Our Top Five Most-Hated Website Features

Websites that feature auto-playing music are guaranteed to be playing the worst possible music.

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he internet is a vast land. Between the cat videos, FailBlogs, social networks like MyFace and Spacebook, Tumblr and Twitter arguments, and the graveyard of news that used to be CNN, there are websites out there that have features that we're bound to hate. Whether it's leaving comments via your Facebook account, entering your age before being allowed entrance, or having to sign up for a (paid) account to access the rest of the article you're reading, there are plenty of things we'd like to never see again. Here are our top five most-hated website features.

1) Auto-playing music.
We get it. That new song by Dave Matthews Band totally embodies what you're feeling, and you want us to feel the same when we click onto your blog. The thing is, Dave Matthews Band is awful. And it's not even the choice of artist—being forced to listen to songs we don't want to is annoying. It makes the website take for-ev-er to load, and if you're using a public computer without headphones, it annoys everyone around you, too. Just, ugh. No. If you have auto-playing music on your website, do everyone a favor and go disable it.

Pop-up ads that block content: AWFUL.

2) Talking people.
This one is thankfully not all that common, but it smacks of, "Oh my gosh, have you heard of this thing called the internet?!" This feature involves an actual person, either their full body walking onto the screen or just shoulders-up in the corner, talking at you as though they are actually stuck in your computer. Who decided this was a cool thing to do? They were so, so wrong.

3) Rolldown ads.
These are those ads that, when you click onto a website, pop up and follow your scrolling—scroll down and the ad follows you until you're forced to either click on it or close it. They're annoying because you're forced to consume the information listed in the ad, and you can't read what you want to until you take care of the ad first.

4) Pagination
We love lists. Oh my, do we love lists. Best ofs, worst ofs, top 10s, you name it. What we don't love is when a website forces us to click onto a different page to view each list item. We get that it equals more page views and more ad revenue, but it wastes SO.MUCH.TIME that we end up leaving the website altogether, list be damned.

5) Hidden contact info.
Sometimes when we're on a website it's because we're looking for a way to get in touch with a business. Cell phone bill looks funky? Trying to cancel a gym membership? Some companies make it extraordinarily difficult to find a contact number for them. Sometimes you have to create an account or scan through alllllll of the "customer service" pages before finding a number. Contact numbers should be on the bottom of every page of a company's website. End of story.

What are your most-hated features on websites?