why do retail sites still do this?

[lauralh]

design annoyances

1) Popup windows
2) resizing the main window
3) popup windows that you can't resize
4) flash that needs to "load" before you can navigate the page
5) animation that replays every time you go to the site

and finally I get super-annoyed with 100% flash sites, so you can't link to a product itself.

edit: why the fuck did everyone comment on this and not alien abductions?

Comments

[skipbreakfast.livejournal.com]

I agree with all that.

[jimbojones.livejournal.com]

Don't say this to any flash developers. They'll spend the rest of the time you know them explaining why you, as a person who uses web sites, know nothing about the usability of web sites. Whereas they, as a developer of web sites, know everything about the usability of web sites.

Yes, there is a conceptual disconnect there. But I strongly advise you not to hold your breath until you get a flash developer to acknowledge its existence.

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

there's a couple on my friendslist, we'll see what they say.

[jimbojones.livejournal.com]

To be a little more specific:

To most web developers, and flash developers in particular, the ability to control precisely what the user sees is the most important thing in the world. MORE important than whether the user actually WANTS to see it or not. So they will cheerfully make decisions left and right that negatively impact usability if they more tightly control presentation.

In the developer's mind, if they spawn a popup of precisely X by Y dimensions, they know that they can size their content to precisely X by Y dimensions and never have to worry about elements wrapping funny, or about suboptimal antialiasing in dynamically resized elements. The fact that a user might cheerfully and knowingly make the decision to resize an element in a way that produces suboptimal antialiasing in order to address some other need or preference is unimportant to the developer.

Making it even simpler yet: web developers will spend any amount of effort necessary to try to reduce a computer into a TV set.

[skipbreakfast.livejournal.com]

You don't need Flash to have content management and control.

[jimbojones.livejournal.com]

Depends on whether you're developing for IE or Firefox. IE will let a developer deny the user access to controls, FF won't - especially if the user has specifically reconfigured FF to disallow invasive changes.

But if you design everything in a Flash object, even in FF the only thing you can do outside the dev's explicit design is resize the entire object.

[skipbreakfast.livejournal.com]

Are you saying it's a security risk?

[jimbojones.livejournal.com]

Am I saying what is a security risk...?

[skipbreakfast.livejournal.com]

FF users being able to play with stuff?

[jimbojones.livejournal.com]

Good god no, it's the other way around. The ability of a web *developer* to deny control to a web *user* is a security risk.

[toastednut.livejournal.com]

flash dev != ui designer.

[kamakhai.livejournal.com]

I don't know that I'd say mostdevelopers.. just the ones who don't who don't understand the nature of web media. Based on the overall rising quality of sites in the past couple of years, I think the people who get it are in a growing majority. There are obviously still lots of the kinds of mistakes Laural pointed out above, but I think it's mostly the work of the sort of people who think a pirated copy of Dreamweaver qualifies them for professional web development.

[kirinqueen.livejournal.com]

Iawtc, and so does hober, I'll wager.

[jimbojones.livejournal.com]

I dunno about that. There are a lot of HIGHLY paid, heavily experienced developers with this mentality. Look at, for example, most automotive manufacturers' websites. Daimler-Chrysler and Volkswagen aren't hiring "some hack with a pirated copy of Dreamweaver."

[kamakhai.livejournal.com]

If you're talking strictly about overblown promotional flash sites, then yes, standard logic is chucked out because they're trying to make an interactive commercial... that's what the companies want. However, I think the majority of developers value simplicity and usability above crazy navigation interfaces. The ones that don't tend to be inexperienced or fundamentally clueless.

[jimbojones.livejournal.com]

I think you and I agree completely about what is valuable in web design, we just disagree about how many professional developers are on the same page with us. =)

[mcsnee.livejournal.com]

However, I think the majority of developers ... tend to be ... fundamentally clueless.

I agree.

[endquote.livejournal.com]

Since you use Firefox, you can set options to disable the first two (and I bet the third one is in about:config someplace).

As for Flash, it's just easier to make unusable Flash sites than it is to make usable ones, and most Flash devs and designers suck.

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

yeah i never get popups, i'm referring to sites that require popups to navigate though.

[tyrven.livejournal.com]

Totally.

[tyrven.livejournal.com]

Word.

And as an aside, it's totally possible to make book-mark-able flash sites, but most flash developers aren't interested in either usability or accessibility.