{"id":16027,"date":"2012-09-13T11:49:44","date_gmt":"2012-09-13T15:49:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/audreymarcotte.ca\/uncategorized\/popular-list-of-bad-ui-practices\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T12:29:45","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T16:29:45","slug":"popular-list-of-bad-ui-practices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/audreymarcotte.ca\/en\/popular-list-of-bad-ui-practices\/","title":{"rendered":"Popular list of bad UI practices"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The principle is simple: a person asks a question. We answer them and we vote for the answers. The answers are then placed in order of \u201cpopularity\u201d. The <a title=\"Site de Quora\" href=\"http:\/\/www.quora.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Quora<\/a> site is a mine of information, each more entertaining than the next! His strength? Anyone can participate (anonymously or not) and any question can be raised. Really, any question&#8230;<!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What makes one web browser faster than another?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>What is the most beautiful number, and why?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Or my favorite:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What are the most common tricks used by dumb people to seem smart?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Recently, a question was asked about what bad practices still exist in UI design. For fun, here&#8217;s my (not at all scientific) ranking, based on Quora respondents.<\/p>\n<h2>Top 11 Bad UI Practices<\/h2>\n<h3><strong>11.<\/strong> Create <strong>inconsistent buttons<\/strong> between inactive aspect and <em>mouse over.<\/em><\/h3>\n<h3><strong>10.<\/strong> Ask for <strong>confirmation of a minor or reversible task<\/strong> using a &#8220;Do you really want to&#8230;&#8221; dialog box<\/h3>\n<h3><strong>9.<\/strong> Present <strong>text in an image<\/strong> , especially when small.<\/h3>\n<p>I&#8217;m not telling you that there are a ton of reasons to avoid this. SEO, accessibility or just because we don&#8217;t want the user to have difficulty reading.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>8.<\/strong> Insert a <strong>drop-down menu inside a drop-down menu.<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>What more can be said&#8230;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>7.<\/strong> Place a <strong>\u201cCancel\u201d button in the same place as a \u201cPrevious\u201d button<\/strong> .<\/h3>\n<p>Too often, the visitor will click the \u201cBack\u201d button multiple times, only to accidentally click the \u201cCancel\u201d button and lose all their changes. Cry of despair. To forbid.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>6.<\/strong> Mask a password and ask <strong>for password confirmation<\/strong> .<\/h3>\n<p>In fact, the password is initially masked in order to prevent an &#8220;intruder&#8221; from reading over our shoulder. The confirmation field is then used to ensure the correctness of the password. In short, the user enters the information twice, which could be avoided. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nngroup.com\/people\/jakob-nielsen\/\">Jacob Nielsen<\/a> also offers an <a title=\"Use it\" href=\"http:\/\/www.useit.com\/alertbox\/passwords.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">alternative<\/a> to this convention.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>5.<\/strong> Offer the visitor to <strong>follow on social media<\/strong> as soon as he arrives on the site.<\/h3>\n<p>Personally, I like to read the content of a site before following on social media. This principle probably generates a lot of results, but it is nonetheless intrusive for the user, even off-putting at times. Thus, it is instead proposed to visually underline the information in order to attract the visitor&#8217;s eye and to deactivate this emphasis when the visitor has clicked.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-15672\" src=\"https:\/\/audreymarcotte.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/screenshot-2.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"964\" height=\"625\"><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-15673 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/audreymarcotte.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/play-400x189.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"312\" height=\"147\" srcset=\"https:\/\/audreymarcotte.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/play-400x189.jpg 400w, https:\/\/audreymarcotte.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/play-400x189-300x142.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 312px) 100vw, 312px\" \/><\/p>\n<h3><strong>4.<\/strong> <strong>(Just) automatic carousels.<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Because they often present the primary content of the page and sometimes it is difficult to navigate and click in the right place. We also mention the control buttons that bring us back to the days of the VCR. On this last point, you should know that a Play\/Pause button is a minimum to have in an accessibility context.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>3.<\/strong> <strong>Infinite scrolling<\/strong> .<\/h3>\n<p>First, I think it&#8217;s mostly personal taste, but this answer comes up often. Note that <a title=\"Quora\" href=\"http:\/\/www.quora.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Quora<\/a> and <a title=\"Facebook\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Facebook<\/a> use a lot of principle on their sites. Just like <a title=\"LinkedIn\" href=\"http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">LinkedIn<\/a> &#8216;s new interface, which even prevents access to its footer.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>2.<\/strong> A <strong>\u201cCancel\u201d button on a form<\/strong> .<\/h3>\n<p>Because there is no reason to want to undo everything that has just been completed! You just took 2, 5, maybe 10 minutes to complete your form. Why would you want to cancel and lose the entered data? Especially since the button is very likely to be near the &#8220;Send&#8221; button&#8230;<\/p>\n<h2>And the big winner is&#8230;<\/h2>\n<h3><strong>1. CAPTCHA!<\/strong> (and its derivatives \u201c2+2?\u201d, \u201cWhat is this picture?\u201d)<\/h3>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15671 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/audreymarcotte.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/captcha.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"316\" height=\"68\">Oh I was waiting for this one. Irritation. Difficulty reading letters and numbers, not to mention that it sometimes happens that the form must be completed again when the captcha is incorrectly entered!<\/p>\n<p>We all know why captchas exist: spam. But spam is a technical problem, which should be solved in the same way, and not passed on to the user.<\/p>\n<p>To remedy this, we suggest that developers take into consideration these revealing elements of the very predictable and easily recognizable behavior of Spambots:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Was the form submitted within a second of page load?<\/li>\n<li>Was JavaScript disabled?<\/li>\n<li>Were the text fields filled with URLs?<\/li>\n<li>Has the Spambot fallen into a <em>honey-trap<\/em> (a field invisible to users)<\/li>\n<li>Did this IP spawn multiple queries in a short time?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Here! I invite you to register on <a title=\"Quora\" href=\"http:\/\/www.quora.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Quora<\/a> and follow the evolution of this <a title=\"Quora - mauvaises pratique en UI\" href=\"http:\/\/www.quora.com\/User-Interface-Design\/What-are-the-worst-user-interface-design-features-that-should-be-generally-avoided-but-are-in-common-use-today\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">discussion<\/a> or to ask your own question, however original it may be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The principle is simple: a person asks a question. We answer them and we vote for the answers. The answers are then placed in order of \u201cpopularity\u201d. The Quora site is a mine of information, each more entertaining than the next! His strength? Anyone can participate (anonymously or not) and any question can be raised. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"content-sidebar","footnotes":""},"categories":[131,438],"tags":[561,459,440],"class_list":["post-16027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-experience-utilisateur-ux","category-user-experience-ux","tag-interface-design-ui","tag-responsive-design-en","tag-ux-design","entry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Popular list of bad UI practices<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A question was asked on Quora to find out what bad practices still persisted in UI design. 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