
Anti-Web-Design Manifesto (2013) - bleakgadfly
http://brandon.invergo.net/news/2013-03-10-Anti-web-design-Manifesto.html
======
paulojreis
> With regards to visual design, the fact is that any individual has a far
> better idea of what constitutes comfortable-to-read text for them than a
> designer could. A designer either designing for his or her own tastes or
> trying to find some best-of-all-worlds design will ultimately fail to
> satisfy the vast majority of visitors to the sit

> Designers, it may come as a surprise to you, but not everyone loves your
> work.

Computer scientist, it may come as a surprise to you, but there are competent
people outside of your field of expertise. You're not a genius, and everyone
else isn't stupid.

If a designer (or whoever decides) chooses to have custom fonts, client-side
scripting or custom style sheets, it's because he weighted the downsides of
said choice and still opted for it. If he did not, or he is not aware of the
downsides, then it's a matter of incompetence, not web design. So, your
pseudo-manifesto should be anti-incompetence, not anti-web-design.

Being "anti-web-design" only tells us that a) you know nothing about design
(you don't have the smallest idea regarding methodology or even simply what a
designer actually does); and b) it's no more than a rant - all your valid
points (which are a few) are obscured by the arrogant and oblivious attitude.

~~~
ThomPete
I think you are judging this on the wrong premise.

It's a manifesto not a lecture it's even an anti-web-design manifesto. I for
one appreciate someone trying to establish other perspectives than my own.

Yes we designers know a lot that he doesn't, but a trip to Dribbble will tell
you that there are also many of us who are victims of some of the patterns he
is trying to establish an opposition against.

~~~
paulojreis
> Yes we designers know a lot that he doesn't, but a trip to Dribbble will
> tell you that there are also many of us who are victims of some of the
> patterns he is trying to establish an opposition against.

Still, that's a problem with incompetence, not with web design. And Dribbble
it's not a good example at all - what's the ratio of pixel-pushers to
designers? 10:1? 100:1?

I wouldn't say that it's a problem with "us", since it's clearly a separate
group which deserves addressing. There are designers who actually "design"
(meaning, they conceive a solution to "someone"), and there are pixel-pushers
which mix and mash the latest fads without any particular regard for users and
their context (elderly? Here, take flat design! Teens? Flat will do!).

These are two completely distinct objectives: designing vs. doing "something"
which looks good. I think the "manifesto" is - or should - be aimed at the
latter: gratuitous usage of UI elements/patterns/options. But that's not what
design is about, so the "manifesto" is totally misguided and - to be honest -
it even becomes ridiculous when the author starts to speak condescendingly to
designers (as in the example in my original replies), while being completely
oblivious that "design" in itself would imply that any of the options he
criticizes were adequately considered (against users and their context).

------
kephra
> 6 No non-standard fonts

I really hate those. Especially sites like github who capture the Tibetan
Unicode block for their font, as this is a character set that I need.
[http://kephra.de/src/WylieUTF8/](http://kephra.de/src/WylieUTF8/)

 _ok_ I'm likely one of the few who can read Tibetan, but this shows a typical
US ignorance, and certainly gives github a bad karma, as they make it
impossible to display any Tibetan text on github.

11: Sites that can be viewed better without CSS, if you are a NoScript user.
e.g. main page of Medium shows a grayed out layout where its not possible to
click on articles without JS. But the become readable again once you disable
CSS also. eBay does similar.

~~~
mscharrer
I really hate sites that send all content as html, but then hide it only to
unhide it with JavaScript. It's getting quite common though. I wouldn't go as
far as the OP and say no JS, but how about: don't use JS just because you can,
use it to actually do something that makes the site more usable.

~~~
A010
I think it's highly possible because ads, to prevent people disable JS to
block ads so there's no content.

~~~
lordsper
Adblockers take care of that. I run NoScript for security and not because it
makes pages look prettier - believe me, it doesn't.

I see hiding the content of the site for lack of JS simply as lazy web
development, which only considers the most common use case. I don't bother
visiting sites who don't support NoScript or text-mode browsers such as
Links2.

------
dsjoerg
"If you are trying to make a web application, just stop. Build a native
application. It's nicer for everyone." <\-- On which platforms? Windows + iOS
+ Android + OS X + ...? Or, I could just make it a web application. Not a hard
choice. This point was ill-considered.

