Below is a list of things websites need to stop doing immediately…
- Putting important information and links in the footer on a site with infinite scrolling so that the only way you can ever get to it is to view source and directly copy the URLs.
- Having a “support” system that is nothing but a bottomless FAQ pit of useless or outdated information with contact info that is virtually impossible to find. PayPal is notorious for this. Virtually every time I’ve had to use PayPal’s “support” system to figure out how to do something (usually cancelling recurring payments) the information has not been updated after recent site changes so that either many of the links / pages it says to go to either no longer exist or have moved. Often (more often than should be allowed by a loving God) pages PayPal links to in their support documents are COMPLETELY GONE. For example, here’s a screenshot from the PayPal “support” system I encountered just yesterday:
- Utilizing incompetent AI chatbots. If you don’t have a live human available, get rid of the online chat option entirely.
- Requiring a credit card for free trials. I get why sites do this (they’re evil) but they really need to stop.
- The SaaS (Software as a Service) business model needs to f*&%ing die. This is the single worst thing to happen to software since the Atari 2600 E.T. video game.
- Asking me if I want to receive their obnoxious notifications. You want to have an email newsletter sign up form? Great! You want to randomly invade my browser with updates no matter where I am on the web? Nope.
- Disabling the BACK browser button.
- Automatically refreshing the page. I’m looking at you Drudge Report.