Website Design: Just Because Everybody Else is Doing it - - -

"5 Sickening Habits of Mainstream Websites"
TechCult (November 11, 2008)

Caution: some naughty words and a sophomoric attitude follow. The guy's got a point, though.

"Forbes, BusinessWeek, The New York Times, Mens Health, you name it. The big guys think that just because they entered in the game early, or because they have some popular print publication backing them up, they can get away with whatever they want.

"Screw that!

"They better start changing and listening more to the users, else I am sure their traffic will go down hill. Here are 5 habits from mainstream websites that make me sick.

"1. Breaking stories in many different pages to increase the number of impressions...."

I could do without the 'grown-up' words and college-boy attitude, but the author has five very good points.

Besides the obvious pointers for site designers who don't want to lose visitors and alienate people, there's a bigger lesson: Really big companies doing something doesn't mean it's a good idea. Anybody been following how GM, Ford and Chrysler are doing these days?

I'll admit to a bias here: a majority of the features listed are ones that are on my 'pass' list. I'm a professional writer, and literally can't waste time while a popup ad or splash screen loads (or crashes). The same goes for filling out a registration form to get at (unknown) content.

Unless I know, positively, that there is information of extraordinarily high value behind the cybernetic chaff, I click to the next source on my list.

I may have missed some nifty-keen sites that way, but that's something I can live with.

Ergonomic Torture Assignment

"University Professor Assigns Students to Make Fully Operational Torture Devices"

The assignment urges students to "look at the dark side of ergonomics."

The project is sensitive to contemporary mores, though: the professor says to use recycled materials.

X-Box, the Executioner Model: Don't Try this at Home!

"Boy Nearly Killed Trying To Cool Xbox 360" tells about what happens when a teenager with near-lethal inventiveness matches wits with dunderheaded game device designers.

Or, maybe the manufacturer was a little too clever or incautious.

I don't generally blame manufacturers or designers when equipment is misused, but the X-Box 360 seems to have at least one design (or manufacture) flaw. To see what I mean, try the following search in Google - "Xbox 360" overheating - with those quotation marks.

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