When you live and work online, there are a number of irritations that you run into on an almost daily basis. Some are just plain annoying, others I consider flagrant crimes against usability, common sense and even politeness.
Often these aren’t intentional (heaven forbid such malice on the web), but not knowing what you’re doing isn’t an excuse. It didn’t fly for the Romans, it won’t for internet professionals either.
Here’s my top 5.
No RSS
Definitely at the top. You won’t believe how many IT and business sites I come across, though, that don’t have it. Badly formed RSS, botched XML or just truncated feeds are just as bad.
Sign-up for email
No RSS is bad enough, but making me register to get the alternative email newsletter should get you shot on the spot.
No About
Nicknames, vague company descriptions, on a blog or on a business site, it doesn’t matter. You gotta tell me who you are damn you. If you hide, why should I bother?
Bad forms
Bad forms are, you guessed it, very bad form. Messy tabulation, no availability-check for passwords, illogical sorting, this post-data crap that crashes your browser when it’s the site that fouls up… Filling out a form should be a breeze.
Varying identities
Want to use a nick? Okay, but stick to it. I don’t like getting a chat invite from munchkin_754, seeing a forum member dubbed Halo Johnny, and knowing someone by the name of John Smith, only to realize months later they’re the same person. Wtf get real!
No doubt I have more. Judging from the amount of bitching and swearing I do from behind my displays at work, I have tonnes more. Out of date links, absent or hidden search, lazy commenting policies, bad spelling… they all get me mad day in day out.
But. What I’m interested, though, are yours.
Tell me what you hate online folks. You can even hate bad writing on mediocre blogs that have no meaningful names and a digressing sense of focus or posting schedule… No wait, that’s me…
Tags: irritations, online, pet peeves, rants
15 April 2008 at 5:44 pm
One of my major pet peeves is when sites severely limit what you can use for your password, leading you to select a potentially weak one. MySpace is an example of this: a maximum of 10 characters, and no punctuation marks allowed. I’m fine with a minimum limit - “password must be six characters or longer, must contain at least 1 number” - but a maximum? I hate it.
15 April 2008 at 10:22 pm
You’ve nailed two of mine, “bad forms” and “no about”.
There is one more, related to “no about” in some ways. Lack of contact info for a webpage. I’m a communication obsessed person. Contact regarding anything and everything is important to me. If I’m on a site and I want to know more or pose a question of some sort (to the owner/admin) but can’t, it drives me nuts.
16 April 2008 at 8:14 am
@Josh: most password setups are flawed I think, but maximum lengths I hadn’t heard of yet. Preposterous. What I hate too is when mistyping a repeat pw or just making any other mistake messes up the signup procedure and you have to start over? Argh! Horrible.
@Tom: exactly. Ties in with the nicknames and multiple identities for me. If you’re not sure who you are, don’t clog up the web I say. I’m not saying everyone should just have their email and phone on their blogs, but please: let me get in touch with you quick and easy indeed. If not, why publish in the first place?
21 April 2008 at 7:33 pm
I wonder if I can be blamed for the varying identities thing. My online nick in most places is koregaonpark. I was anonymous as AATW for a while, but now that’s done with, and I’m Smaran almost everywhere else (except for del.icio.us where I’m “deliberation”, but my name is visible on the page!).
22 April 2008 at 9:28 am
One of my all time pet hates is having to register to obtain price information. I appreciate that people don’t always want their competition to know what they’re charging but generally it means you are going to end up with the full benefit of their marketing campaign in your inbox. Ugggh, it’s just nasty.
22 April 2008 at 11:41 am
@Smaran: well, I wouldn’t blame you, but it’s true you did have a few old nicks floating around - not unlike me (Last.fm, Flickr, …) You I know, though, it gets annoying with people I don’t know.
@Clarkey: anything that asks you info you’re not prepared to give is annoying. Inquiries shouldn’t do that indeed. And if they abuse your trust, that’s an instant no-no. Hate it with a vengeance.