~~~
lfender6445
exactly - doesn't that sound nicer for everyone?

------
mscharrer
Just found this:
[http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/](http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/) I think
it passes on all points.

~~~
synthmeat
[http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com](http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com)

Unsure is it better, should check on more devices/systems/browsers.

~~~
ikurei
I'd say it is better. The first one is very uncomfortable to read in a full-
screen/maximized-window browser on a widescreen, and mine is only 1080p.

I think it's a great counterexample of the point it's trying to make. Of
course is a satire, and the author probably would add a bit of design in a
"real" web site.

~~~
repsilat
How much of the difference between those two pages is enshrined in web
standards? Are Firefox or Chrome still standards-compliant if they set the
default line-height to 1.4? If they bump up the default font-size and change
the background colour to a light grey?

I imagine bumping up the margins could be problematic, but I'd say all of the
other problems are just browser bugs.

------
sgwil
Old Man Yells At Cloud

~~~
michaelbuddy
yup, an actual cloud CDN for serving convenient javascript libraries and
webfonts and muddying his ideal world.

------
yoz-y
That seems quite excessive and only applicable for web sites that display
articles.

Amazon without javascript and multi-column pages would be unbearable. Ad-
supported content is fine and keeps the web free, as long as ads are
sufficiently on-topic and unobtrusive (sponsored posts, light banners à la The
Deck, native advertising...).

Also, the fact that the page is unreadable without either using a custom CSS
or resizing the window does not add much to the credibility of the author.

~~~
mscharrer
I works quite fine without any css for me with any window size I tried. Are
you using a mobile device? However, he does include images from third party
sites which may cause referrer leakage which goes against the no-tracking
issue he raised. (I'm only being this harsh because the article is too)

~~~
yoz-y
No, I am viewing it on a 24" screen. However I consider long lines of text as
unreadable and my default size for a browser window is quite large. I really
think most sites with simplistic CSS would include

    
    
        body { max-width: 11in; }
    

or something similar in their stylesheet.

Note that my own personal website conforms very well to his expectations
(except loading images from flickr (without javascript) which, as you pointed
out, leaks private data). I would add however that the most important thing is
readability, responsiveness and speed.

A webpage without stylesheets is technically responsive, but in practice not
very readable, due to pretty bad defaults in most browsers (i.e.: tiny fonts
and cramped text)

Finally, the most important part of any article-based website (for me) is a
full text RSS, which enables me to have actually good reading experience -
outside of a web browser.

~~~
hollerith
Is it not better to specify max-width in ems?

    
    
        body { max-width: 35em; }
    

That way, if the user makes the text very large, the entire width of the
window will be used.

~~~
yoz-y
This probably depends on the browser but Safari, for example, scales inches
(and centimetres) with the zoom level, so the result is probably the same. I
don't like em and rem much as they do not really reflect the actual size in
tangible units, but that is largely a personal preference.

~~~
hollerith
What if the user changes the font size with CSS?

~~~
yoz-y
That is a valid point. Although I think that if you are modifying CSS then you
either know exactly what you are doing, or disabling it altogether and
replacing it with your own stylesheet. I think that there is quite a lot of
stuff that will break if you increase the font size too much.

I'll play with it a little bit more, the ems might be a better solution after
all.

------
clemlais
I don't see the point of these manifesto-rants. To quote : "designers with
goals often counter to our own interests". Well of course and it's perfectly
fine. The website you visit is not yours, and is not made to comply to all of
your demands. If you don't like what you see don't visit it. The day you pay
to visit a website, you will have the right to complain.

~~~
enno
What the article proposes is an extreme position, and while I don't agree that
the entire web can work this way, a lot of it can. Look at the page you're
currently viewing (hacker news): It's by no means a terrible experience, and
yet it manages to check all the boxes: it has no javascript necessary for
viewing (there is one function for voting, but that is non-essential), no
proprietary plugins, no ads, no visual clutter, doesn't download fonts, no
tracking, and if I just want to read content, no account is required.

So we see that it's not impossible to make sites that follow the goals of this
"manifesto", and I would say that all of these non-features speaks in favor of
the quality of HN.

Clearly, there are sites that do not follow these guidelines, and their
business model makes it impossible for them to do so (Facebook, anyone?). As a
consumer, which one of those would I rather use?

