OT: Poor Web Design

[Kenneth Brody]

Quoting D . Thomas Podnar (Mon, 13 Feb 2006 21:02:34 -0500):
[...]
> > To this day, you still can't use staples.com without cookies enabled.
> > In fact, it's gotten worse.  It used to be that you couldn't search
> > the website without cookies.  Now, you can't even get to the main
> > page.
>
> So? Cookies aren't all bad. Some are quite useful. And a web designer
> at Staples thought he/she could provide the best possible customer
> experience by using them. He/she obviously doesn't remember when
> browsers had poor cookie management.

I have to disagree here.  To require cookies in order to customize
some things, and remember the user's preferences is one thing.  To
require them for a shopping cart is fine.  To require them to simply
view anything is just plain "bad".  If I were to allow cookies, what
preferences/customization would I originally see?  Why can't it
default to that if the cookies aren't set?  (And, although I can
understand session cookies to do searches on the website, their
earlier design required never-expiring cookies in order to search.  I
have no idea what their design requires now, since I chose not to
accept Staples' cookies yesterday.)

> > I've seen web sites where the main page contains a single SWF file,
> > without any links to other pages should ShockWave not be loaded.  (Or
> > those that contain a huge SWF file with no "skip intro" type link,
> > requiring the entire file be loaded before you can continue.)
>
> While I personally wouldn't do that, I can think of sites where that is
> a good idea, just as I can think of sites where that is a BAD idea but
> is done anyway.

Well, if it's going to require Flash, at least have the main page say
so, rather than be completely blank with no hint as to why.  (Yes, I
can "view/source" and see the HTML code which would have loaded the
Flash plugin, but how many other people would do that and understand
what they're seeing?)

--
KenBrody at BestWeb dot net        spamtrap: <g8ymh8uf001 at sneakemail.com>
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