It's taken human beings now over twelve years to master the Internet. You'd think by now they'd have it down. Like, people printing a newspaper--they had to develop the presses and figure out how to do it.
But the Internet is a total, unadulterated mess. You would think the biggest sites -- CNN, New York Times, Facebook -- would have it down by now. But there is no standardisation. Everyone has their own rules, their stupid password requirements, their stupid useless anti-spammer "captchas", their own tedious signup requirements, their ceaseless ads, their forms, their little legal agreements that you have to check just to track a package (how dumb is that?) the visual clutter. The ONLY site that seems to have got it right is google.
I hereby suggest that some kind of body be formed to standardise the Internet.
How would life be if for every different lamp you'd have to get a different light bulb? Screw in, twist in, push and hold, 240 watts or 110 . . . it would be absolutely intolerable.
And it is. I find my most major frustrations these days is figuring out what people were thinking when they put a website together. For every one that's well-organised there are 999 crappy ones. Ones that have you twisting your fingers in frustration and wasting SO MUCH TIME trying to figure out.
Well, it just goes to prove my prevailing theory: 95% of humanity is dumb beyond belief.
Good rant! My personal bugaboo -- sites with dark background and white (or other light/bright) print. I don't think those people actually want anyone to read!
ReplyDeleteSue, when I first started cruising the 'Net in 1995 or so, it was littered with these sites with horrific tiled backgrounds or yellow text on blue--just horrible! You would think people have learned by now!
ReplyDeleteBut it's the forms and signup procedures that get me now.I think that an army of cretins is in charge of designing forms, and the "security" which requires those stupid "captchas" is just out of control.
Signing up and establishing oneself on MySpace alone is a hideous nightmare of searching the screen, looking for anything, then clicking "Help" through all the visual clutter and getting some endless lame FAQ which gets you nowhere. And you know for sure that emailing anyone will result in a week's delay by which time you won't care any more.
Somebody should just take these people who design these things and SHOW THEM A BOOK. It's full of white space with crawly black characters called TEXT.
THAT is what we need on the Internet.
Kiss my sweet ass with your videos and ads and viral this and that and white on black and blinking things and forms that lead you nowhere and you have to just do them OVER and OVER and remember 50 different usernames and passwords.
I just have had enough.
Yes, I'm mad as hell and I'm just not going to take it any more! Let's all stand up and yell it from our rooftops.
Cheers/Nicky