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Because this my blog I feel that I am entitled to voice some of my own personal opinions and peeves about website design. Most of the time I do try to say things that are generally true, however there are some popular website designs that particularly bug me even if they do apparently work.

One of the things that bugs me the most when I open a website is instantly playing an audio file without asking the viewer for permission. Especially if it is a background audio file that can't be turned off. Doing the same thing with a video file can be even worse, especially if it is an add. This almost always irritates me even if it is something like because I was not expecting to listen to it and as I usually have music on anyway it clashes with my music. This attribute is of course understandable on a band or movie website and consequently less irritating there, but I can't understand why any other website would have it.

Another thing that I often find irritating is white backgrounds, it makes the page look like a word document no mater what color the font. In my Opinion even an off white background is better than a white one.

These are of course as I said before my personal pet peeves with websites and if you disagree with them you are welcome to try them out. Just don't expect me to like your site.

The primary thing that brings people back to any website in new content, while old but unseen content may as well the numbers are not as great. For this reason it is a good idea to have immediate access to new content on your home page. Not only this it should be in a place in which the viewers attention is immediately drawn to.

One way to do this have you have likely seen is a news feed, which is a slides show that cycles through various new features over the duration of a minute or so. One nice thing about a news feed is that it doesn't take up too much space and allows people to see the rest of the website as well.

Alternatively a simpler yet often just as effective way to do this is a summarized version of an article or whatever it you have added with a read more/see more link. This allows you to catch the viewers attention once again without taking too much space.

The last and least intrusive way of doing this is having a link on your main site, saying something like new content or recently added.

There are of course other ways to display your new content including right on your main page but these three are some of the ones I have seen used most effectively and do not require extensive changing the home page regularly.

When somebody visits your site for the first time they will probably decide within a few short seconds whether or not they want to look around. For this reason the things you use to grab peoples attention when they visit your site are exceedingly important. If people do not remain on your website for more than a few seconds then it is likely that whatever it is you hope your website to accomplish will fail.

Over the next couple weeks this blog will examine different ways of grabbing peoples attention, both good and bad.
The human eyes and brain are amazing creations and they can take in an a lot at once, this includes your whole front page or at least as much as their screen shows. Enough things that bother them and they may leave immediately. On the other hand if something grabs their attention or perks their interest they may just stick around for a while.
Later this week I will post a description of the effects of various colors on websites.