Web Design Mistakes & Annoyances

These are a collection of design mistakes and annoyances that the regular visitor to your site will likely not appreciate you implementing into your website. These do not include the tricks and annoyances that search engines do not want to see.

Don't force me to take a cookie from you. Stop invading my computer.
Don't force me to scroll my web page from left to right
Please use graphic navigation that makes sense.
No pop ups or slide ins on page.
Make sure your site works in ALL current browsers.
Please let me contact you easily, how am I going to do any business if I can't communicate with you.
Stop using right click disable, if someone wants to take your site page or photos, they will.
When I am ready to check out on your shopping site, don't make me register, my credit card being processed is enough membership details.
Don't make your textual content hard to understand or read. Web designers need to write for people and not search engines. Fancy fonts and small fonts make it difficult to read your information. It is very annoying when text is spread across whole computer screen and/or font is too small too read.
Use sparingly ALL flash intros or any useless introduction page with nothing of importance on it.
Please update your site, Inaccurate and outdated information is frustrating.
Don't make me listen to uninvited and possibly annoying background music with no OFF control.
Make sure your site has an updated Sitemap page which is easy to find.

On the Fence Design Techniques

Here are a few ideas that some visitors like and some don't. Use your judgment on these, as some of these could also depend on the type of visitors you have visiting your website.

Flash and music on the web site. These have their place, likely most appropriate on multimedia company web sites or musicians and art type sites.
Opening new browser windows. If your visitor likes your site, they will come back. If you feel you must open pages with a new browser, use only ONE new browser window and send all pages to that ONE browser only.
Long pages or breaking pages up into short pages. I think the long pages are good for articles. The short, broken up pages could work as long as the navigation is setup properly.
CSS or tables. This is mainly a web designers choice as it does not affect usage of the site. It is more efficient to use CSS and XHTML, but both Tables and CSS can accomplish the same visual results.
Drop down navigation menus. These can be useful if you don't want to clutter your web pages. It's true, some visitors might not realize they are drop down menus and move on.