Bad/bloated web design

[MrMobodies]

I have noticed that myself with certain news websites and turn off javascript which most of the times work.
https://github.com/maximelebreton/quick-javascript-switcher

Presumably that kind of thing is in a spec, and the browser makers follow it because if they don't then the website author would start blocking browsers that don't preserve that very necessary feature.

Sounds like intrusion and harassment.

Why is it the bots are free to do but not the user who'd do it for something so simple like open a tab and search for a word and phrase.

I tend think that they get some kind of gratification out of it to go that far just like with taking away the scrollbars, dimming the background to deliberately interrupt what you are reading and cut you off from the contents to slap a banner in the middle.

[MrMobodies]

Just had a power cut and power came on about 10 minutes later so I went to have a look to see if there are other powercuts nearby and shocked with what I found. The search box worked last time now it has gone into spammy behaviour where they, create an extra step, cutting me off from the contents with a stupid dimming overlay and present this stupid looking white box in the middle where it is already on the page.

UKPOWERNETWORKS.co.uk




I find I can't hide the dimming overlay without killing the dialogue but on doing so, the text box that previously worked  (that triggered it) don't work where can't be typed into.


Now if I disable javascript then I can type into it but of course does nothing after that apart from the animation on the button:


Now isn't that obnoxious and overzealous, artificially stopping me using the website search input to force me to use the one on the dimming overlay.

.PopUp_popUp__0XOFm
.AddressLookUp_addressPopUpModal__w_fP

No I don't want to see a stupid dimmng overlay that cuts me off from everything else and hurts my eyes as it flips from light to dark.
Like the dimming overlay is more important than anything else.

The box is right here and it was simple before.
From:
Click -> insert -> postcode
To:
Click ->  dimming overlay click -> insert postcode.

At least why can't they leave the background alone?
This is what I think of as oversimplified and dumbed down and no consideration for people with light sensitivity.

I made a complaint and also on the feedback form the postcode finder wouldn't work, of course it uses the same one with the dimming overlay that I hid so clicked option to entered manually.

I guess that option might disappear one day from the same person who decided to put that stupid thing there.

It looks to me whoever put that there, think that their users are stupid and are treating them accordingly with this design, that they have to shroud their view of the page and cut them off from everything else and make it dark all around it as if that would help them with the very complicated and difficult task of working out their postcode.

[SilverSolder]

[...]
It looks to me whoever put that there, think that their users are stupid and are treating them accordingly with this design, that they have to shroud their view of the page and cut them off from everything else and make it dark all around it as if that would help them with the very complicated and difficult task of working out their postcode.

Unfortunately, the user interface of "big" sites are determined by the most n00b users, not the most experienced ones.

I don't understand why they don't just make a "light" site for the n00bs, and keep a "moderately useful" version for the rest of us.   Some companies do that,  e.g. I've seen stock brokers that offer several different versions of their software, depending on user level of experience and interest.

[MrMobodies]

Furious to find this rubbish with only 7 animated gradients hogging 19% of cpu time time during page load.

Adblock:
amazon.co.uk##.a-section.a-spacing-none.loading-indicator-1
amazon.co.uk##.loading-indicator-1
##.a-section.a-spacing-none.loading-indicator-1
##.loading-indicator-1

The prices load perfectly fine behind it with the animated placeholders hidden.

Without them 0 to 2% from Vivaldi with page paused so that 17% when these things appear.

I can the see the prices and that's only what I care about.
Putting animations in front that interfere, can cause distraction from the animation and slow the page down is not what I want to see.
The stupidity.

[MrMobodies]

I saw something and remember this:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/dodgy-technology/badbloated-web-design/msg4438807/#msg4438807
 Re: Bad/bloated web design Ebay animated loading placeholder cpu hog stupidity
« Reply #170 on: September 28, 2022, 04:51:46 pm »

Did they change the elements? No
Just more page slowing animated placeholder crap under another element name placed over other things.




