Your pet peeves about the Web

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Your pet peeves about the Web

By Richard Morochove

First published September 23, 1999

I'm not the only one who is annoyed by certain Web sites. The column a couple of weeks ago about my pet peeves about the World Wide Web hit a nerve. I received a record number of e-mail responses.

According to D. Schreiber, "Asking about pet peeves is like opening a conversation with 'Man, there are some crazy drivers out there, aren't there?'"

Here's a sampling from my mailbox of what you don't like about the Web.

Ivan Smith writes, "The only really bothersome problem you did not mention is large websites that are really tough to find your way around in. The websites operated by the CRTC, the CBC and the federal government are prime examples of really difficult sites to find anything, even if it is in there somewhere."

Joe Pay also wishes more Web sites made it easier to find information. Referring to a game site, he says, "I couldn't find a link to a search engine anywhere. Only after following through several useless pages did I finally manage to get the driver I needed."

Even when you use a search engine, you don't always get what you want.

According to Deborah McWilliams, "Increasingly, I am getting links to pornographic sites. These links often appear when I look for research material. For example, I can request information on "digestibility" and, in the results, are numerous pornographic sites. Why would the "Hot Mamas!" site be returned in a search for material on digestibility?"

Daniel Orner's pet peeve ticked off other readers. He dislikes, "People who stick annoying background music on their sites and leave no way to turn it off."

Web sites can be great communications tools, but the information shouldn't flow just one way.

Patrick Carroll says, "Another beef I have is with so-called web site managers who never seem to respond to e-mails complaining about problems with their sites. I have sent enough e-mails to these gurus and have yet to receive a reply from any of them."

Then there's the issue of funky Web page design.

According to Peter Shore, "It's rare that I come across a website that has been improved by the addition of background to the text. Up comes some smartypants patterned background and I can barely see the characters. Don't these boneheads look at their own sites? Yuk!"

Some took issue with my peeves.

Chris Trubela says, "Splash pages are not useless pieces of fluff that stand between you and the useful information. You obviously are an absolute Luddite when it comes to technology and design."

When I visited Trubela's site I was greeted with, you guessed it, a splash page. Clicking on the one link available led to a long download of what appeared to be a Java presentation. I clicked off.

What proved most controversial is my distaste for information on Web sites that's provided only in Adobe's PDF (portable document format). A PDF file can't be read using a standard browser. It requires special reader software.

Almost everyone had an opinion on PDF files. Webmasters defended their use of PDF, while several Web surfers shared my dislike.

The PDF defenders like the way this format maintains the look of a print document and makes it easy to print out large documents when you're offline.

Troy Stenback says, "The graphic design and elements in a document may be integral to the document. Let's say the design is no longer concurrent with your website. You are faced with trying to integrate two totally separate designs together. Sure you can pull out just the information, but clients spend a lot of time developing these printed documents and many want to maintain the design when it goes to the web."

I feel too many webmasters are overly concerned with maintaining the look of a paper document even when it's online. Just because it's called a Web page, doesn't mean you should treat it as you would a page of paper. It's a different medium.

Suppose you want to display a print advertisement as accurately as possible on television. Can you imagine the camera panning and scanning the document to provide an experience analogous to reading the paper ad?

A TV commercial that completely ignored the capabilities of the electronic medium in this manner would be amusingly bad. I feel the same way about print documents displayed using PDF on the Web.

I'll leave the last word to Bill Garland. "I'd say that PDFs are annoying for on-screen web-based information and should be avoided. For documents to be read off-line, it is a clear winner." CW

Richard Morochove, FCA, is a Toronto-based computer consultant.

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