By Dr. Philip Baczewski, Associate Director of Academic Computing

Those Annoying Web Pages

I'm all for the World Wide Web. I have to admit to being nostalgic for Gopher now and then, but the World Wide Web has made the Internet what it is today (those of you who are new to the Internet may want to find an encyclopedic dictionary of the Internet to learn what the heck an Internet Gopher was). As great as Web pages are, I just can't get around the fact that some are downright annoying. I work to promote the idea of the Internet as a useful tool, and I'm far from turning into an Internet curmudgeon, but lately I've seen several trends in Web page design and implementation that have turned into pet peeves. Maybe it's the heat; maybe some of my son's two-year old impatience is rubbing off on me (I have no idea where he gets that from); maybe the fact that I've been using the Internet since before it was the Internet has long dulled any gee-whiz factor. The fact remains: some Web pages are annoying.

What follows are some annoying Web page traits. These come with real examples to try at home (where slow really is slow). I don't mean to pick on any of the pages featured; many are produced by fine people at excellent organizations. They just happen to be the most recent examples I've found that illustrate my point. Since it has been statistically proven that 99.8 percent of people who use a computer will author a Web page at some time in their life, this information is presented as a public service so that you too do not annoy innocent people on the Internet. Gee, I'm starting to feel better already (it really must be the heat).

Everything's a Graphic

For those who have forgotten: HTML stands for HyperTEXT markup Language. Text is that combination of funny symbols that are strung together to represent human languages, similar to what you are interpreting right now. Text has an amazing ability to communicate information in a very efficient manner. Some might say that text -- in other words, written language -- is the foundation of advanced intellect and knowledge. Text is compact, easily represented by computers, and very quickly transmitted over the Internet. So, why do we have to be subjected to Web pages where everything on it is a picture?

Www.mcp.com is a good example. This is the Macmillan publishing group's home page. Now, as my resume can attest, I've had the opportunity to work with some fine folks at Macmillan, but a recent visit to their home page was an exercise in World Wide Wait. First, paint the background brown, then draw the background graphic, then load various bookish graphic images, then load button graphics that, by the way, have text on them. What was to be a brief check for information, turned into a grueling test of Internet bandwidth (the thing that determines how "fast" your Internet connection is). Admittedly they do some fancy Java script to have highlighted menus which pop up a short description of the linked destination, but in some ways that makes matters worse, since it slows down the process even more.

Some pictures might be worth a thousand words, but a picture that says "Info" is still worth one word. Web pages which feature the skillful combination of text and pictures will load fast and provide you with quick and efficient access to the information you seek. That's what this Internet thing is all about: access to information. Please don't dazzle me with your artistry (pages actually intended as art, excepted). Please don't force me to comply with your visual style. I just want the information.

Perhaps I've got a bit of philosophic undercurrent running here as well. It seems that we've spent at least several thousand years developing written language to the point it is today. The invention of the printing press ultimately lead to new methods of learning, since knowledge no longer needed to be primarily stored and transmitted as oral tradition. It may be that we are experiencing a similar change, with the expansion of electronic information. Will that change be a step forward or backward? If we rely on pictures as the primary way to convey information, are we really making intelligent use of electronic information? (This is your cue to say, "Hmmm.")

Where can we fit that Kitchen sink?

The World Wide Web has been transformed from a hypertext tool with support for some graphic images to a multimedia experience. Web pages can now have movies, sound clips, presentation graphics, virtual reality photos, three-dimensional animations, fancy interactive menus, just to name a few, and the list goes on. Just because these things are possible, doesn't mean you have to use them all on one Web page.