~~~
clemlais
That's exactly my point. Most users do not care about javascript, css override
and whatnot. Web designers build website with their specifics goals in minds
(maximise revenue, maximise viewers etc...). And thats fine, that's what make
the web viable. I am not saying it's impossible to build a website following
that manifesto, as indeed HN is pretty close, but HN target a specific
audience. Their designers didn't search to monetize but to maximise their
presence on the web. In that case their interests do not conflict with yours
(no advertisements, simple design etc..). They did not design HN with your
specific preferences in mind but the majority of viewers.

"As a consumer, which one of those would I rather use?" Well you might prefer
HN to Facebook design, but the majority of Facebook users would not.

------
diminish
Somehow all the annoyances, abuse and clutter mentioned in the manifesto have
won after the mobile app/javascript framework duo dominated to influence the
newest web apps.

Maybe we should build a new "sub-web" for hackers with a unique safe browser
with no plugins, ajax, javascript, css-animations, html5-* with only non
obstrusive sound, video, image and form support.

~~~
mscharrer
If only there was a search engine that filtered for these criteria.

------
392c91e8165b
One point not mentioned in the OP: the people in charge of Firefox, Opera and
Chrome have been and will continue to be a hindrance, not a help, on net to
users who agree with the manifesto. The qualifier "on net" is intended to
acknowledge that they do some pro-manifesto things, such as allowing any user
to install any third-party extension, but that those things are cancelled out
by anti-manifesto things, such as web fonts. (Note that these years, the
company behind Opera gets most of their revenue from advertising.)

The people in charge of Safari, Edge and Internet Explorer have not been much
of a help either although I suppose there is a chance that will change some
day since their sponsors don't make most of their money from advertisers and
other professional persuaders. (Although one could argue that the people in
charge of Internet Explorer helped a lot in the 1990s and the first half of
the last decade, I have seen no signs that they have been helping since then.)

Sometimes I think that the only way for users who agree with the manifesto to
get free of the need for regularly writing new user CSS, installing new add-
ons and extension and continuing to tweak about:config settings is for them to
migrate to a browser whose maintainers have some sympathy for the manifesto.

I sometimes believe that what I just wrote would make a good business plan for
a startup.

If I were to buy a phone or a tablet today, I would probably choose one from
Apple just because of the content-blocking API Apple promised for iOS 9. (Yes,
theoretically, the fact that much or most of Android is open source makes it
possible for some new organization or project to offer an Android fork that
offers even better ad-blocking than iOS 9 will allow, but after 23 years of
experience with open-source software, I know that merely the existence of a
particular software freedom does not mean that programmers and designers will
do the hard work of converting that freedom into actual code that I will want
to use.)

------
eddd
This article is suggesting not using any js library, no XMLHttpRequests, no
single-page aps. Just go back to 1990?

~~~
tenfingers
Is it really that bad?

Most of the web is about _reading content_ , and this is where all points on
the page shine.

I agree with basically everything on that page.

In fact, we built fully-fledged browser extensions to override website's
choices in fonts, colors and whatnot (point 1).

We build extensions to kill js by default (point 2).

We increasingly disable plugins by default (point 3).

We have extensions to block advertising, including inline ones (point 4).

Frames are a thing of the past (point 5), although visual clutter still reigns
in "web tabloids" (although we still patch the css via custom
styles/extensions)

6) Web fonts have very often poor hinting and lower quality than the exact
equivalent in the system. The difference between my locally installed Roboto
font and the Woff version is _insane_. The worst part is that the google font
loaders loads the woff version ANYWAY!

Web tablois will still chose random fonts based purely on the looks. Combined
with poor hinting, this has prompted me to disable web fonts on my standard
browsing profile.

Of course, nobody wants tracking, this seems quite widespread now, with
browsers including the useless DNT header (point 7)

"No pagination" went even overboard with continuous loading pages, which many
(including myself) hate (point 8).

