just enter bye and press Enter or Return.
FirstSearch asks, “Are you ready to disconnect?”

5\. Enter y for yes and press Enter or Return. FirstSearch responds, “You are
disconnected.”

6\. Disconnect from the Internet using the instructions on your screen.

------
marban
Minor addition for 2014:

11) Breaking the scroll behaviour

~~~
dredmorbius
Scrollbar modifications is a growing gripe of mine.

Even minor stuff. G+, for example, defaults (or defaulted to) to an
exceptionally narrow scrollbar, a conspicuous violation of Fitts' law: make
your UI control widgets as large as possible to allow for easy access.

I can only surmise that a designer was using Mac OS or another platform in
which gesture / multi-touch controls worked around the need for scrollbar
access. With a touchpad-disabled, TrackPoint-equipped, mouseless laptop, this
was a frequent frustration.

~~~
marban
Also happens the other way round - just try to scroll at e.g.
[http://store.y-3.com](http://store.y-3.com) with a Magic Mouse/Trackpad —
Basically impossible since you'll hit the page end just by touching the mouse.

~~~
dredmorbius
Don't get me started on sites that hijack l/r arrows _to navigate between
pages on the site_ rather than align text on page.

Fucking NY Times.

------
kbar13
what about text as images?

[https://developer.apple.com/wwdc/](https://developer.apple.com/wwdc/)

~~~
CanSpice
The images there all have ALT tags, so that should be okay. Images comprising
only text is (obviously) more bandwidth-heavy, though, so that could be seen
as a bit of a mistake. It's not a design mistake though, it's more of a "care
about your users" mistake.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
No excuse for this now we have webfonts.

~~~
marban
Only if you don't care about anti-aliasing.

edit: ...and Kerning, text-flow, font-weight, character maps and other gripes.

~~~
Retr0spectrum
Surely webfonts allow for better anti-aliasing (with sub-pixel rendering),
whereas images can only guess how the sub-pixels on your monitor are arranged.

~~~
jdcantrell
Not always. Different operating systems and browser combos have different ways
of rendering fonts. I've seen fonts that look good in OSX in Firefox look
poorly in Windows with Firefox (Gentium in my case).

Also these images look like they used gray scale instead of sub-pixel
rendering so the differences in pixel geometry should be more or less
mitigated.

I'm sure in theory it could look better as actual text for certain setups, but
this probably allows them to get the best looking text in the widest amount of
configurations.

------
PhasmaFelis
Regarding #5 "Lack of Archives," it seems like most modern sites commit a sin
that's nearly as bad: lack of _reachable_ archives. At some point the Web
collectively decided that The Blog was the one true format for information
delivery, and now everything is presented backwards and you need to click
"previous" a hundred million times to see last year's posts.

It's especially maddening when people try to use sites like Tumblr for
webcomics and serial fiction.

~~~
thatthatis
Tumblr is an interesting case of optimizing for content creator experience and
seriously neglecting many blatant issues with content consumer experience

------
euske
I tend to see the past 10 years or so of the Web as a great irony for
accessibility. It looked like finally a gospel to blind users who could get a
nicely structured textual information. In reality, so many websites are simply
broken to them with Flash and prevalent DOM manipulation. And every time
something good happens (like use of CSS to separate content), something
horrible is newly introduced or abused on the other side of the planet.

------
bttf
This article has enlightened me about opening browser new windows. Forgive me
father, for I have sinned.

~~~
bitJericho
This was all the rage before popup blockers and tabs!

------
jimmaswell
The mailto one is invalid. There's nothing wrong or unexpected about URLs
having different URI schemes than http or https. In fact you can configure the
browser to send mailto: links to your email website instead of launching an
application.

~~~
masterzora
There's nothing wrong with linking different schemes as long as the user is
expecting it. Most users click links without first examining the URL and the
default assumption is that a link points to another page. If you say "click
here to email me" or if the link text is an email address or whatever then,
yeah, they'll expect a mailto. But if you don't get specific indicators like
that, the user will tend to be surprised when their email is suddenly opening,
especially if this involves opening Outlook or such, and it's not a good
experience to unexpectedly be looking at the "compose new email" window.

------
malkia
If only the web stayed declarative...

------
leorocky
Not using labels with radio and checkbox input elements could be on that list
again.

------
United857
Plus ça change...

------
zobzu
A lot of them are still valid.