Culprits:

##.merch-loading
##.merch-loader
##.merch-skeleton

During page load and pausedwWith these animated skeleton placeholders flashing away with the gradients:
43-3%=40%
Without: 3%

Very annoying where flash on every page load slowing it down a bit.

[MrMobodies]

I was looking at some stock prices on Google and I see that the content delaying animated loader/skeleton nonsense is there too.




Taking up 32% cpu time during page loading spent on these when shown.
0% When hidden and it seems little bit quicker.

Adblock
google.com###wp-load-FinanceFinancials
google.com##.Uo8X3b.OhScic.zsYMMe
google.com##.rskU3c
###wp-load-FinanceFinancials
##.Uo8X3b.OhScic.zsYMMe

It seems to me that these things are taking over and will be everywhere soon.

[JPortici]

Wikipedia: another site that didn't need to change

https://wikimediafoundation.org/wikipedia-desktop/


Again someone decided that treating a PC the same as a phone screen is a good thing

[MrMobodies]

To me the size and appearance of that time line thing at the bottom looks terrible even on a phone.

I noticed it has a spammy fixed header.

If that gets onto Wikipedia with no way to hide it I let them know they can forget about future donations from me.

Survey:
https://wikimedia.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eKv2YsD5GQXnJt4

Just noticed something horrid, a spammy fixed nav toolbar on Wikimedia but not on Wikipedia yet.

I come to Wikipedia to view content not have unwanted things I can't close like fixed headers or fixed elements rammed in my face constantly as I scroll, that get in the way, restrict content and serve as a distraction that I find down right irritating and annoying with absolutely no regards for user preference where I am at the liberty of browser extensions to auto hide them on scroll.

I don't really care about everything else as long as I can scroll content without intrusion and distraction as I don't want things stuck there over my browser/viewing area that maybe totally unwanted and uncalled for. It is my browsing area keep your hands off it. I shouldn't have to manually hide them or be at liberty of browser extensions. Most of the time I find what I want and after that I close the page with no need for things like that stuck there

Hypothetically, imagine going into a shop on the high street and every time you go into a certain store you see things placed in a fixed part of your vision, such as The store's logo, a toolbar and offers stuck there and an assistant so no matter where you look you can't get rid of it until you leave.

Now how would you feel if you didn't want them there? Would that put you off?

On Archive.org they have one but at least I can close it when I find it is getting in the way.

I happen to sometimes donate at Wikipedia ...
If I find one above that I can't close then you can forget about future donations.

On the other hand on Wikipedia at the moment:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page




Fine, it gives me a choice to hide the side items to increase viewing area.
The same should apply to the fixed nav toolbars/widgets.

[Nominal Animal]

WikiFolks: Our Wikipedia page is ugly.
Users: Well, it works absolutely fine, and we're used to it.
WikiFolks: No, we need to update it, because it doesn't have the spazz we're looking for.

WikiFolks: Hey, let's add lots more whitespace, making it look so much nicer!

WikiFolks: Here you go, the new 2023 layout, with lots more whitespace!
Users: Noooo.. it's harder to read now!
WikiFolks: Read? It's 2023 now, nobody reads anymore; they just look at the page, and see all this nice whitespace, instead of some stuffy wall of text with lots of letters and words and stuff!  This is prettier, you long-haired smellies!
Users: Okay, daddy.

[MrMobodies]

One thing I don't like with this new Wikipedia design is when I open the side menu items it shifts the contents right.
It would have been nice if they made it so it didn't do that.

Granted they don't have a fixed header and as long as it stays like that I'll happily donate sometimes.

Things that irritate me the most:
1: Fixed/nav toolbar/headers and widgets.
Trying to scroll away from them as with the rest of the page but they are still there and in the way.
2: Dimming overlays (including the ones behind dialogues, menus and search)
that hurt my eyes and obscures the contents
3: Gradients over pictures (especially ones that go way past what they are covering up)
that can give false illusions of shadows and clouds.
4: Animated Skeleton placeholder (cycling of gradients)
that slow down the page load, wastes cpu time power/battery.
5: Large and excessive use of fake loading animations, spinners and covering up/delayng content with overlays
that can cause annoyance due to the repetition.
6: Excessive flash/fade/transition animations
which makes it uncomfortable for my eyes.