What about the "facebook/linkedin" login that many websites/betas require to
join, and that almost everybody hates? (point 9)

And when all you need to do is reading, you don't want over-the-top animations
when you hover on this, dynamic loading that prevents pages to be saved to
disk for later reading, and whatever webdesigners think "it's cool" nowdays,
because in the end what matters most is the _content_.

The fact that we have "reader modes" in browsers now is pretty saddening. And
it's all due to massive, abusive design using otherwise good browsers
extensions.

~~~
krapp
Yes. There is a difference between optimizing the design of the parts of the
web which are for reading text, or filtering the web as it is to your liking
through plugins or whatnot, and forbidding the web from ever being about
anything more than simply reading text.

Because of course, _most people_ don't have a problem with the web as it is,
except maybe for a few details like intrusive advertising which could be done
away with without eliminating javascript, css and layout complexity entirely.
They use it, and enjoy it, and it brings value to their lives.

Insisting that the web is wrong, that most of the people using it are wrong to
accept it, that most of the creative decisions made in it are wrong for even
attempting to design it, that every possible use of javascript is wrong by
definition, and that the only "proper" web is one in which simple, static text
documents be allowed to exist is, yes, "really that bad."

~~~
tenfingers
I think you're conflating too many things in your argument. I'm not against
evolution, and there's plenty of good uses for most of the recent browser
developments in the last decade.

Heck, I love what you can do in interactive python notebooks, and there's
plenty of very successful pages that use modern technologies at their finest.

But it's a very small minority. So small, in fact, that a "whitelist-based"
approach, such as disabling webfonts everywhere but selected sites, has a net-
positive effect: it also works on the websites that choose good fonts, because
those websites are ironically _also_ the websites that gracefully degrade
and/or use html semantically. Similarly for other features.

Many websites, to put it simply, are simply "badly styled" (I don't like to
use "designed", because designed would imply some tuning based on a real usage
pattern).

I also don't think that users that think that way are in minority: it cannot
be that "reader" extensions (which do - in essence - exactly what has been
described in the manifesto!) got bundled into browsers _as a selling point_.
If there was no need, they wouldn't be bundled at all. Clearly, there are some
non-insignificant amount of people that see this as a plus.

~~~
krapp
Fair enough - it's impossible to argue that the backlash isn't due to a real
phenomenon. Although, browsers also ship with developer tools so I don't know
how widely used the reader mode is, or whether it's targeted at a general
audience or the tech audience. Most of the (admittedly anecdotal) complaints I
see on social media sites have to do more with changing the UI around and
messing with people's expectations than with poor fonts or loading times, or
javascript.

------
vbezhenar
I would love to browse proper internet described in this manifesto. Too bad
that noone will listen to it, and many people are forced to disable JS,
disable CSS, etc, just to be able to read articles without much annoyance.

~~~
dredmorbius
Reader mode in Safari and Firefox comes close. Try Readability, Pocket, or
Instapaper for example.