I think that because I use a Macintosh which has particularly good support for sound and music, I tend to feel ambushed by Web pages with extensive sound offerings. Recently, I was looking for a MattelŽ toys home page, and got the bright idea that the BarbieŽ home page might have a link back to the home company (it doesn't - I've found that Mattel doesn't actually have a corporate home page which is annoying by itself). Yes, there actually is a www.barbie.com. It might thrill a nine-year-old to hear Barbie greet her/him, but by the time you wait for Java to load (a Netscape annoyance) and for the sound clip download, the child could be Eighteen. This is also another one of those graphics-only pages, complete with flashing stars. It's not the worst example of such an annoyance; it's just amplified by the fact it is the BarbieŽ Web page.

The Stealth Window

Every once in a while you are browsing away and you click on a link. You then try the back arrow, but it doesn't do anything. You check your page history in the "Go" menu and your previously visited sites aren't there. You might or might not realize that the last link you selected opened a new browser window the same size and in the same location as the window in which you were previously browsing. I call this a stealth window. It sneaks up on you just long enough to be confusing.

The site I use to illustrate this is a well-meaning, but a bit overdone church Web site (www.gate.net/~strose1/strose.htm). This page also fits into the Kitchen Sink category above. The main page offers you a clever, but useless menu that pulls down and makes cute noises while it does so. Selecting the parish home page opens a stealth window that also ambushes you with a rendition of Amazing Grace that will play if you have a RealAudio plugin or Apple's QuickTime plugin (more common on a Macintosh than on Windows). Once it starts playing, the only way to stop it (at least in the Macintosh version of Netscape Communicator) is to close that window.

Some vendors will pop up a small extra browser window to highlight a particular item in their catalog. This idea, like a lot of other things, is fine if it is not overdone. If every Web page I visit starts to pop up extra windows, then closing those will be a definite annoyance, and I'm much less likely to bookmark that page.

Other Annoyances

A few other annoyances are encountered while browsing the Web. These are perhaps lesser sins than those listed above, since they don't impinge on your browsing efficiency quite as much.

The Search to Oblivion - Every once in a while you'll search a site, and then ask yourself, how in the heck did they come up with those pages based upon my search words? Implementing Web searching is no trivial matter, but I've noticed that searches are much more effective when they can be done within a category structure (a la Yahoo's subcategories). Within a large site, a keyword search without such refinement will turn up some results, but what you are looking for may actually be a long way down the list.

 

The Zero Content Factor - Have you ever hit a Web page that told you nothing? Usually, when you find a Web page you know something about the page's owner, whether that be a company or individual. What you want is contact information or product information. Some Web pages seem to be out there just so that somebody can say that yes, they have a Web page.

 

The Useless Introduction Page - Have you ever seen one of these: "Click here to enter the so-and-so Web Page"? If I am already there, why do I have to click again? I have to admit that one of those guilty of this is an institution I am fond of, the Texas Rangers Baseball team. I've also seen this done on personal pages as a way to provide some humorous or philosophical message. (Don't waste people's time.)

 

Domain to Nowhere - I like to guess domain names. It's a fast way to find a company's Web page. After all, if you want the "blah" company, the first logical choice is www.blah.com. It seems, however, that are some out there with an overabundance of entrepreneurial spirit, are registering company names and then offering to sell them to the highest bidder. I've seen this described as "virtual real estate" which in itself is an oxymoron. I know that as a company, I'd be quite annoyed if someone were using my name in this way, and as an individual I am quite annoyed when instead of getting a simple "not found" I end up at a page which turns out to be that of one of these virtual hucksters.

End the Annoyance

I wish that Web page authors would remember that what seems quite fast on their development machine may turn into a marathon when it's transmitted across a country and ultimately through a (barely) 28.8kbpi modem connection. For commercial Web pages in particular, I would think the goal is make sure your page gets visited again. This means that you must have useful and efficient access to information. Fancy multimedia menus may be cool, but you still have to balance the "gee whiz" factor with the annoyance factor. As I said, my "gee whiz" sense has long since been dulled, so maybe I'm a bit inclined toward the annoyance factor. I've noticed, however, that "gee whiz" wears out soon, even for those new to the Internet. n