Web pages bug me

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I really hate most web pages. I think they are cluttered and ugly, there is too much information packed into to small an area and they are generally unpleasant. I'm wondering how much of this is just a personal preference for minimalism and how much it is a manifestation of sensory overload.

What say you?

I think you've been on old crappy myspace and angelfire webpages too long

Fire IE, then FireFox


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Part of the problem is that everyone assumes that everyone has the latest, most powerful computer and so they overload their web pages beyond the point of reason almost as a conspiracy to force people to buy new computers. There's no other reason.

If I didn't have flashblock I think I'd go nuts. I hate when a relatively ok looking web page has "punch the monkey" in 3 places at once.

As far as sensory overload, maybe. For me, for web pages I think so, and I've noticed the art that I tend to like (and photos I like to take) often have large silhouettes or washed-out areas. And I suspect I like animation for similar reasons. So, minimalist in a way, yeah.

I think just about everyone finds a lot of webpages to be really annoying. But for those of us with sensory overload, it's probably especially bad.

I quite agree. In fact, I'm a big fan of the minimalist web design movement. White space is good.

Yeah, a lot of web pages are way too busy in so many ways, it's hard for me to focus on them, and god forbid if they make noise.

ugh. I remember MySpace. Seriously, every time I tried to look at someone's profile, my browser would crash! It was like, if you don't understand the basics of web design, don't try to have a custom profile! And I would have to turn the volume down before even logging on.

It's simply an indication of "progress."

Once upon a time, in an era which is now a misty memory, the web was used as a method of freely sharing information. Content was king, and web design reflected that by attempting to make sites with clean layouts and navigation, so that the content wasn't obscured by graphics, or animation, or some bizarre navigation scheme. Displays were (much!) smaller, so one had to carefully weigh how much "stuff" could be on one page. Looking back on it, that web was a very aspie thing - pretty much everything you looked at was someone's special interest, put on display for the world to share.

Now, the web is viewed as a marketing tool. There are vestiges of the ancient "content is king" and "information wants to be free" memes on educational and individual sites, but mostly content is used to draw eyeballs to a page which is calculated to display as many ads as possible, rather than to maximize the content. Go look at a "news" site. Is most of the available screen used to convey news, or is it devoted to ads? Is it obvious which links are ads, or are they blended in so that you don't know if you're going to a related story or a site selling something until after you click? How many times does an ad pop up OVER the content, requiring you to click it before you can even see the article? How many times do you have to click "next" (and view an entirely new set of ads) to read an article that wouldn't fill one page in a magazine? I do realize that news organizations cease to exist if they stop making money, but . . .

/rant

Me too!!

I love websites that have the Web 2.0 look - sleek, open, clean, & fresh. Websites that are bright, flashy, cluttered, and look like they are from the 90's drive me insane.

My first paid design job was supposed to be health related, so I really wanted to give it a clean, fresh look. I made the design with comforting colors and lots of open space. However, after the customer saw it, they quickly started filling up the open space with lots of gaudy, tacky clutter. By the time it was finished, the site looked like something out of an infomercial. I was crushed!