[SilverSolder]

One thing I don't like with this new Wikipedia design is when I open the side menu items it shifts the contents right.
It would have been nice if they made it so it didn't do that.

Granted they don't have a fixed header and as long as it stays like that I'll happily donate sometimes.

Things that irritate me the most:
1: Fixed/nav toolbar/headers and widgets.
Trying to scroll away from them as with the rest of the page but they are still there and in the way.
2: Dimming overlays (including the ones behind dialogues, menus and search)
that hurt my eyes and obscures the contents
3: Gradients over pictures (especially ones that go way past what they are covering up)
that can give false illusions of shadows and clouds.
4: Animated Skeleton placeholder (cycling of gradients)
that slow down the page load, wastes cpu time power/battery.
5: Large and excessive use of fake loading animations, spinners and covering up/delayng content with overlays
that can cause annoyance due to the repetition.
6: Excessive flash/fade/transition animations
which makes it uncomfortable for my eyes.

Basically all the stuff that "professional" web designers do, in order to make their work look like it took effort to make, and therefore was worth the fees!

[MrMobodies]

Many years ago in mid 2015 when these things were just about to become widespread I only just started using Adblock for the first time to try hide the Google suggest lines when Google search removed the option to disable suggest. Then later that year I noticed the fixed nav toolbars (unbeknown what they were called at the time) starting to appear on Ebay like the Ebay basket purchase and basket bar then Amazon copied. I eventually found I could just add their elements adblock and that took care of it but before that I use to go absolutely mad and genuinely loose my temper going into developer tools to try and either either delete the element or set the fixed positioning to absolute. I felt I had no control over my viewing area with them dictating what I don't want to see constantly and large in the way.

Now thinking about it it reminds me of this video decades ago:
https://youtu.be/XNjigdElz4U?t=189
MADtv Bunifa Trading Spaces
3:09 in the video.
That is a bit how I felt at the time.

I could understand if the make over in the video was terrible which it wasn't.

[PlainName]

I felt I had no control over my viewing area with them dictating what I don't want to see constantly and large in the way

I feel the same way (used to be about sites assuming the browser was the full width of a monitor - thankfully the web monkeys getting 4K screens stopped that). But... they could argue that you are destroying their carefully built presentation. Would you insist that a film director is forcing you to see what you don't want when he shows the full blood'n'guts cut? On the one hand you are paying to be provided with what you want, but on the other he is selling a specific film. Websites aren't providing you with a customised paid service, they are handing out something the provider is willing to share. Really, your choice is to accept it or not.

The snag with that view (for us) is that most people accept it, even if they hate it, so there is no 'constructive' feedback of what people would actually like.

[madires]

Yep, it's the lost art of considering user experience, i.e. designing web pages pleasing to the human eye and easy to navigate or use. Instead we get overloaded and unintuitive pieces of web art. It's about using a web page and not admiring the artful design. I would even go so far as to claim that a lot of today's web pages are inhuman.

[SilverSolder]

I felt I had no control over my viewing area with them dictating what I don't want to see constantly and large in the way

I feel the same way (used to be about sites assuming the browser was the full width of a monitor - thankfully the web monkeys getting 4K screens stopped that). But... they could argue that you are destroying their carefully built presentation. Would you insist that a film director is forcing you to see what you don't want when he shows the full blood'n'guts cut? On the one hand you are paying to be provided with what you want, but on the other he is selling a specific film. Websites aren't providing you with a customised paid service, they are handing out something the provider is willing to share. Really, your choice is to accept it or not.

The snag with that view (for us) is that most people accept it, even if they hate it, so there is no 'constructive' feedback of what people would actually like.

