Freedom is a tricky thing.

Users have a habit of finding a way to use your website in a way you never intended, especially if you’ve got a custom web application that they can interact with. Today I had to go back and “fix” something that technically wasn’t broken. I had accounted for every possible outcome and user interaction, I had tested and re-tested the application and fixed all the bugs in my code. Or so I thought.

Nevertheless, a surprising percentage of users were doing things that they weren’t supposed to be doing. Didn’t they know how to use the thing I wrote? It’s so obvious how to use it; I made it very simple and self-explanatory. Yet the results told a different story. The output showed that they still had too much freedom.

I know that sounds bad. I’m an American, and I love my freedom. In a user interface, however, there’s no place for true freedom. You can only give the user the illusion of freedom, because there’s only a set number of outcomes or actions that you want to allow. That’s the nature of it; your software is written with these set goals in mind, and you need to eliminate all other possibilities.

You need to put the users on rails, and then you need to put fences around the tracks.

Sometimes you, as the developer, cannot think of all the possible interactions a user might attempt. After testing (and retesting) your application, the only way to find those other possibilities is to expose it to more users. This might mean testing it privately with a group of beta testers or, if you’re really brave (or impatient), releasing it to the world as a public beta.

I know, writing all those if – then statements gets to be a pain. They get nested deeper and deeper as you account for more and more undesired conditions. Ultimately it’s necessary if you want your application to produce the results you desire, because users are unruly. Make them feel wanted, but keep them on track.

Web design, like any form of design, is always changing. Trends come and go, some of them were great, some of them were just plain bad. Sometimes the good ones stick, but what’s stranger is that sometimes the bad ones hang on for a looooong time. Sometimes they’re not inherently bad but, just like atomic energy and gunpowder, humans find ways to misuse them. If you had a funeral for the following seven trends, I don’t think anybody would show up.

1. Popups

Now you’re probably thinking, “Wait, I never thought that popups were awesome! What gives?” Well, enough webmasters (hey, remember that word?) thought they were awesome that it spawned an entire industry of developers to create software to block the stupid things.

Why They Suck

Nothing is more frustrating for a user than to remove control from them. Popups take over the user’s browser, giving them stuff they never asked to see. Worse yet are the “chain reaction” ones, where closing one opens another, and another. It makes me want to put a brick through my screen.

Is It Dead Yet?

Sadly enough, no. Lots of sites still use them to show ads that support their free services. Does anyone even click those ads anymore? I know, they have to support their service somehow, but does it have to be in such an annoying way?

So What’s the Alternative?

You’ve probably seen them before: they are often called modal windows. One of the most famous and nicest ones is Shadowbox.js. It’s a good way to draw the user’s attention to something you want them to see before they move on, and you do it without taking over their browser. It’s part of the web page, so they’ve still got a lot of control. Shadowbox.js even gives you several ways to close it, including the “escape” key, which is pretty intuitive. You wouldn’t want to put third-party ads in there, but it’s a good way to highlight a special offer you’ve got, without being too intrusive.

2. Marquees

Ah, scrolling text. What a great way to draw the reader’s attention to what I have to say! It’s moving, which means it will draw the reader’s eye to it. That’s excellent, because design is all about guiding the viewer’s eye, right?

Why They Suck

Because design isn’t all about guiding the viewer’s eye. It’s also about function, and in the case of web design it’s also about interaction and usability. Marquees usually started scrolling across the page the moment you loaded it, which means that in the first couple seconds that you’re scanning the page to get your bearings, part of the text has already gone by. You missed it, and now it’s scrolling too fast for you to read it. You can already feel yourself not caring.

But the thing keeps moving, keeps drawing your eye to it. It’s not clever, it’s distracting. Now you don’t care about the entire site. They’re bugging you with this cheap-looking trick and all you want to do is make it stop.

Is It Dead Yet?

Pretty much, thank God. Most designers have realized that not everybody reads at the same speed, and not everybody wants to watch text scrolling by three or four times just to get the whole message, which they probably don’t care about anyway. I swear, I have never seen a piece of scrolling text that contained something I cared about.

So What’s the Alternative?

Look at your mouse. It probably has a scroll wheel on it. Now you don’t have to do anything; just let the user control the experience. It’s a much better way to present your content. If it’s something special that you want them to see, make it a heading or something. A good designer can come up with lots of ways to accent something without being obnoxious.

3. Animated GIFs

Now we’re getting to the good stuff. Just like marquees, animated GIFs get used to grab attention. These things were everywhere in the early days of the internet, probably because of the novelty of having animation right next to text. It’s multimedia! They were used for logos, links (remember the animated email links?), and even page backgrounds. My poor, abused, retinas.

Why They Suck

First of all, for one of the same reasons that marquees suck: they’re distracting in a bad way. If I want my brain assaulted by endless movement, I’ll go drive my car or watch a music video. Also, why would you ever use animation in your corporate logo? Can you reproduce that on a business card? Of course not. We don’t live in Minority Report. Keep that logo static.