------
jbb555
I agree a great deal with some of this. I disagree a great deal with other
parts.

~~~
teddyh
I agree with some of what you say, but disagree with other things you say.

------
robgibbons
These arguments are poisonous for the web. This may shock some people, but
JavaScript is not evil. Its use should be limited, yes, but declaring that it
should never be used is just ignorant.

------
mscharrer
I think the article is a bit extreme but he does raise a lot of good points. I
actually went and checked my website without css, and even tried it in
[links]([http://www.jikos.cz/~mikulas/links/](http://www.jikos.cz/~mikulas/links/)).
I very much agree that the the use of JavaScript for the simplest of things
has gone overboard, but I wouldn't be as harsh as the OP. Cross site scripting
is out of the question in my book.

------
krapp
tldr; anything beyond unstyled, purely textual HTML in a single column,
without plugins (and _definitely_ without javascript) is objectively wrong and
bad and people shouldn't be allowed to do it. I'm assuming images are fine but
I wouldn't be surprised if not.

The last paragraph in this manifesto is the author pre-complaining about every
possible change that will be made in HTML in the future. How much more
"hipster yells at clouds" can you get?

As I too am a Person On The Internet, allow me to retort:

HTML was never entirely about displaying plain text, but content. That that
content is primarily text doesn't imply it _must_ be primarily text. That
train left the station when img tags became a thing.

The ability to embed plugins was a breakthrough, not a mistake. Plugins are
the reason video on the web is possible, and video on the web is
_revolutionary_ for sharing culture and expression. Flash and Java applets,
for all their faults, allowed applications to be accessible by URL, and thanks
to HTML5/Canvas and tools like asm.js and whatever-to-js transpilers, we're on
the verge of having the web become a network of hyperlinked applications. When
you think about the ramifications of that, it's a really big deal.

To want to forbid the web from even reaching the complexity and richness of
HTML 1.0 is, frankly, asinine and presumptuous. Notwithstanding that, yes,
simple text-based sites have a place and, yes, most uses of javascript to
display simple text are kind of pointless and absurd, the author is wrong to
want to limit the world's creativity and the web's expressive potential to the
boundaries of his own personal elitist prejudice.

------
normloman
All the shitty things we do to websites is to make money. We stuff them full
of ads because ads make money. We load 10 megabytes of JS trackers because it
helps the ads make money. We paginate articles in order to show more ads, to
make money. We add unnecessary columns of social media streams, related
articles, and share widgets to trap people in an endless cycle of clicks (to
see more ads. To make more money.)

------
0x4a42
9) No abusive account requirements

9) bis - If your site/app/product/service requires an account, show me what
I'll get BEFORE forcing me to sign-up!

------
benbristow
> Fonts are subtle, in that most people probably do not pay much attention to
> which one is in use

False. Fonts make a massive difference in how people perceive a brand, and
different fonts can be used for different types of content.

Imagine if every company used Comic Sans for their logo font.
[http://comicsansproject.tumblr.com/](http://comicsansproject.tumblr.com/)

~~~
digi_owl
And this one could not care less.

Seriously, i looked over the page and could not tell the difference for the
most part. Only ones i noticed some difference was those where you had a
single prominent letter doing all the work.

------
callum85
Of course the web is full of crap design – there's a very low barrier to
entry. That's a good thing. There's also some great design. And a lot of in-
between stuff (otherwise decent sites compromised by too many ads/scripts). It
serves whoever pays for it and makes it. Don't use it if you find it
'abusive'. This guy needs to get over himself.

------
lshevtsov
This reminded me of Dogma 95, a similar manifesto for film directors.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogme_95](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogme_95)

It's not practical, but something uniquely valuable can be grown from the
constraints.

------
soft_dev_person
body { max-width: 1000px; }

Ahh. Much better.

~~~
mhd
Strangely enough the CSS has "body { /* width: 47em; */ }" commented out.

Maybe they really want to show the importance of user CSS?

~~~
soft_dev_person
He clearly makes a point of supporting user CSS, but also a point of being
usable by default, so it clearly misses that...

Also, I doubt most regular users could be bothered to actually write custom
CSS for the entire web. Most people have zero knowledge of how to do it, not
to mention how to actually improve what they want to improve.

The only reasonable real world case I can see is accessibility, which is
certainly a valid case, and should be considered by all web
designers/developers.

------
monofonik
My favourite part was when, after reading a rant about the evils of web
applications, client side scripts and plugins, I was encouraged to visit his
Bandcamp to load up a web app with client side scripts and plugins.

------
A010
6.1 No tiny font size

Don't expect your users to surf your website with a magnifying glass, e.g.
[http://smittenkitchen.com/](http://smittenkitchen.com/)

------
markyc
_Under very few circumstances do you actually need the visitor 's email
address_

how do you retreive a forgotten password?

~~~
enno
I believe the point was that you probably don't need the user to make an
account. If they don't need an account, they have no password, and you need no
email address, unless your true goal is to put as many people as possible on
your mailing list and spam them.

~~~
markyc
actually, in the same paragraph he goes on to say:

 _In any case, if a login is required, take the absolute minimum of necessary
information, ideally only a login name and a password._

maybe better than a login name and password, make it an email address and
password. email address seems pretty vital for any kind of future
communication

~~~
mscharrer
Some sites let the user provide a email address in order to allow password
reset, but don't force it. I think this is a good practice.