The "feedback" happens when enough people stop using it, or enough people use the web site feedback button (when available) to submit negative feedback.

eBay have fixed a lot of the most egregious problems over the years,  I hope all my comments to the web team had some small influence along the way! 

[PlainName]

Well, that's it - people generally just don't stop using it and put up with all sorts of stuff, so no real indication of an issue.

[JPortici]

Yep, it's the lost art of considering user experience, i.e. designing web pages pleasing to the human eye and easy to navigate or use. Instead we get overloaded and unintuitive pieces of web art. It's about using a web page and not admiring the artful design. I would even go so far as to claim that a lot of today's web pages are inhuman.

No, they are just made to be shown on a phone screen, so very long and thing. The complete opposite of books or computer screens, makes it easier to implement apps that are just webviews wrapped around a container

[PlainName]

They offer a service where they work with you to help you fix any issues with your website.

What's your relationship with them? So far as I can tell, no-one here has a website that needs fixing, so why would you - a first time poster joined today - want to recommend that?

[madires]

No, they are just made to be shown on a phone screen, so very long and thing. The complete opposite of books or computer screens, makes it easier to implement apps that are just webviews wrapped around a container

In that case I'd recommend a good book on CSS, e.g. CSS by McFarland (O'Reilly). One can use CSS to create different layouts of the same web page for different types of clients (desktop, mobile, ...). Some web pages use this approach even for a print version, i.e. just the content without menus and navigation elements. BTW, some smartphone users figured out that they can rotate their phone.

[JPortici]

No, they are just made to be shown on a phone screen, so very long and thing. The complete opposite of books or computer screens, makes it easier to implement apps that are just webviews wrapped around a container

In that case I'd recommend a good book on CSS, e.g. CSS by McFarland (O'Reilly). One can use CSS to create different layouts of the same web page for different types of clients (desktop, mobile, ...). Some web pages use this approach even for a print version, i.e. just the content without menus and navigation elements. BTW, some smartphone users figured out that they can rotate their phone.

then you have a very wide, very short screen, and with all of the clutter of the user interface you can't read more than a handful of lines before having to scroll
Also, did you know that vertical vide is actually a thing? and movies are being made that target smartphones? (filmed in "vertical video" format)

>CSS
but moooooooom debugging CSS is haaaaard

[SilverSolder]

A smartphone is for emergency use only...  everyone needs a better way to surf the Net, even if it's just a tablet?

[MrMobodies]

They can't just LEAVE things alone that were fine before and on this occasion they seem to have got it wrong whether they just copied or linked it to the wrong feedback form for the sellers profile:

"Tell us what you think about seller Feedback on this page"

This is the WRONG feedback form.
This is a product listing.

My complaint is the dimming overlay behind this form. Before it would open another tab or a pane on the right hand side. It hurts my eyes and this is become more and more excessive.

No! I don't want the contents obscured. I find that very annoying, insulting and very stupid idea.

I find I couldn't add to basket anymore not even with right click. I see it now uses a dimming element that I hid many years ago: ebay.co.uk##.oly_mask which was used for delivery tracking dimming overlay on purchase orders as the parent element (so the tracking got hidden too) but on right click also opens the tracking information on a new tab to avoid the dimming unpleasantness.

On trying to leave feedback about it and that won't open too. Disable adblock again and to discover the same dimming parent overlay element applied to this new feedback form with the fancy edges that cut me off from the content instead of opening a new tab or a panel on the right.

My anger and frustration seeing it: Just look at it, how pretty and trendy it looks with the edges, like that is so much important than anything else, such as the comfort of my eyes and me seeing the content behind it like that is going to make me feel very happy that I'd smile  bullshit:.

The person who put that there: The user is very stupid and confused, don't know what they are doing and can get confused at seeing the feedback form and the contents behind it at the same time where it could be displaying so much of information that it becomes incomprehensible to them so we'll shroud around it, make it look like everything is paused in the background so they can concentrate on the very the difficult and complicated task of leaving feedback.

