Terrible Website Design Trends

October 4, 2013

There are some awesome website trends on the rise, but unfortunately there are some trends that should just never exist. Just like Miley Cyrus! Join me in the cause to remove these trends off the internet!

Drag to share

Replacing the typical share button, this new trend asks you to share any media (like pictures or videos) on social networks by dragging them to a designated drop point. ‘Drag and Drop’ may seem super cool – and maybe it is – if you can figure out how it works. Let’s just keep things simple, please? Stay with a simple share button.

Splash pages

We are three months away from 2014, yet we are still seeing splash pages on large websites. Stop asking me to view your website in English or French! Stop asking me to view your mobile or desktop layout! If I am on an iPad and my language is set to French, then stop hiring lazy programmers and load the French mobile site! We have a full post dedicated to why splash pages are awful.

Stock photos

Stock photos are a great resource available for a small price. Stock photos are great – so great, that everyone uses the same ones again and again. Too many website rely on the same stock photos, and we’ve already seen them a million times. Sock photos can really helps sell the overall feeling of your website, but it’s always better to use your own photos!

Forced Subscription/Social Sharing

This trend is the absolute worst one on this list. If you do this, you are the epitome of all evil that exists on the internet. Group buying websites are the largest culprit, forcing you to sign up for their mailing list before you can see their current group deals. Similarly some websites try and force you to follow them on twitter or like them on facebook before you can view the website or get the information you really wanted from the website. I like to think of this as social blackmail.