15th May 2007

Web annoyances

posted in Uncategorized |

The world is filled with minor annoyances.  Some of these annoyances can be avoided.

Right now, I’m trying to look at a Virginia county website.

The website uses navigation buttons that are powered by Java.

If the buttons don’t show up, there’s a little link at the bottom of the navigation bar, saying, “If Link Buttons Above Are Not Loading to Page OR If Municode Navigation Window Is Not Appearing CLICK HERE”.  The “CLICK HERE” link leads to a page saying you need to download the latest and greatest version of Java and install it.

Excuse me?

This is a municipal website.

It’s not there for the convenience of the webmaster.

It’s there for the convenience of the people who want to visit the website.

Why should I be forced to download the L&G version of Java in order to use their website?

Dudes, I work with websites all day long.  I design websites.  I work for a government entity (well, kinda).  Let me tell you, I’m not going to design a website that requires my users to download and install extra-special stuff!

And what about ADA compliance?!

This is appalling.  It has taken me ten minutes to download and install the L&G version of Java.  All I want to do is visit their website, glean a few facts and figures, and move on.

I don’t care that FrontPage is nice and easy to use when creating websites.  I don’t care that they probably don’t have a dedicated webmaster.  They are a public entity, and they’re supposed to be serving the public.  What if I weren’t computer-savvy?  What would I do then?  How many of their users are computer-savvy?  How on earth can they get away with web design that actually requires them to devote an additional page to telling their users how to get their website to work??

Bah.

(Not to mention their website is just fugly.)

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 15th, 2007 at 6:34 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

There are currently 3 responses to “Web annoyances”

  1. 1 On May 16th, 2007, Spacemom said:

    You should contact their webmaster. That is sick. In my case, I am not allowed to upgrade the java or other items because I work on a unix station and we’re not allowed to add software to our local disks (nothing is really local here anyway, we live in NSF land)

    Sigh…

  2. 2 On May 16th, 2007, J said:

    That’s the problem with designers who’ve never had to be customer service reps. They don’t hear the angry people on the other end of the line. The echoes of those voices is always in my head when I’m designing new stuff.

  3. 3 On May 16th, 2007, omegamom said:

    Spacemom–You’ll be happy to know I *did* contact the webmaster, and he *did* respond, and said that they are revamping the website entirely and it’s due out soon.

    J–Yup. Working on a help desk helps with that outlook, as well.

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