~~~
soft_dev_person
If you have any kind of non-tech savvy users, it's a terrible practice, as you
would be flooded with support requests on how to get into their accounts with
no way of verifiying the actual owner.

~~~
markyc
yes.. even having an unconfirmed email address can get really messy when you
need to get in touch with someone but just can't because the address is
invalid

------
keyboardwarrior
The Church of HTML send thy 10 commandments. Only the purest of websites will
make it to our kingdom.

obey you heathens.

------
dredmorbius
First, I agree strongly with Brandon on virtually all of this, with one minor
clarification.

My read is that his "no foo" requirements _don 't disallow_ sites from using
CSS, javascript, plugins, etc, but _require that core functionality be
available without these_. At the _very_ least the ability to _read_ the page.

I'm leaning strongly to sites focusing on a small number of basic design
templates and allowing strong user deference in how those are styled: article,
homepage, gallery, slideshow, catalog page. That may be a vain hope, but most
sites operate with a small set of basic templates, and tools such as LaTeX
have achieved tremendous mileage from a small set of standard document types.
Yes, they tend to look similar. ThatsThePoint.jpg.

As a strong counterexample, take another current HN story, "On doing things
other people can't", a Blogspot post:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10136955](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10136955)
[http://pathsensitive.blogspot.com/2015/08/sources-of-
power.h...](http://pathsensitive.blogspot.com/2015/08/sources-of-power.html)

 _Unless I specifically enable JS_ for pathsensitive.blogspot.com,
www.blogger.com, and www.blogblog.com, _the article displays as a blank page._

Even _with_ these enabled, the page is awkward to read -- a pop-out menue
overlays the top of the scrollbar, the fonts are too small, the line length
too long, and an annoying persistent header overlays the top 25% of the page
(including browser elements: titlebar, tabs, navigation, and menus). I
literally transcribed raw text to Markdown to read the entry

Of major blogging sites, Blogspot's among the worst for default themes, and
its "dynamic" themes are especially bad.

I'm among those who've been ranting about the horrible state of the Web _for
basic reading_ for some time:

[https://redd.it/256lxu](https://redd.it/256lxu)
[https://redd.it/29eqrk](https://redd.it/29eqrk)

So, if I may offer some interpretations of Brandon's suggestions:

 _Completely override-able CSS:_ Not "don't use CSS", but "use a standard,
minimal page structure which allows elements to be readily identified and
styled, and don't go fucking overboard with styling.

Compare, Mark Pilgrim's _Dive Into HTML5_ , which 1) has a really nice default
stylesheet, and _a really fucking minimal page structure_ :

[http://diveintohtml5.info/index.html](http://diveintohtml5.info/index.html)
view-
source:[http://diveintohtml5.info/index.html](http://diveintohtml5.info/index.html)

The entity nesting depth is mostly _one_ (there's not even <article> tags),
rarely more than two.

Contrast that with pages in which every single element is explicitly styled
inline and absolutely positioned. I've got a "bruteforce.css" which strips
most such nonsense. As Brandon notes, excessive div nesting is almost always a
sign of such breakage.

 _No client-side scripts:_ Again, _to simply read the site_. See the Blogspot
example above.

 _Plugins:_ As before. Better: look through old sites featuring A/V content
and note the instances of RealPlayer requirements. I'm not sure that plugin's
even available any more, I certainly wouldn't want to rely on it. Sites which
provided WAV files, or better, MP3 or OGG downloads, _still work_. Sites
reliant on proprietary plugins, not so much. Flash and client-side Java are
rapidly heading here, similarly Silverlight (specific to Microsoft MSIE).

 _Advertising:_ Many or most of the problems online are a direct consequence
of advertising: bloated pages, cross-site scripting, security vulnerabilities,
and crap content. I see a fundamental need to change the funding model, though
no clear path to doing so.

 _No frames, multi-columns or other visual clutter:_ On this I agree. I've
