Lousy web design trends that are making a comeback due to HTML5

yes !

I looked at the join thing at the bottom and actually felt it slip out of my mind into the bin of stuff to ignore on the web.

Geocities view-sourcing. Thanks for taking me back.

The trend that annoys me most right now is that image thumbnails never just point to the large image: instead they pop up some JS-based overlay that obscures the whole page. There are several issues with this:

* Quite often, for whatever reason, the overlay takes seconds to load (much longer than just loading the image)

* If the image takes long time to load, I cannot just put it in a background tab and continue browsing the page with the thumbnail while I wait.

* I cannot open several images simultaneously

* To close the overlay, I have to hunt down an 'x' button (for example pressing Esc usually does not work). The 'x' is likely camouflage dark grey in order to look good against the dark grey background, and placed creatively to make it difficult to find. Sometimes, the 'x' loads two seconds later than the overlay itself, to make sure the browsing experience becomes as frustrating as possible.

* Not uncommonly, the JS is so poorly coded that the overlay half-loads in my browser and cannot be closed at all without reloading the page. With JS disabled, trying to open the image might not work at all.

* If I react instinctively to the overlay by pressing backspace, it doesn't close the overlay; I get sent back to page before the page I was on.

At least the web designers who do this overlay crap are increasingly using JS for it, which is an infinite improvement over Flash.

This should be regulated somehow (yeah, I know, I sound like an 19th century guy). But probably lobbyist won't give up on that easily. I have disabled all that crap in my adblock, but there are millions of people who are not that savvy / aware etc.

My friend from Germany told me that in some (but not all) the pages, there are dummy social buttons loaded by default, you have to "enable" them. Try any article at [1]. It actually displays grayed placeholders only [2], and things are fetched from G/T/FB only when you click it - you can see in HTTP console.

[1] http://www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de [2] http://i.imgur.com/hkQXEiX.png

Author here. Thanks for all of your comments.

To clarify:

1. The article clearly isn't an attack on HTML5 itself, but of designers who happen to be building HTML5 sites with a lack of concern for the user experience. The gap between design and UX has hugely narrowed in the past decade, and I don't want to see it open up again. It is a plea of sorts, and I apologise if I've mislabelled the headline.

2. The article is a response to the many posts I see that hold up these sites as being "inspirational examples of HTML5 design". I'm afraid that I don't think many of these sites are inspiring, given the UX issues. And yes, they could have been built in HTML4, but they're using HTML5 / CSS3. Hence the headline, though no doubt I could have chosen a clearer one.

3. Yes, our site has all manner of issues, though I've yet to see it in a compendium of 'inspirational' sites. The roll-up is there because sometimes business goals sometimes kick UX goals in the face. The roll-up should not appear immediately and should not obscure all of the screen (please suggest a more elegant solution).

4. 404 pages. A lame point. My bad.