Survey: What annoys you on a blog?

- Not being able to work out what the blog is even about
- Slow loading
- Those pop ups that try and get you to subscribe

It annoys me when the blogger gives incorrect advice (I mean when their stated facts are wrong, as opposed to just when their opinion differs from mine). I feel like correcting them would be kind of rude since it's their little personal space, so I don't but sometimes leaving it stand bugs me.

- auto music playing (I hate This seriously. Why not let me DECIDE whether I want to hear the music?)

- newsletters popins (before you read the content) (I don't like pop ups at all)

- hover links at the bottom (the bar that pops up and covers the text like wibiya) (Haven't had any BAD experiences with this)

- scrolling items that pop back up to the top every time you scroll down (I don't like it when it happens)

- cluttered sidebars (This is very distracting and can repel users like me out of a blog.)

- graphics that extend out of the designated area (Poor Web Designing skills. That's why Google recently advised all bloggers to try and make their blogs responsive.)

- the use of third party comment systems like disques (Though, Disques is good, but it limits the number of comment one can get on a blog and also limit one's growth of community)

My biggest is not enabling blog comments. I LOVE interacting with the bloggers. Why would some people cut us out? It makes me not return to the site.

I also dislike auto music and when a video loads and plays automatically. It's embarrassed me on several occasions (like at the library) and my computer is slow so getting it to stop is painful.

Pop-ups. Pop-ups are the big one. The ones that obscure the whole thing until you dismiss them. Unless I am already really invested, I just leave.

Also, CAPTCHA in order to comment. I almost always get them wrong, somehow. There are plug-ins that will weed the spam. If you want comments, don't make it hard for people to leave them.

Most all of these. Except I don't mind captcha- but I also stink at it.

I agree, pop-ups and captcha! Also supposed blogs where all they really are is an affiliate link nightmare. I totally get bloggers need to make an income, but I want to feel like someone has something to say other than, "I'm just in this for the cash!"

One pet peeve I have with Tumblr, in particular, is difficult-to-read layouts. I find that most writers and others who have text-heavy blogs on Tumblr are good at having layouts that are easily readable. But some of the layouts offered by the site (and that people use) are extremely hard to read because of tiny fonts or hard-to-read text and background color combos.

Also, this is something that bloggers don't always have a ton of control over, but I get frustrated when navigational links are difficult to find or understand. In regards to Tumblr again, I swear that some layouts use "next page" to move forward, and others use it to move back.

- auto music playing (Hate this.)
- newsletters popins (before you read the content) (Why would I subscribe to something if I haven't read the content? No.)
- hover links at the bottom (the bar that pops up and covers the text like wibiya) (Indifferent. Might be useful.)
- scrolling items that pop back up to the top every time you scroll down (I'm not really sure what this is referring to, but I'll probably notice it from now on.)
- cluttered sidebars (It's almost like they want me to click the "Back" button...)
- graphics that extend out of the designated area (If it doesn't distort the image, then fine. If it looks shoddy, then...well, there you go.)
- the use of third party comment systems like disques (Sometimes, for whatever reason, this fails to load for me. Maybe it's my adblock software, but either way, you're probably better off with something more reliable and less limiting, like kings_write said.)

Nothing bugs me more than blog posts that fail to deliver what they promise. If the title of your post is, "Why First Person is Always the Better POV" (just an example), then you'd better have the points to back it up. Whether they're correct is a whole other matter. At the very least, if you're going to make a claim, you should provide a solid argument. It's so disappointing to read an article that craps out 3/4 of the way through. Way to NOT value your readers' time.

I don't mind Disques too much, but it can be a little glitchy. It doesn't always want to load, and I find it harder to follow conversations than with a lot of other comment page layouts.

Also, I could be wrong, but I suspect that using Disques occasionally as an unregistered user (which requires you to put in your e-mail, at least on sites where I've used Disques) has resulted in an uptick in spam e-mails. It might be a coincidence, but I used to never get spam sent to one of my e-mails, and after commenting using Disques, I started noticing more stuff in my spam folder. I don't want to jump to conclusions, but let's just say I'm wary now.

Uh-oh. Let me get my freak on...

* autoplay music. NO. Being shouted at by people who were asleep moments ago does not make me feel wonderment at your web-fu.

* faint spidery gray text on SCREAMING WHITE BACKGROUND, where I feel like I'm being interrogated by Nazis in a Monty Python skit.

* colored text over busy images. Hello? I can't see you!

* pop-ups when your page first loads, that require me to press a button to make them go away. I don't care how important you or your webmaster thought your message was; your real message was "we are deliberately annoying you."

* no visible links, forcing me to run the cursor all over the page, looking to see if anything changes shape or color, or just randomly clicking to see if anything happens

* Google or Amazon ads, Taboola or Outbrain clickbait

* fonts that look like they came from a ransom note

* Flash. Please, for the love of [$INSERT_DIETY_HERE], no.

* pop-down, self-hiding, or roll-up submenus. Just freakin' try to navigate that on a tiny touchscreen. No.