restyled many sites to push sidebars, asides, floats, etc, either _above_ or
_below_ the main content. I'll occasionally encounter such sites unstyled and
... it's usually a shock.

See: [https://redd.it/1tm4ox](https://redd.it/1tm4ox)

Examples:

Stock/multicolumn:
[http://i.imgur.com/80zmE3i.png](http://i.imgur.com/80zmE3i.png)
[http://i.imgur.com/M2OiyOU.png](http://i.imgur.com/M2OiyOU.png)

Modified/single column:
[http://i.imgur.com/nBdCZoY.png](http://i.imgur.com/nBdCZoY.png)
[http://i.imgur.com/sNoOdZp.png](http://i.imgur.com/sNoOdZp.png)

 _No non-standard fonts:_ The problems I have here are, variously:

1\. WebFonts which simply _do not render._ Medium.com on my (ancient) Android
mobile device is completely blank, as is Wired.com. This is annoying.

2\. Fucking with font-weight, letter-spacing, and/or text-shadow. You do not
want to do this for body text _EVER_. My instant response on seeing such a
page is to simply sigh. Usually I'll move on.

 _Pagination:_ This is an absolute. There's no need to break up content any
shorter than a book chapter (though improved content navigation for longer
works _is_ a weakness of HTML).

 _Account requirements /registration:_ Data. Are. Liability. _Any_ time you
request user data, you should ask yourself, "can we not do this?" You cannot
lose what you do not have. You _will_ lose what you do have, though when,
where, to whom, and how far after the fact you realise it are all open
questions.

What's really sad is _how old most of these guidelines are._

Jacob Nielsen compiled his _original_ list of 10 mistakes in Web design _in
1996_. Modulo a few technology nomenclature changes, _they all still apply_ :

[http://www.nngroup.com/articles/original-top-ten-mistakes-
in...](http://www.nngroup.com/articles/original-top-ten-mistakes-in-web-
design/)

1\. Using Frames (now: iFrames)

2\. Gratuitous Use of Bleeding-Edge Technology

3\. Scrolling Text, Marquees, and Constantly Running Animations (carousels,
autoplay video)

4\. Complex URLs

5\. Orphan Pages

6\. Long Scrolling Pages (for landing pages. For articles, not so much)

7\. Lack of Navigation Support (also: mystery-meat navigation, see
"hamburger").

8\. Non-Standard Link Colors (now: nonstandard _any_ colours. Fad now is
fucking with ::selection colours).

9\. Outdated Information

10\. Overly Long Download Times

Nielsen's returned to that topic many times, see:

"Ten Good Deeds in Web Design":

[http://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-good-deeds-in-web-
design...](http://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-good-deeds-in-web-design/)

"'Top Ten Mistakes' Revisited Three Years Later"
[http://www.nngroup.com/articles/top-ten-mistakes-
revisited-t...](http://www.nngroup.com/articles/top-ten-mistakes-revisited-
three-years-later/)

"113 Design Guidelines for Homepage Usability" (October 31, 2001)
[http://www.useit.com/articles/113-design-guidelines-
homepage...](http://www.useit.com/articles/113-design-guidelines-homepage-
usability/)

"The Ten Most Violated Homepage Design Guidelines" (November 10, 2003)
[http://www.nngroup.com/articles/most-violated-homepage-
guide...](http://www.nngroup.com/articles/most-violated-homepage-guidelines/)

Note especially: 2. Use a liquid layout that lets users adjust the homepage
size. Yes, responsive design. In _two thousand fucking three._

------
lfender6445
> 2) No client-side scripts If your website cannot be viewed properly with
> Javascript disabled, it is broken.

Completely disagree with this one. The web has evolved into a landscape that
exceeds its original intended use. It's not just about semantic documents any
more - its community, interaction, and more in the most portable format we've
ever seen.

The web has taken on a life of its own, beyond what it was initially designed
for.

------
hello_there_you
Not everyone has these demands and well.. cares this much, to be honest. I
would say that the majority of web browsers (the human kind) simply don't mind
the different fonts, and colors and what not, it's part of the experience and
who the hell even knows what CSS is?

This is of course obvious to all of us, and probably to this author as well,
but I felt like I had to point that out.

Strange.

