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Web geek pet peeves
I was thinking about pet peeves today; things that just get on my nerves in the web world. Here are the things I can't stand:
- When people say "alt tags"
- There's no such thing as an "alt tag." There's an alt attribute, and that's what people are referring to when they say this, but it still gets me, and the ugly truth is that a couple years ago, I was probably guilty of this too. Still, I am as picky about errors in speech as I am about typos in print, and that's really picky. Please don't call them tags!
- Seeing common fonts in print/visual design
- I spend almost all my time working with the web. Every day, it's the same set of fonts; Verdana, Arial, Times, Courier, Trebuchet, Georgia, etc. Some of these fonts aren't terrible, some of them are. It doesn't matter though, because I see so much of them that I hate them all. So it really gets me mad whenever I see a poster or a Flash-based site using one of these basic fonts. It's just not fair. When you have so many fonts at your disposable and you aren't at the mercy of a client's font set, you should take advantage of it! Whenever I get the option, I always look for new and exciting fonts. But this atrocity is getting more common, as more and more people who don't know diddly-jack about design get their hands where they don't belong. Usually the weapon of choice is Trebuchet, which is an extremely poor font (just look at those lowercase e's). Let me make one thing clear: whenever I see any sort of print or visual design that uses Trebuchet, I am immediately turned away. Especially in logos. If you can't take the time to use a font that isn't on thousands upon thousands of websites for your logo, you shouldn't have a company.
- Lack of context on status updates
- I don't use twitter; I stopped when I realized it was a waste of time. I still see it on a lot of blogs, and it really annoys me when I see a twitter update that looks like this:
@xyzuser: Yeah, I thought so too! Take it to the limit! Don't forget what I told you though.
What do I know about this update? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I don't know what was thought, what it is, what was told, or anything else. I've just wasted 10 seconds of my life reading a stupid twitter update that tells me absolutely nothing. That might not sound like much, but if you multiply that by the number of people with twitter updates like these on their blogs, well, you get a lot of seconds! And you only need 3600 to make an hour! Do you know how much an hour of my time is worth? But let's put all of that aside. If you are ever making a worthless little update application like twitter, consider what kind of syndication options you should give your users. Allow them to separate the messages from the status updates, so this kind of worthless chatter doesn't have to appear on their blog/website/profile/etc. It will be far less annoying to people like me who won't be using your app. - MyBlogLog
- This service has been around for quite some time and I haven't said anything about it yet, but it's time for me to speak up: I can't stand MyBlogLog. I don't care about anyone's "reader community." I read your blog. It's a one-to-one relationship. If I get into the comment-discussion on one of your posts, then I have a one-to-many relationship with the other commenters. But never do I ever care about other readers. Reading is a passive activity and I don't need to know that the guy with a little butterfly for an avatar is doing it. Those little MyBlogLog widgets people have in their sidebars just take up space and give me another thing to "skip over" as my eyes travel down the page.
- Trackback spam
- This is, by far, my biggest peeve on this list. It's becoming very common and getting extremely annoying. Every time I post something on this blog, I usually get 1 or 2 trackbacks from other blogs. These trackbacks happen immediately and the blogs they come from are always spam blogs. They are automatically updated by a script that pulls snippets from various blogs based on a couple of tags and then makes posts in the following format:
Post title from my post
This is such a cheap way of stealing content without breaking any copyright rules, and I delete any of these trackbacks as soon as they get through. Hopefully Akismet will block more of these in the future, but it's a bit tougher to deal with than comment spam. More importantly, there's nothing anyone can do to prevent these blogs; I just wish the people who set them up will find something better to do.
random namewrote in link to my post:
Handful of sentences directly scraped from my post
Tags: always the same tags right here
I'm going to try and think of more pet peeves, but in the meantime, share yours in the comments. By talking about them, we can face our fears and work through them together. Or just have some good laughs.
Who got out of bed on the wrong side today?
Hey, what can I do? I have encountered everything on this list in the past week… that's far too much too fast!
I couldn't agree more with these sentiments. One thing you should add to this list are the blogs that trackback your article, have a short summary of it with a link, 20-30 little favicons beneath it for Digging it, adding it to Furl, etc… and on top of all of that, three or four instances of google ads scattered inside the post, and more in the header/sidebar region.
Ugh. The internet pisses me off.
