Goodness me!
Posted: August 5th, 2003, by Marceline SmithNew Pitchfork design brilliantly illustrates why advertising on websites is bad and wrong. I couldn’t keep my eyes in one place long enough to actually read anything on the front page. Also, why the huge screen resolution? After a series of jobs where I would covertly read websites during work hours, I now have the fear of full size web browser windows and particularly resent scrolling to see YET MORE ADVERTS. I really like Pitchfork and I wish they’d stop shooting themselves in the foot like this. I like the brown though, it’s a very underused website colour.
This bad web design/usability thing seems to be a growing problem generally though. I’ve been wandering around the web quite a lot lately and I’m surprised at how few music/culture/etc. websites are well designed. They all seem cluttered, over-designed and difficult to navigate. Maybe I’m just becoming mental over web design now that I spend my days designing horrific websites for magicians and garden pond makers but is it too much to ask for simple, understandable navigation, readable text, a minimum of scrolling and NO FANCY GIMMICKS? God, I feel old. Again.
(Having read the above, try and imagine exactly what my response was to a colleague suggesting I used FRAMES on diskant…)
Marceline Smith
Marceline is the fierce, terrifying force behind diskant.net, laughing with disdain as she fires sharpened blades of sarcasm in all directions. Based in Scotland, her lexicon consists of words such as 'jings', 'aboot' and 'aye': our trained voice analysts are yet to decipher some of the relentless stream of genius uttered on a twenty-four hour basis. Marceline's hobbies include working too much and going out in bad weather.
http://www.marcelinesmith.com