Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox for May 1999

Top Ten New Mistakes of Web Design

See http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990530.html for elaboration

The "top ten" design mistakes I identified in 1996 are still bad for Web usability and are still found on many websites. So in that sense, not much has changed over the last three years.
But unfortunately new Web technology and new applications for the Web have introduced an entirely new class of mistakes. Here are the ten worst.

1. Breaking or Slowing Down the Back Button

2. Opening New Browser Windows

3. Non-Standard Use of GUI Widgets

4. Lack of Biographies

5. Lack of Archives

6. Moving Pages to New URLs

7. Headlines That Make No Sense Out of Context

8. Jumping at the Latest Internet Buzzword

9. Slow Server Response Times

10. Anything That Looks Like Advertising