Many of these have been around for a long time (5-10 years) in one form or another, I think the older folks are use to it
Michael: I think it's pretty sad that the thing we love and work with is also the thing we hate.
Jesse: The Internet isn't more than 10 years old so I think you might be a bit off there. Plus, peeves 3 through 5 are way younger than that.
I found myself saying alt tag the other day and then apologised to the person I was speaking to and corrected myself. They didn't care
Talking of common fonts in print displays, it's not even a web font, but I hate seeing Papyrus appear on posters. I used to use it for headings and even my font on MSN messenger and now I just hate it.
And finally, trackback spam is more than annoying. I almost appreciate it when they get my name right, but the last three or four times I've been called Chuck. It's not even random, it's every time. Where do they get the names from?!
I don't care much about Twitter and I like MyBlogLog, so I'll pass no further judgment on them. Still… this gave me a laugh and I mostly agree!
Christian: I'm not sure what Internet you are referring to [people tend to define the "Internet" differently] but the one I connect to has been around longer than 10 years. Indeed I bought my first modem [or was it called a slowdem?] which I used to dial into my local POP [LOL, those were the days - NOT] more than 10 years ago. Oops, I'm showing my age.
Regarding pet peeves, one of mine is…
…actually, I think I'll post about it on my blog, I don't want to start ranting in front of your readers
Phil: I think they randomize the names so it is more difficult for the spam filters to block.
Philip: Oh, if you are referring to that then you are right. I didn't have access to the Internet in those days so I didn't even know it existed.
Designer pet peeve: When people use typeface and font interchangeably.
I am just giving you a hard time.
I 100% agree about common typefaces in print design. It's pretty infuriating to me, and says that the person only ever experienced type on a computer. Take a typography class (print designers!) Learn to set type gasp by hand!
"Seeing common fonts in print/visual design"
Papyrus. I can't stand Papyrus. It's a trademark of a logo/menu/sign mocked up in MS Word. Drives me crazy!
Apart from the common fonts in print design thing, which I've never noticed.. I agree wholeheartedly. Especially "alt tags". This might have been acceptable 5-6 years ago when using them was not as big a deal, but there's just no excuse these days.
I've held my tongue for a few days on the topic of using common fonts, but I strongly disagree with some of the comments here. I think there is a significant difference between "over"using good fonts and overusing bad ones. Some typefaces, such as Helvetica, while used in countless corporate logos and visual design applications both on the web and in print, can withstand that type of use. It's sturdy, extremely well-designed, and was intended to be neutral and fit for use in many applications. Any respectable typographer would be out of his mind to condemn seeing Helvetica all over the place as "overuse." I have similar sentiments for other strong, time-tested typefaces such as Garamond and Baskerville.
Additionally, many typefaces are misused which gives them a bad reputation. For example, the traditionally 80s Brush Script has been seen on far too many posters in all caps. It's ridiculous to think that a script font could be written in all capital letters and look professional. Comic Sans and Papyrus are also decorative fonts that shouldn't ever be used for full blocks of text, but as emphasis, or in their proper place such as, yes, comics.
As a designer myself, I'm not ready to throw out Helvetica in favor of Calibri or Garamond in favor of Constantia. When used in the right context by skill designers, even a typeface that has been used to set thousands of books can remain a classic, and in many cases, a better choice.
Jacquelynn: Helvetica, Garamond and Baskerville are not common fonts. Take out your fingers and toes and calculate the percentage of computers which are Windows based. The majority of those machines do not have the previously mentioned fonts.
p.s. Comic Sans and Papyrus should never be used because even as decorative fonts they are still ugly. There are a million alternatives out there which would serve much better.
I'll give you that the faces I mentioned are more common (even exceedingly so) in print than on the web. If we restrict the discussion to web only, there's a reason that Georgia and Verdana are standbys. They were designed for the screen. As someone who is very concerned with accessibility and usability, wouldn't you say that until the made-for-screen-viewing category gets larger, we're better off choosing readability over variety?
Jacquelynn: That has nothing to do with the discussion at hand. I'm talking about being annoyed by all the print designers (or wannabes) who use screen fonts in print. What does that have to do with screen usability?
