Comments on: Five old-fashioned Web concepts that need to die

It's time to bring Web sites into the 21st century, says Webware's Rafe Needleman. Here are a handful of user interface disasters.

[tanweb]

cnet is guilty of #5

[Wolfie2k5]

Single Sign On - Universal Log Ons - they've been tried before and have pretty much wound up as an EPIC FAIL.

Why?

Novell tried to do something along those lines. No one cared. They were too far ahead of the curve. This was back in 1999 - 2000.

Microsoft did Passport - and that went over like a frog in a punchbowl. A lot of people don't trust Microsoft. Period.

Now... About advertising... I agree. There are sites that I may spend a whole whopping 10 - 15 seconds on a given page and the bleeping ads roll down automatically without having a mouse go anywhere near it.

But I'll take it one step further. What's even more annoying than ads that pop up or block your progress - ads that talk...! This trend needs to be shot down preferably with nuclear weapons before it becomes popular. And when the ad server's random number generator doesn't cough up the same ad over and over again it gets downright annoying to be told, "Congratulations! You've been selected to get a totally FREE Nintendo Wii! Just click the ad.." and blah blah blah... What's worse even than that - having multiple ads on a given page cough up the same ad - ever so slightly out of sync - so you wind up hearing it out of phase. Sites like that have me reaching for my mute button out of reflex.

The worst part of it, ads like that have started popping up on ZDNet and CNet. Can't do that in a work environment, guys.

[BMN0T]

4. One-size-fits-all site design

You seem to forget that the market share for even some of the most popular mobile browsers are laughably low. According to hitslink, Opera mini has 0.05%, and according to Computer World, the iPhone has about .1%

While I'd love to have sites I code look perfect on every single browser in the world, it's just not a viable expenditure of time or a client's money. Sure, for certain sites (a la facebook), it makes sense to have a special layout for the iPhone because a lot of their target market is probably spending countless hours in class posting inane blather on their friends' walls. But the vast majority of sites out there do not now (nor probably will they ever) need to have seperate styles for mobile browsers.


3. Log-in

That's why I'm posting with a bugmenot account. Enjoy that, CNET.

[methadvocate]

LOL! I agree that having to log in before replying / commenting to a blog is more annoying than anything else on the author's list.

For the author: Your list is practical, but there already ARE fixes for the problems you complain about. I must say, if you think #3 (automatic logging-on) is still a problem AND you are using RoboForm--you must not be using the software correctly.

I also use RoboForm, and have been using it several years now--since it was owned by Gator. The problems in item #3 are the REASONS I got RoboForm in the first place. The program handles each item you mentioned, so I maybe you aren't using the software to it's fullest capability?


~*-*~its not about crystal~*-*~

[BluePlateSpecial]

I understand completely what you are saying, but I don't think you understand the extra work you are asking of web developers. Sure the users expectations have changed, but the tools available to web developers haven't kept up, in my opinion.
I mean look at HTML. It hasn't changed for awhile. I know 5.0 is coming out sometime, but until it has full support, we can't use it since some browsers won't render the new tags correctly. CSS has changed some but there is only so much magic you can work with it. JavaScript is beautiful but we are told not to rely on it for anything major since user might have it turned off. So I realize users want more, but users must also realize that means we have to do a lot more. I mean some of the things you are suggesting would be great, but are they really worth pushing back deadlines for?