Is It Dead Yet?

For logos, yeah pretty much. I haven’t seen one of those in a long time. Despite all of its misuse, the animated GIF can still be used for good in the hands of a talented designer, so it’s not necessarily bad that it’s still alive and well. It’s still valuable for creating “loading” icons and advertisements (which are prone to their own special kind of obnoxiousness). Also it makes for some hilarious animations in forum avatars.

So What’s the Alternative?

Most things on the page should be static. Animations should normally only occur when a user interacts with the page, such as a rollover or a click. Again, this goes back to letting the user control the experience. This does depend on context, of course, and on the skill of the designer, but simple rollovers are easy with CSS and more complex actions can occur when using a JavaScript library like jQuery. Just remember, use your powers for good.

4. Frames

Wow! I can totally show more than one page in the same browser window! That’s so incredibly useful! I can make one part of it a menu, and the other part can be the content. Then I don’t have to reproduce the menu on every page! Frames were found everywhere on the internet, back in the day. I even used ‘em a little bit. That was a long, long time ago.

Why They Suck

You can’t predict what size your visitor’s browser will be. Websites that used frames were notorious for having content falling outside the borders of the frame. This usually meant a scroll bar would appear, thus screwing up the design. (Not that people who used frames ever cared about the quality of their design.) Worse yet, if they decided to prohibit the scroll bar from appearing, you’d never get to that content without some trickery. Making your users perform tricks to see your content is a guaranteed way to make them leave without seeing that content.

Want more reasons? Okay, how about having no communication between the different frames? They’re different pages so one frame doesn’t know what the other is doing. That and, depending on which frame you’re in, refreshing the “page” won’t refresh all the frames.

Is It Dead Yet?

Sort of. Thankfully we don’t see it much on the front end of websites anymore. I have been seeing it appear on the back end of some websites, and sometimes it’s done acceptably. I still run into the refresh problem in something like phpMyAdmin, where the menu won’t reload because it’s in the other frame, leaving me wondering why my changes aren’t showing up. It’s absolutely excellent software for working with databases, but that frame set thing is kind of annoying.

So What’s the Alternative?

You want to use just one file for navigation across your site? Put the menu by itself in a separate file and use a PHP include, or a similar server-side include, to stick it in every page. Want a section of the content to change on the page? Use AJAX. AJAX actually gives you a lot more freedom and control over the size and shape of dynamic page elements than frames ever could.

5. Flash Intros

Dude, Flash intros are awesome. When a person shows up at your site, you can really wow them with a fancy animation. That’ll really show them how cool you are, and how skillful.

Why They Suck

What’s the first thing you look for when you see a Flash intro? That’s right, the “skip intro” button. Why is that? It’s the same reason you close popups and hit the mute button when the commercials come on: you just want to get to the content. You don’t want to sit through what is essentially a commercial, of unknown length, to get to the stuff that you actually came to the site to see.

So you click the “skip intro” button, unless they didn’t put one there, which means you probably leave their silly site. In either case, this means that the Flash intro never gets seen, which renders it completely pointless. Congratulations, you’ve wasted money paying that designer to make the thing.

Is It Dead Yet?

Again, mostly. I don’t see them very often anymore. They used to be all the rage, until people realized that they do absolutely nothing for your users.

So What’s the Alternative?

If you must have some animation on your page, I’d suggest a large banner as part (part) of your home page. You can use it to highlight a special deal, or particular services that you offer. It’s like a big advertisement for you. Just keep it simple and clean and it won’t turn people off. Surround it with more content that people care about and return control to the user.

6. Auto-Playing Music (and Video)

There’s a whole bunch of ways to play music on a website. And your music is so great that everyone will love hearing it as soon as the page loads. You can use it to transform the website from a boring two-dimensional page into a multi-sensory experience!

Why It Sucks

You don’t know where I am, how loud my volume is turned up, what else I might be listening to, or even what sort of music I like. So I could be pleasantly surprised, or I could be startled into a heart attack when some kind of strange noise comes blasting out of my speakers because I was listening to this other song and it was really quiet because nobody seems to know how to follow standards for volumes and now your crap is clashing with it and I’m really, really upset with you now.

All I want to do is find the pause button, or the mute button, or just close the site entirely if you weren’t courteous enough to include either of those. So you see, we’re back to the issue of control again.

Is It Dead Yet?

No. In fact, some people tried to kill it, but it got all undead and mutated and now it’s doing video too. Lately I’ve even been seeing auto-playing video ads on some pages that have a pause button and a mute button displayed but neither of them actually work. You can keep on clicking, but it won’t shut up.

So What’s the Alternative?