The Internet isn't more than 10 years old? Umm. Some of your pet peeves are relatively new with blogging specifically say but I said 5-10 years and ya maybe 3-10 would be more accurate but in 1997 I was using the Internet an awful lot for my undergrad (on dial up) and my Uni's first 'web' site was appeared in 1994…
My point was SPAM, screen fonts in print (or worse print fonts on screen), context in content, and alt tags aren't new pet peeves - they have been around for a while. Just blogging about them on Wordpress is kinda new.
Jesse: I have no idea why people are trying to put words in my mouth here. I never said these are recent problems. NEVER. I only said that these are problems that have been bothering me lately. There's a huge difference.
You said:
"Jesse: The Internet isn’t more than 10 years old so I think you might be a bit off there. Plus, peeves 3 through 5 are way younger than that."
In response to a comment left by someone who stated:
"Many of these have been around for a long time (5-10 years) in one form or another, I think the older folks are use to it "
The subsequent comments were in response to the tone in your message stating incorrect information how long the internet has been around.
Additionally, Jacquelynn's response to the typeface comments related directly to print. Jacquelynn mentioned posters and print. The only reference to the web was saying that helvetica is used widely in both web and print applications. She was defending its use based on the fact that it is a good font.
YOU then replied saying:
"Jacquelynn: Helvetica, Garamond and Baskerville are not common fonts. Take out your fingers and toes and calculate the percentage of computers which are Windows based. The majority of those machines do not have the previously mentioned fonts."
YOU brought the web back into the discussion, then when she commented back regarding the web, you jump back in and say her comments have nothing to do with argument and that you are only talking about designers taking the standard web typefaces and using them in print.
You come off with an awfully arrogant tone (granted, this is your blog) considering the difficulty you seem to have in following people's points and responding accurately to them.
Just my thoughts… I'm sure if you read carefully you'll be able to at least three of my pet peeves, probably number one going to: self-important bloggers.
Cheers
oops… typos
Jim: First of all, FIRST of all, Jacquelynn and I are friends. I believe (and she can correct me if I'm wrong) that I can talk to her in a way that isn't "oh my god, I don't want to say anything to offend you, I cut myself at night" because, you know, if I said something that she didn't like, she could just e-mail me or hit me up on chat and let me know. And in that situation, I would be the first to apologize.
But we had a tiny little discussion about web fonts and print fonts. There are fires in California, war in Iraq, and earthquakes all around the globe, and you take issue with how we, as friends, discuss the issue of fonts in print and the web. How do you sleep at night? Do you have any friends or family that can counsel you? Because if you don't deal with your irrational psychological issues soon, I'm afraid it might be too late.
And I'm seriously offended at your claim that I'm "arrogant." It's not like I have my name as a URL, or a list of all the times I've been mentioned elsewhere, or a picture of myself on every page of my website. People who do that stuff are seriously everything that is wrong with this world. I hate them.
But here's to this self-important blogger, trying to help you with your problems. Some people pay a lot of money for this service. Just let me know your address so I can send you a bill.
heh,
well glad to see that we can face our fears together, work through them, AND have a laugh all at the same time.
in response to your questions:
i sleep exceptionally well, although usually i go to sleep between 4 and 5 am, so i guess i don't really sleep at all at night, which would seem put the answer at "i don't," though not for the reasons you are insinuating.
being counseled by friends and family is probably more dangerous than not seeking help to begin with, unless your friends or family are psychologists, in which case it is DEFINITELY more dangerous!
p.s. i am from san diego (though i am not there at the moment) and was there during the '03 wildfires. i was also IN the war in iraq. not saying that makes me any better or more qualified than anyone else to not mention them in a post about pet peeves, i'm just saying…
if you write about world issues, perhaps i'll comment on them. though i doubt i'll read any other posts on here. that's nothing against you, nor am i stomping off angrily, i simply don't read blogs as a general rule, and i can honestly say this is only the second time i've ever commented a blog, the last one being a comment to heckle a buddy of mine and nit pick his argument…. not unlike… this post?
i don't doubt that you've got some valuable and entertaining stuff here. and though i stumbled upon this site from a comment on a list i subscribe to, if i ever do change my stance on blogs i'll likely come back to check this one out.
take her easy,
jim
oh damn the typos!
Well, I must have done something right if I elicited a comment from someone who rarely comments at all!
Have to say I'm guilty of the "alt tag" crime. And to be honest, I've never noticed it before today. It's one of those things that until you stop to think about it, you don't notice it. Now I'm going to cringe every time I hear or say it.