AddToDesign

Here‘s an eleven-year-old article discussing the web’s worst design mistakes. It’s an interesting look at what the internet was once like, particularly for designers that have been using the internet since the late 1990s and have had a chance to observe trends and ‘mistakes’ come and go. Another piece examines the most annoying design mistakes from 1996, and is also an interesting read for seasoned web designers.

While both pieces give us an interesting look at what design used to be, they’re also quite alarming: many of the ‘mistakes’ which were annoying in 1999 are still present today. We’re still hesitant to visit websites that incorporate ad-style design, still inundated with internet buzzwords, and we still see broken links and archived content almost everywhere.

We’ve found six web design trends – or ‘temporary mistakes’, if you prefer – which thankfully aren’t such a big deal nowadays. Some are relatively minor, only seen in outdated websites and pages that just haven’t been updated in years, while others are still visible online, albeit in smaller quantities than they once were.

1.    Interstitial Anything

While interstitial advertising remains a major annoyance for web users, it’s no longer as prevalent as it was five years ago. With pop-up blockers gaining popularity throughout the early 2000s, websites in need of quick revenue decided to turn to an even more annoying form of advertising: unblockable interstitial advertisements.

It’s not uncommon to see these advertisements, particularly on websites which are otherwise locked behind a paywall, but they’re growing less common by the day. Advertising budgets are increasing, giving many webmasters a less annoying option for monetizing their content. File this under ‘early web annoyances’ – interstitial advertisements, sign-up forms, and surveys were major hassles.

2.    Non-Standard Link Text

Every novice web designer has been guilty of this crime – after designing a new website, you opt to be ‘different’ and use an unusual color scheme for your link text. The standard blue links become green, clicked links become an indistinguishable black, and links to websites in your body content are all but invisible, unable to be differentiated without hovering the mouse cursor over them.

As with many design fads, non-standard link text has all but been eliminated online. Most bloggers and designers opt to use a content management system for their new websites, which gives a decent selection of standardized and usable link styles already. Cutting out more confusion, many browsers convert unique link styles back to the standard blue, underlined text for simple usability.

3.    Grunge Backgrounds

Wood textures, gravel, and wallpaper-style website backgrounds were all trademarks of grunge web design. Thankfully, most of them are rarely seen on major websites today, although a few lingering examples remain. Grunge design took off halfway through the last decade, and hit its peak three or four years ago, particularly on websites dedicated to ‘dark’ subject matter and urban art.

While grunge design isn’t exactly ugly, it certainly didn’t represent the pinnacle of online aesthetics or simple web usability. Tacky textures such as scotch tape and dog-eared pages were often seen on grunge-style websites – elements that now tend to show up in entry-level web design software. We aren’t fans of grunge web design and weren’t sad to see it go, but it certainly wasn’t the worst thing to hit the internet.

4.    Flash Everything

You’ve got to hand it to Dack.com – they knew how annoying Flash would become long before it became the go-to format for annoying, unstoppable, and utterly irritating online content. Published in September 1999, their ‘Flash is Evil‘ article covers every reason to hate Flash, and hits on almost every attribute leading to its decline as an element of effective web design.

From animated intros to headers, Flash was one of the internet’s most prevalent annoyances during the early 2000s. Amateur web designers and professionals used it almost universally – page intros, website content, and almost every other on-page element was coded in Flash alone. It’s now easily blocked and on certain platforms inaccessible, but for a while it was the most visible annoyance on the internet.

5.    Non-Modal Pop-Ups

Most pop-ups are rarely seen, thanks to the wonderful built-in pop-up blockers offered by Firefox and other browsers. But for many years pop-ups were a standard feature online, shown not only to force advertising on unsuspecting users, but to guide users through forms and display related web content.

What forced out legitimate pop-ups wasn’t just confusion with advertising, but a change in design standards. Most pop-ups are now of the modal variety – overlay boxes that are displayed within a single browser window, generally with the background content grayed and out of focus. Common uses of modal pop-ups include displaying images, completing site registration, and helping users to log into accounts and access private areas.

6.    Web 2.0 Design

It’s hard not to like Web 2.0 design – the corners are rounded, the backgrounds clean and tidy, and the page elements clearly separated and readable. When it comes to usability it’s a difficult style to fault, with most users comfortable navigating and interacting with Web 2.0 sites. But we’re just not big fans of it – while clean and tidy, it’s become a little too generic to be interesting.

It’s tempting to think that clean design, community features, and buzzwords are a fitting substitute for an interesting website, but they’re not. The ultra-clean and content devoid Web 2.0 site is close to becoming an online cliché – with thousands of virtually indistinguishable examples out there, a unique website with Web 2.0 styling is a rarity. Clean and tidy? Yes. Unique and interesting. Nope.

Got old sites? Share them with us in the comments:

It’s always great to see examples of old design trends, particularly from websites that were formerly considered design leaders and innovative outlets. If you’ve got a couple of old websites or outdated designs sitting in your bookmarks, make sure to share them in the comments.

Alternatively, if you know of any outdated design elements or temporary fads – blink tag, anyone? – leave them in the comments, preferably with a live example. Ten-year-old product sales pages and old corporate websites are all welcome, provided they’re packed with ugly design trends.