What do you find annoying about websites?

[JackFrost]

Whats something you dont like on sites, or just find annoying? For me its sites without a link page, cause that means i cant find more cool sites to bookmark.

[Còbra!]

When I explore a web ring, and the next page doesn't have the widget so I can't continue. (Yesterweb+ fixes this for their web ring, but there's nothing for the others)

[1337nightbug]

sites with awful contrast between the text and the bg (like those pastel "aesthetic" sites that are/were a thing), making it so that i have to highlight all the text or put on dark reader so i can read things comfortably i understand the creative decision if its for an aesthetic or specific vibe, but if the site is text heavy then at least some consideration should go into if things can be read comfortably without having to highlight text or use an extension...

[Cele]

When I explore a web ring, and the next page doesn't have the widget so I can't continue. (Yesterweb+ fixes this for their web ring, but there's nothing for the others)

Also if the next website is broken so you can't continue

It's annoying if the menu is difficult to find (maybe it doesn't exist?) and then if you click on the menu to go to a different section, the menu disappears so you need to return to the front page with the browser's back button to browse the other links.

[Memory]

 

Also if the next website is broken so you can't continue

It's annoying if the menu is difficult to find (maybe it doesn't exist?) and then if you click on the menu to go to a different section, the menu disappears so you need to return to the front page with the browser's back button to browse the other links.

I AGREE i hate this too! XO

[Memory]

when the webpage is too unoptimized and just has a buncha unnecessary garbage on it. rly grinds my gears when smth just causes my computer's fans to go mental

[brisray]

All sorts of things are niggly to me. Some have been already been mentioned

Navigtion that is difficult to use.

Broken webrings - around 2/3 of them end up in a broken link.

Links to other sites that end up trapped in the original site's iframe.

Low contrast between the text and the background.

Parallax Scrolling - They all end up with some massive images, a long wait time to load, some headlines, and nothing of interest. Creative Bloq's "18 beautiful parallax scrolling websites" are all either broken or look crap. The article was only published in April and they may as well have just pointed to W3Schools example page.

[brisray]

Also whatever this is.

[Semper]

I'm really not a fan of moving backgrounds. In particular the ones that glide from the lower left corner to the upper right corner and vice versa. They're usually that checkered pattern that I've seen a few personal sites on neocities use. I close the tab immediately when I'm faced with a background that moves, especially if webmaster has placed a block of text right in the middle of it, doubly so if they don't even allow for a browser reader option. It activates my motion sickness something bad, and in some cases actually leaves me laid out for a few hours as my eyes and brain recover.

[Capybara]

- Text too big or too small and having to zoom in (or out) to read it
- I can forgive not being mobile responsive, but if a site isn't viewable even when I put my phone in desktop mode I just exit out entirely.
- Autoplay BGM with no way to pause (80% a thing of the past but I've run into it on new sites a few times)
- Random sound effects when clicking, HUGE misophonia trigger 
- No email or non-social media contact info

[Memory]

for me, the number one annoyance is definitely moving backgrounds, like @Semper  - they make me super motion sick! twinkling stars and other types of flashing or something are okay, but scrolling repeating designs like they described make me feel like i'm gonna throw up. not to as extreme a degree (i don't need time to recover) but it still isn't fun.

i get a little annoyed when i get excited to check out a page someone has on their site... but they haven't finished it yet so the link doesn't work or there's not much to look at! but i do that myself, so it's not like it's something i think people should stop doing or anything

on the web in general, i hate the recentish professionalweb trend of super wide super low-content websites? i don't know how to describe it exactly, the ones where it's just a series of maximum-width boxes, each with one big photo and/or one or two sentences in a massive font. usually they have some fadein/fadeout animations when you scroll down. i think it's a squarespace or wix template or something. they look very polished, but they're so annoying to actually go to! you have to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the long page through a bunch of useless slogans to find links to anything useful, which are usually all as small as possible to boot. the massive text makes it feel way too loud!

[brisray]

super wide super low-content websites

There's more of those appearing than ever.

The web landscape is changing. Google has been doing things to how their search engine works. There were updates in 2022, 2023 and another update in March this year. SEO specialists have been constantly moaning about them. Personally, I think building a business wholly dependent on what another company, which you have absolutely no control over, does might not have been the best business plan.

Something else that have started appearing are page wide banner ads taking up half the length of the page. Those things were crap in the 1990s and are just as nasty now.

[Sailor_Fabulous]

The super-wide low content ones annoy me too! But not just in the shiny new way, or even just low content.

My main gripe is sites that are: full width, too small, or way too justified to one side of the screen or the other. I acknowledge that some part is played by screen width, but I just can't stand opening a page and seeing the text go all the way from the left of the screen to the right when I'm on my laptop or desktop. Obviously fine (and probably preferred) on mobile.

On the opposite of that, I find a lot of old websites (and new ones imitating those) are really really small, right in the middle screen or all the way on one side of the screen and barely taking up half of it. It's just really hard to read and engage with, and probably not great for my eyes or my neck when I have to twist to one side or else de-centre myself. Of course I usually just zoom in if I really want to see the the content of the site, but most of the time I just won't bother.

I also hate when there's a crinkly paper-type texture background and really thin font for the text on it, it's so hard to read!

Lastly I'm not a fan of primarily text-based sites (often linked with those other issues), but I acknowledge that some people are into that, I'm just not likely to stick around.

When these things are on personal websites it's not a big deal because the site is for them, not me, and I can just go elsewhere, but when it's a site where someone is trying to share something and actively wants people to read and engage, I find it really frustrating!

[xwindows]

• "Please enable JavaScript to view this site."
• "Just a moment... verifying your browser."
• Villain image (called "hero image" by their proponents) so 4K-large that my browser crashes
• Auto-playing music/video (foreground or background do not matter)
• Pop-ups and lightboxes
• Futuristic encrypt-against-choice
• WebP images (as neither my browser nor any of image viewers on my dated setup could display them)

[Corrupted Unicorn]

Small Net thing that grinds my gears:

When you get a warning on the splash page that "the website might contain mature themes and blood and gore" and it's referring to ONE piece of vent art with a little red scrape the author did 5 years ago and it's tucked away on their art gallery.

If you're announcing THAT on the splash page, I expect, I dunno, PNGs of organs right on the front page because you discuss horror movies, or you're running a creepypasta directory, or are overall into edgy stuff and your site is heavily themed around that - not a billion glittery gifs of dancing FIM ponies 

If your site has content that warrants a warning but it's NOT a big part of your website overall, put that warning where the problematic content is! Not on the splash page! That's misinformation, dude!    Blur that vent art and say you can see it in full if you click on it!

Your splash page is your porch, your front door - it's there to give the visitor a good idea of what your site is gonna be about. Don't make it look like a haunted house or a criminal investigation when it's party pop jamboree inside