I got a call from my sister-in-law (SIL) yesterday so she could tell me how annoyed she was with a website that she couldn’t access. I checked it out and evidently the site was built in Flash. She needed to upgrade her Flash Player before getting to the information she was looking for.
So this issue got us talking – actually it doesn’t take much to get us talking – and I took note of what she dislikes when she visits a website or blog. It was quite a useful discussion and very relevant to my business.
Here’s the list of things we came up with to avoid in your website or blog design.
Flash – Not everyone is current in technology and therefore can’t view a Flash file. And it can take too long to load. My SIL said that if a site takes more than 10 seconds to load, she’s outta-there.
Music That Automatically Plays - I personally can’t stand this! First of all it’s startling. Second, it’s distracting. I’m there for information, not your current play list.
Not-So-Obvious Navigation – My SIL doesn’t like to have to search for where to go next. The navigation should be obvious. We use the internet to search for information – if it’s not obvious that your site has what I’m looking for, I’m gone.
TMI (Too Much Information) – A page that has just too much information is hard to follow. Again my SIL commented that she just doesn’t know where to go or what to do next.
No Phone Number – While this doesn’t apply to a personal blog, it sure does apply to businesses. Sure an email is helpful but if we come to your site to purchase something or need information, we want to call you.
All of these points listed can make visitors leave your site without making a purchase, inquiry or comment. You could be loosing customers because the first impression of your site annoyed a visitor. Keep visitors, and potential customers browsing your site by avoiding the above, and keeping it simple!
Now that I’ve done this list of our 5 pet-peeves of website and blog designs, I’m going to re-evaluate my sites 
Cara
You covered all my pet peeves! Auto play videos are annoying too, sometimes I click through but want to finish something else before I go to that page…
Oh I forgot about auto play videos! So many sites have advertising on them that auto play videos – ugh!
Nice post. Just to add, “too much information” in itself isn’t a bad thing. Different personality types have different information needs. You need to structure the information so that it’s accessible to both the less patient and more patient (in some web methodologies these would be called spontaneous vs methodicals).