[attrition] What users hate most about Web sites

[security curmudgeon]

This was too good not to pass up..

: What users hate most about Web sites
: Too many sites are low on usability and high on annoyance
: 
: http://ww6.infoworld.com/products/print_friendly.jsp?link=/article/06/06/14/79274_HNhateaboutwebsites_1.html

Many users hate long URLs. Even sites that manage hundreds of thousands of 
pages can use a system that doesn't rely on 300 character URLs that wrap 
across the screen several times. Not all mail readers will make them 
pretty clickable links, not all mail readers will do it right.

: The top five Web site quirks that users hate the most, according to iFocus 
: are:
: 
: [..]

6. Web Forms as the only means of contact. While they are convenient for 
the company, what happens when a form is broken or requires information I 
don't have? Worse, what happens when I have to put in some number and 
don't know the format to put in all 0's just to submit my question? Always 
provide an e-mail address for secondary contact.

7. The web is not special, follow the RFCs. E-mail addresses are allowed 
to have a + sign in them. Rejecting my e-mail address as 'invalid' shows 
your company isn't near as hip as they think they are. Its hows you hire 
sub par web designers. http://attrition.org/misc/no_plus.html

8. Automated systems to 'help' the users, often aren't helpful. Just today 
I found myself having to "ask Hank" questions to get information about the 
Coke Rewards web site. My first question of "how do i contact the 
webmaster" couldn't be answered. CAPTCHA systems that are impossible to 
read stop spam *and* users. Don't just design the site, use it first.
http://attrition.org/news/content/06-06-13.001.html

9. Test your site in multiple browsers! Sites that only work in Microsoft 
IE are a joke, and the sign of inferior web programming.

: Another problem is site blindness. "We are now seeing right-column 
: blindness, where users do not see information and links down the right 
: hand side of the screen. This occurs because the right hand column has 
: become known for advertising," Cunnington said.

Perhaps so, but if you read into the philosophy of web design, aesthetics 
and human nature, that is apparently where a person naturally looks for 
such controls. Because so many web designers got hooked on left side 
control design, it propogated and became the problem we see today. Is it 
right to scold designers that opt to use the right? I don't think it is. 
As long as the controls are easily distinguished from advertisements, this 
shouldn't be an issue.