Favourite websites

The assigned topic for this post is favourite websites. I need to comment knowledgeably on two of them. The problem is, while I use websites for things like online banking, looking up movie show times, doing research for assignments, reserving library books, and registering for courses, I don’t think of them in terms of favourites. I really only take notice of a website when there’s something wrong with it.

What do I consider wrong in terms of websites? Here are a few pet peeves:

• advertising that flashes incessantly
• links that don’t work
• links that open a separate web browser
• sites that force you to navigate by clicking on "back"
• sites that require horizontal scrolling
•  sites that don’t provide the information users are expecting to find
•  sites that aren’t user-friendly or intuitive
•  sites that fail to balance usability with visual appeal (see website usability guru Jakob Nielsen’s site for example)

It’s too bad Google isn’t a website. I could go on and on about the virtues of my favourite search engine – the elegant simplicity of its design, the variety of search categories, the "define" and "synonym" search features, the "did you mean?" feature that compensates for fumble-fingered typists and people who can’t spell, the inventive banner redesigns commemorating special occasions, the … well, you see what I mean.