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| Home | > | Persuasive | > | What Bothers Me About Webpages |
What Bothers Me About Webpages
This assignment aimed to give us experience at opinion/editorial writing while giving us motivation to make our site better.
Three things really bother me about pages on the internet, in terms of content and design. Firstly, web pages are made for those who have normal eyesight. Designers often don't take into account viewers with less than perfect vision. Secondly, they are often too packed with information. Simplistic design seems to be a thing of the past, replaced by content overload. Breaking up the information or services available on the home page of a site would greatly improve the overall audience experience. Finally, “Site Under Construction” messages. Websites should be completed, then published to the web. Incomplete or inaccessible pages do not increase a viewer's desire to return to the site, and thus drives away potential customers.
On many websites, designers set up text size and layout with those who have no trouble seeing in mind. Because webmasters want their sites to look a certain way all the time, they intentionally or unintentionally limit browsers' ability to change the size of the displayed text because it would wreak havoc with their layout. I shouldn't have to squint to see the information on a website. With the technology available to me, such eye strain is unnecessary. Monitors already cause eye difficulties without needlessly small text included. I don't care how HTML designers fix it, but they should.
Both too much information and too little information on a site can cause problems with how a user's experience goes. Packing too much information onto the front page of a site bothers me because designers do not have a finite amount of pages on which they can place information. Putting relevant information on your home page is important, but it shouldn't create clutter. Organization is important, and it is something many web designers don't use to improve their sites. There's an optimal level for each site's organizational structure, but they seem to ignore it in order to give the audience more information faster. This can be good in some cases, but not when all a user wants is a single piece of information.
Finally, the “Site Under Construction” message. This has been a pet peeve of mine for several years. Web designers need to realize that even though their site is online but isn't ready, users can still find it using search engines. When an “Under Construction” message appears on a site, inviting me to “Come back soon”, I am inclined never to return. I need the information now. Not a week from now when you finally finish the content for the page. I'm not going to need the information next week, so I'm not coming back. That's just the way it is. Either publish the site after all the content is finished, or don't publish the site. It's that simple.
This assignment aimed to give us experience at opinion/editorial writing while giving us motivation to make our site better.
Three things really bother me about pages on the internet, in terms of content and design. Firstly, web pages are made for those who have normal eyesight. Designers often don't take into account viewers with less than perfect vision. Secondly, they are often too packed with information. Simplistic design seems to be a thing of the past, replaced by content overload. Breaking up the information or services available on the home page of a site would greatly improve the overall audience experience. Finally, “Site Under Construction” messages. Websites should be completed, then published to the web. Incomplete or inaccessible pages do not increase a viewer's desire to return to the site, and thus drives away potential customers.
On many websites, designers set up text size and layout with those who have no trouble seeing in mind. Because webmasters want their sites to look a certain way all the time, they intentionally or unintentionally limit browsers' ability to change the size of the displayed text because it would wreak havoc with their layout. I shouldn't have to squint to see the information on a website. With the technology available to me, such eye strain is unnecessary. Monitors already cause eye difficulties without needlessly small text included. I don't care how HTML designers fix it, but they should.
Both too much information and too little information on a site can cause problems with how a user's experience goes. Packing too much information onto the front page of a site bothers me because designers do not have a finite amount of pages on which they can place information. Putting relevant information on your home page is important, but it shouldn't create clutter. Organization is important, and it is something many web designers don't use to improve their sites. There's an optimal level for each site's organizational structure, but they seem to ignore it in order to give the audience more information faster. This can be good in some cases, but not when all a user wants is a single piece of information.
Finally, the “Site Under Construction” message. This has been a pet peeve of mine for several years. Web designers need to realize that even though their site is online but isn't ready, users can still find it using search engines. When an “Under Construction” message appears on a site, inviting me to “Come back soon”, I am inclined never to return. I need the information now. Not a week from now when you finally finish the content for the page. I'm not going to need the information next week, so I'm not coming back. That's just the way it is. Either publish the site after all the content is finished, or don't publish the site. It's that simple.