Sorry I tend to get a bit angry when I feel insulted and patronized like that.

Basically all the stuff that "professional" web designers do, in order to make their work look like it took effort to make, and therefore was worth the fees!

Joke: Then I bet the use of that dimming overlay class element: .oly_mask hinges on some web designers continued employment at Ebay.

I just noticed something on scrolling:

As I accidentally scrolled, instead of the "Sticky Header Hider aka Fixed Header Fixer" extension hiding the form it hid the overlay instead.
Isn't that nice but then I still see it flash on and off.

[MrMobodies]

It has been a while since I ordered off RS components but I found really really slow to discover to my horror that it was these stupid annoying animations that appear and flash during loading by the supposed "loading" or "transitioning" element. It is not just a few but when there are many results the page is plastered with these animated placeholders and it seemed to me slower on large results. When hidden it seem quicker Very STUPID! like that is more important waiting for these things to properly appear at the expense of wasting power and slowing everything down


32-1% 31% % wasted on sh*t that does absolutely NOTHING useful but cause it to slow down wasting cpu time and power as usual.

Chatbot plastered with them:

26%-1% 25% wasted on the animated placeholders in that chatbot.


1% cpu usage when hidden:

and this thing whilst isn't as bad as the dimming overlays I still don't like the background covered over.


As I was typing in the search box that seems to slow it down to with the suggestions and other stuff in white boxes that I found annoying.



Adblock:

uk.rs-online.com##.sc-bdVaJa.sc-bwzfXH.sc-jzJRlG.ePfvlR
uk.rs-online.com##div.relative.overflow-hidden
##div.relative.overflow-hidden
##.lp_skeleton-window-body
##.lp_skeleton-header
##.lp_skeleton-box
##.lp_skeleton-message
##.lp_skeleton-visitor
##.lp_skeleton-agent
##.lp_skeleton-input
##.1p_skeleton-window-body
##.2p_skeleton-window-body
##.2p_skeleton-header
##.2p_skeleton-box
##.2p_skeleton-message
##.2p_skeleton-visitor
##.2p_skeleton-agent
##.2p_skeleton-input
##.2p_skeleton-window-body
uk.rs-online.com##.sc-bdVaJa.sc-bwzfXH.SearchBar__RecentlySearchedListItem-okj0vs-7.kyGcCA
##..SearchBar__RecentlySearchedListItem-okj0vs-7
uk.rs-online.com##.sc-bdVaJa.SearchBar__RecentlySearched-okj0vs-5.iLmUBE
uk.rs-online.com##.sc-bdVaJa.PredictiveResults__PredictiveResultsContainer-sc-1oxyjyz-2.dWRSLJ.predictive-results-container
.predictive-results-container
uk.rs-online.com##.predictive-results-container
##.predictive-results-container
uk.rs-online.com##.sc-bdVaJa.SearchBar__RecentlySearched-okj0vs-5.iLmUBE

sc-bdVaJa.PredictiveResults__PredictiveResultsContainer-sc-1oxyjyz-2.dWRSLJ.predictive-results-container

What an insult I don't like predictive text or anything second guessing me like that and irritating me with things that changes as I type.

With all the user insulting shit hidden above I find it a pleasure once again to search to be left alone without the intrusion and harassment of things I don't want there, are not useful, slow the page down and cause me problems.

[Someone]

The best suggestion! not in stock for months 

[RJSV]

Yeah, I'm also both irritated and impeded by the auto-complete stuff.  My (Adnoid) mobile screen keyboard gives these really stupid completes, sometimes several words, that only make sense to themselves, not to the sentence they are immersed in.
And also recently has that smeary crayon looking 'trail' starts showing, if you drag finger.

   By the way, much of the screen touch icons etc frequently DONT WORK, whenever I've tried to use left hand fingers, as the 'response' to touch is kinda like a crazed young dog, always pulling back on leash.
   I keep thinking....'' ...want a competitor, I want a competitor, to flee to, buying these consumer products''!