Issue #8

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Things which make me wish Y2K bugs had actually crashed the Internet

Here is a list of things which irritate web surfers.  I'm not going to list programming errors like broken links and slow loading websites.  This is just a list of common sense design stuff.  If your site has any of these, you may be better off not even having a site.

1- Music. Any sort of music. I know, you’re wondering, "Doesn't everyone like Yanni?". Well, even if that were true, the viewer doesn’t like it when he’s busy looking for products or information.

2- Cute bouncy animations like a smiling mailbox opening and shutting.

3- Background colors that make the text hard to read.

4- Too many ads (especially if they're overly flashy).

5- Long flash intros. Yes, some are really great, but those usually belong to Fortune 500 companies. For the average Joe selling life insurance, people want information, not entertainment.

6- Continue or Submit buttons which don’t show on the page without scrolling down to find them.

7- Typos and syntax errors. That why I pay big bucks to have my cousin Judy check over all these newsletters before they go out (actually, she does it gratis, but I feel better knowing I got an expensive thing for free).