* requiring the viewer to download some kind of plugin to make your site work. (besides Internet Explorer plugins, I include Flash and Java)

* using nonstandard HTML so your site works only with Internet Explorer. Or Explorer and Firefox. Extra points if your site only works with the *latest* version, which was just released last night.

* more extra points for snarky comments about whatever web browser your viewer is using, or for telling them to upgrade their version

* auto-loading content, where your site sits there running up the phone bill for viewers who are using metered cellular hotspots or PTT connections.

* hardcoding your site to 4096 pixels wide, forcing viewers to scroll left to right to see it

* hardcoding your site with huge margins, jamming your text into a 10-character-wide slot down the middle

* hardcoding your font sizes

* pop-ups, pop-unders, opening new browser windows for every sub-page

* anything that moves. Flapping flags, dancing kittens, it doesn't matter.

* requiring registration. (extra points for shopping sites that require registration before they'll let you see the price)

* again for shopping sites, not telling you how much they're charging for shipping until after they get my credit card number. (I assume; I won't give them the number unless I get a total first)

* yet again for shopping sites, credit card number fields that freak out if you put dashes in the number. Or freak out when you don't put dashes in the number. This is "Hello, World" level PHP programming, people. There's no excuse for that.

* there's also no excuse for a drop box for "Month" that stops at October. Yes, the default for most site builder packages is 10 entries. Making your customer scroll from October to December because you were too lazy to change "10" to 12" just makes you look foolish.

* filling out a long form, then having nothing visible happen when I click "send" or "continue." Put a not-very-noticeable error message somewhere that's not even on the visible screen. Make me scroll around to find it. Mark it only by some subtle change of color or font. Then arbitrarily dump half of what I typed in previously due to "security" and make me type it all in again. Iterate as desired. (See also: the old Infocom game "Bureaucracy.")

* animated Javascript menus or graphics that bounce up and down on my screen when I page up or down

* grabbing my "back" button to turn your site into a Roach Motel

* setting the "back" button to simply jump to the top of the page instead of going back. (this may be some vBulletin plugin; I encounter it mostly on vBulletin forums

There's probably more, but I think I just developed high blood pressure...

too many photos that go on forever down a page
poor content
no search button
ads

When the 'About Me' page is only a couple of sentences long, as in, "Hi! Welcome to my blog! Click around, make comments, I'm glad you're here."

Really? Really??

Articles where you keep having to click "next" or a page number to see the rest of the article. I can forgive this for long articles (i.e. several paragraphs and/or pictures per page) but if I have to click to read the next sentence after just a sentence or two and a picture, then I navigate away.

Another thing that annoys me is sensationalist headlines like "This man bought a puppy. You won't BELIEVE what happened NEXT!!! You'll be astounded!" Then it's something totally ordinary. Yep the headline gets more clicks than "Man's new puppy does something ordinary" but I won't trust your headlines any more so won't read your other articles.

neandermagnon said:

Articles where you keep having to click "next" or a page number to see the rest of the article. I can forgive this for long articles (i.e. several paragraphs and/or pictures per page) but if I have to click to read the next sentence after just a sentence or two and a picture, then I navigate away.

Click to expand...

I'm curious if my format would set you off: If I have a post that is multiple pages (say, two 700 word articles about the same topic collapsed into one for easy access), I'll often include a first page with the title and one-line introduction to the topic, plus a list of what each page is, with the actual content starting on Page 2.

ManInBlack said:

I'm curious if my format would set you off: If I have a post that is multiple pages (say, two 700 word articles about the same topic collapsed into one for easy access), I'll often include a first page with the title and one-line introduction to the topic, plus a list of what each page is, with the actual content starting on Page 2.

Click to expand...

If there's a significant amount of text on each page then I'm fine with it. It's like turning pages in a book really. In books written for adults, you get a lot of text on each page. In books written for small children, you get maybe a sentence and a big picture on each page and that's fine if you're reading the book out loud to a small child. So when you get web pages with just one picture and a sentence on each page, it's insanely annoying and makes me think that they think I have the attention span of a toddler. Either that or they think their writing is so gripping that you'd want to keep on going to the next page to read the next sentence, which it never is.

The NHS choices website has its articles a bit like you describe and that never annoyed me. You could maybe start the content on the first page and have a link to click on the contents list, rather than having a first page as just a list of contents - though it depends on your target audience is. If the subject matter is more academic or technical then a contents page sounds good; if it's entertainment then it may put off some readers.

BTW I tried to look at the blog in your link but my computer's saying it's not a secure connection or something. I'm not that tech savvy so not sure what that means, whether my laptop security is OTT or if it's something on the site that's making it say that.

It's a wordpress.com, so it's not on a separate server unless wordpress as a company is having problems. The problem might be because the link in my signature is https (my browser's default) rather than http, though.

Slow loading pages drive me crazy. Pop ups and auto music playing are annoying as well. Also I don't like when blogger doesn't respond to the comments - I'm a fan of active discussions (I think it refers rather to a blogger than to a blog itself).