[Psycho_Bunny]

Do not use page forwarders. Ever.

If you must use Flash or Silverlight, have a text alternative for every element.

[Captain Beyond]

bflr

[Justice]

The original article source about how to build better websites actually has pop-up ads. LOL how lame is that.

[antiRepublicrat]

No contact form: I add, make it a real form. An email link is no good.

Mission statement: After visiting numerous government sites, I totally agree. Nobody cares! It wastes valuable front-page space. If you must have it, hide it some place, or place your mission statement as part of the About page.

Blinking ads: Users of the <blink> tag will be tracked down and shot.

I add mobile: Make sure your site works on most mobile browsers. With the iPhone and now Android, the number of people browsing mobile is growing exponentially.

I add compatibility: Make it work on all modern browsers. Don't use browser- or plugin-specific anything unless you absolutely cannot accomplish your goal any other way. At least try for graceful degredation for IE6/NN4, but it's not absolutely necessary. At a certain point the extra work for backwards compatibility isn't worth it and you have to forego too many useful tools.

Users of "Best viewed on XX browser" will be tracked down and shot twice.

[FrankR]

I think my biggest gripe is people redesigning websites for the sake of redesigning it.

For some websites of the decorative type, this is ok, but like our local newspaper site...it has dozens of links, and about the time you learn where they all are, they change it all...it's like a 60 cycle of redesign. Same with the Georgia lottery page, been using it for several years, all of a sudden it's totally different and you have to drill down through 5 links to get the same info one click used to get you.

Before taking early retirement I was a systems analyst for the phone company, specializing in Lotus Notes/Domino; with the advent of the web side of Notes, Domino, we were instructed by IT that our InTRAnet pages must allow the user to reach the info he wants in not more than two clicks. Sometimes that was a challenge for the programmer but it was nice for the user.

I don't mind learning a new website, but when you have to keep relearning the same site every 60-days it gets old.

/rant off

[chrisser]

I’m sick of the flash and clutter. Videos, audio, stuff moving around, graphics for no purpose.

I think I liked it better when you had to code html in a text editor. At least you could find information instead of being assaulted by “artists” trying to out-bling each other.