Right now, if you have anything, anything with noise that auto-plays, kill it with fire. Get that crap off your site and start over. Yes, even if your site is for your band. Even if people coming to your site have a reasonable expectation of hearing music there, let them control when it plays and how loud it plays. Same with video. If you really really want a video to start playing right away, those YouTube ads on the home page are a great example of how to do it right. You can see the video playing, but you get to decide when it makes noise.

The ideal way to do video is just like YouTube as well. You can see a still preview and a play button. This puts the user right back where they want to be: in control. Might I recommend the fine JW Player from LongTail Video?

7. Shiny Plastic Buttons

Yeah, I said it. This crap was everywhere. Still is. Heck, I’ve even used it on several occasions. Of course, I did it well, not to excess like those other guys. Right.

“But Matt,” you say, “shiny plastic stuff isn’t terrible!” Well, this is one of those “atomic energy” things I mentioned in the opening paragraph.

Why It Sucks

It doesn’t suck all by itself, it sucks because it’s been done to death. This is what happens when an innovator does something so cool and new that everybody and they momma has to copy it. Lots of them got so excited by it and they weren’t really sure how to use it, so they covered their site with it. There was some overlap between those people and the people who picked up on the “Web 2.0″ buzzword, so shiny plastic became “Web 2.0″. Yeah, thanks for that.

Is It Dead Yet?

Of course not. And it shouldn’t die. It’s a valid design technique and, when used properly and in moderation, can be really stylish. A toolbox has more than just a hammer in it. I’m happy to see that the initial frenzy has subsided and we’ve all gone back to our regularly scheduled programs.

So What’s the Alternative?

Creativity. Innovation. Sure it’s tougher than following the trends, but being different is what gets attention. When you see a list of what next year’s big trends are supposedly going to be, try thinking about avoiding those entirely. You’ll stand out from the crowd. Who knows, maybe you’ll make something awesome, and then everyone will copy it.

And then I’ll have a whole new trend to complain about next year. Won’t that be great?

Yep, they’re still at it. And they’re still not paying any attention to who they send their crap to.

I just received yet another friendly reminder from the Domain Registry of America (http://www.droa.com/) that a couple of my domains will be expiring soon. In fact, it’s a “Domain Name Expiration Notice“. It says so in big, bold letters right on top. How very official.

Then they go on to tell me a bunch of stuff I already know about domain names, because they don’t bother to check who I am or to discover that I help run a business that registers domain names on a regular basis. And, might I add, for less than they charge.

I’ve been getting these letters for years, and they always try very hard to look like a bill. Of course, they say that it’s not a bill. Well, they do now, probably because they were ordered to specify this by the Federal Trade Commission (or you can check out the FTC’s original PDF document). So, that’s not a good sign.

I decided, what the heck, let’s check out their website. I’m a web designer and developer, so I feel pretty justified in saying right off the bat that their site kind of looks like crap. Their “Tech Tips” caught my eye, so I thought, “Let’s see what sort of tips a disreputable business can offer.”

As I suspected, these aren’t really tips but instead are “frequently asked questions” that almost certainly are not frequently asked. They’re all pretty self-serving. Then there’s the questions that I’d actually want to know the answers to, such as “Where did I register my Domain Name before?” That’s pretty important, considering they’re trying to trick you into transferring your registration to them. Of course, they don’t actually answer this question, at least not how you’d expect:

Prior to 2001 all persons or companies wanting to register a domain name had to register their domain with a company based in the United States. Now with deregulation, all persons wishing to register or transfer and renew a domain name can do so with the registrar of their choice. Deregulation has benefited the consumer by providing lower costs and better service.

No, see, I wanted you to tell me how you were getting me to transfer my domain registration to your company by making your letter look like an official bill. Or perhaps how to figure out which registrar I’m currently with. I don’t care about what country you’re in. Way to dodge the question. Oh, and they don’t offer lower costs or better service. For example, their “Tech Tips” tell you that “Refunds for uncompleted transfer and renewals are refundable less a 10% fee.” So even if they screw up the transfer, I guess they still get to keep some of your money. How nice for them.

Also, why is it that when I click a link in the Tech Tips index, it doesn’t take me directly to that so-called tip? Everything just goes to the top of the page. The links have anchors appended onto them, but they don’t work. That’s either intentional or just plain negligent. It’s called testing, people. You test the things that you create to ensure that they function as planned.

The bottom line here is, these guys are still around, and they’re still trying to trick you into giving them your money. There’s plenty of information about their shady ways available online. Go ahead, just do a Google search for “domain registry of america”. It’s a pretty bad sign that 8 out of the first 10 results for their company’s name relate to the scams they’ve pulled on unsuspecting domain owners.

To sum up, not only is their website poorly designed and poorly developed, the Domain Registry of America has a long history of shady and misleading business and marketing practices. So that’s like, a triple fail or something. Avoid these guys like the plague. Just throw out that envelope. No need to open it.