I was bouncing around dropping some Entrecards this morning and ran into a few things that I absolutely hate to see on the web. New designers should be taught to avoid these practices in web design 101. I know I’m not alone here so any newbie bloggers out there please take heed to these, “what I consider”, horrible design flaws.

Music On A Page That Automatically Starts

This was as annoying back in the day when people would embed wavs into their cheesy pages as it is today. This is also a problem with many Myspace pages. I don’t want to listen to your music. I don’t like your music…well that’s not fair, but I would much rather have the option to listen to your music than have it thrust onto me. See my XSPF player link to the right. I like to share with my readers to, but I’m not forcing anyone to check out my superior musical tastes…(tongue in cheek)

Video Ads That Automatically Start

I’m afraid that these are becoming more and more popular. These are the tiny video ads that start once loaded without anyone clicking on them. If you have these on your page I will not come back to your site. I don’t feel I am alone here. So if you wanted to make some extra cash with some fancy looking video ads like this I think you’re doing more harm than good.

Full Page Pop Over Ads

I don’t know who decided this would scheme would work, but unfortunately these to are showing up more and more. I’ve noticed a couple today while bouncing from my Entrecard rss feed. These are those full page ads, usually white, with a, “skip this ad”, option at the top of the page. I’m more apt to skip your web site and never come back. These didn’t work when they were pop up ads and they don’t work now.

In Summation

I’m not opposed to web site ads. My site is monetized, but is what I consider un-intrusive or at least less intrusive. These are just in my opinion horrible design practices. I will immediately hit my back button or close my browser when you push media like this into my eyes and ears.

Again I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way. There’s a reason why Tivo is so popular. No one wants to watch the commercials. What makes you think that I wont immediately leave your page when you try to push your commercials on me?

Some food for thought folks. PLEASE STOP.

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If you’ve never used blending effects in Photoshop you really need to hop on board. Blending effects can be particularly handy when creating the same effect over and over. This is especially beneficial when making graphics for a website that holds a set standard. Save a psd with layer effects applied to it and you can re-create the same look and feel time and time again without re-inventing the wheel.

Today we’ll be adding effects to textual graphics.

1. First off create a new text layer with a font of your choosing. I’m using my standard site font, “Dirty Ego“.

2. Blending Options Palette: Open the blending options palette. To do this right click on the layer you wish to apply effects to and select, “Blending Options”. This will open the palette up. Here you will have a number of effects to play with.

3. Drop Shadow: Select drop shadow from the blending options palette. You can keep the default settings where they are, but I find I like just a touch less of a drop shadow on my graphics. So I have the distance and size turned down from 5’s to 3’s.

4. Stroke: Select stroke from the same palette Here you will have the option to choose your outline color as well as thickness. By default it’s set to 3 pts red, but simply click on the color box to select a new color and reduce the line size in the same palette.

5. Inner Glow: Again in the blending options palette make your effect selections. Choose Inner Glow. By default the color is set to #ffffbe, but once again you can choose what ever color you wish to choose from the color palette. Select, “Blend Mode”, at the top to get a more controlled inner glow effect. Choose Normal instead of Screen.

Before

After

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