The Worst Web Design Mistakes, and How to Prevent Them

With Geocities gone and Adobe Flash dying, what will we make fun of in Web design now? Never fear: Many companies continue to employ Flash in annoying ways (restaurant menus, I'm looking at you); and though animated GIFs still terrorize some dark corners of the Web, visitor counters are being replaced at the top of the annoyance scale by ham-handed overuse of social widgets. Elsewhere, side-scrolling websites, text that matches the background color far too closely, and blog updates that consist of apologies for not updating remain prevalent. Put your speakers on mute--because yes, some websites still automatically blare music--break out the eye bleach, and learn from the mistakes of others.