It’s All In The Portfolio

Unlike many other jobs, you can prove your worth as a web designer purely by a demonstration of your skills. Having a bachelor’s or associate’s does not prove that you have more knowledge than the next guy. While college can help you to develop a diverse portfolio, you can also build it by taking small or free jobs.

You Will Take Classes You Don’t Need

If you are positive that you want to pursue web design, that does not change the fact that college requires hours upon hours of unrelated or peripherally related classwork. More than half of your coursework can be general education classes and electives. Depending on where you go to school, a web design degree may be considered an art degree. This means taken a number of courses in art history, painting, sculpture and more. While some people come at web design from the art side, others may not at all, finding themselves deep in subjects they have no experience with. There are useful options like business classes for aspiring freelancers and coding classes to round out your knowledge, but you may be too busy with your other coursework to even consider these choices.

You Can Learn Web Design and More For Free

The Internet is a massive pool of knowledge. The fact that web design is a field filled with web-savvy individuals means you will find more resources available to you than you can imagine. Whether it is Photoshop, design principles or HTML, you can teach yourself anything with the Internet. If you have the motivation, you can start learning web design now. In addition, the fact is that no one degree plan will fit everyone’s needs perfectly. By teaching yourself, you can systemically attack every weakness that you have in your knowledge.

The Unique Benefits of College

All of that being said, that does not mean you should entirely rule out going to college. A good college can provide things you can’t get anywhere else. Your professors are real professionals in the field who can give you helpful advice and later on help you find a job. While in truth you will progress much faster solely focusing on web design, there is a lot to be said for being a well-rounded individual. In the process of taking other classes you will learn how to see things differently, and you will pick up skills that you would never expect to have. In addition, for some people the structured learning environment of college can really boost them forward.

Article References

To School or Not to School
Going to School for Web Design – Is It Necessary?

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Although you may be unfamiliar with the term “Google doodle,” you’ll almost certainly have seen what it refers to. On notable dates, such as holidays and anniversaries, Google works hard to modify its iconic logo to fit with the relevant theme – using cool design to both help put the brand firmly in the public eye and prompt users to investigate the subject.

Since the first Google doodle was created for the 1998 Burning Man Festival, the web giant has gone on to create regular updates – and, from 2010, interactive versions. It could be argued that these are the most innovative, because they allow users to “play” the doodle by clicking the mouse or computer keys. Here’s our pick of the ten best interactive Google doodles.

10. 2012 Olympics

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The London 2012 Olympics spawned several doodles, as the variety of events and the spectacle of the Games provided a fertile ground for inspiration. The basketball doodle, pictured, was an interactive game that allowed you to shoot hoops by hitting the space bar (harder than it sounds!). Users could also try their hand at slalom canoeing, hurdles and soccer. A total of one billion games were played on these doodles over just four days.

The playable doodles were able to inform people about sporting events with which they may not necessarily have been familiar, and they allowed everyone, regardless of age or ability, to engage in a bit of button-mashing competitiveness for free. Google didn’t sponsor the 2012 Olympics, so the doodles it created were simply a tribute.

9. Halloween 2012

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Halloween may be based on pagan rituals, but in recent times it has spawned the child-approved practice of getting free candy while dressing up and scaring the neighbors. Google captured the spirit of the day with its interactive Halloween 2012 doodle, which revealed ghosts, ghouls and monsters lurking within the houses when you clicked on the doors.

Although Halloween is welcomed more enthusiastically in the US, it is enjoyed globally, and so Google took advantage of this by launching the doodle in a selection of countries around the world. Doodle designs can be tailored to different countries, so users don’t end up facing something that means absolutely nothing to them.

8. 46th Anniversary of Star Trek

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In September 2012, the 46th anniversary of Star Trek was marked with a Google doodle. Progressive from the beginning, the show has spawned a huge cult following and is a beloved piece of historic popular culture.

The doodle itself showed the iconic bridge of the USS Enterprise, with the letters of the Google logo staffing the stations. Users could click through multiple scenes to reveal hidden goodies that ought to have appealed to both “trekkies” and non-fans alike. Most people are at least aware of Spock, Kirk and their friends, so caricaturing them with the logo was a good way to reinforce both brands with some fun design.

7. Frank Zamboni’s 112th Birthday

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In January 2013, Google tipped its hat to Frank Zamboni with a suitably wintry doodle. The Zamboni machine, created by its namesake, is a device that resurfaces ice rinks. It may be a little bit esoteric, but it’s a staple of any ice-based sports.

On what would have been the inventor’s 112th birthday, Google designed an interactive doodle that allowed users to smooth the ice using their very own ice resurfacer. The logo formed the area of ice, which could then be repaired. It provided a fun way of amusing people, while teaching them what the object on the ice actually was. We certainly learned something from it!

6. Alan Turing’s 100th Birthday

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Alan Turing is not as well known as he should be, but Google remembered him through a doodle in June 2012. Turing created a machine that was an essential part of code breaking during World War II, and the doodle allowed people to play puzzles on a version of his invention.

The impact of Turing on the world of computing is sizable, and his knowledge helped make many technological advances possible. It was an effective way for Google to raise awareness about an unsung hero, while demonstrating that it doesn’t underestimate its audience’s intellect.

5. Jim Henson’s 75th Birthday

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In September 2011, to commemorate what would have been Jim Henson’s 75th birthday, Google launched a Muppets-themed doodle, in which characters replaced the letters of the logo. Jim Henson, originator of The Muppets and Sesame Street, loved to entertain everyone, young and old. The shows he created hold a special place in many people’s hearts, and even today, some can still name their favorite characters and relay lessons they learnt from them.

The doodle in question replicated the puppets, and clicking on them invoked a response. It was a whimsical way to mark the birthday of a man who was committed to his craft with some fun design – even if the “E” does look a little evil!

4. Robert Moog’s 78th Birthday

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Robert Moog created a synthesizer in the 1960s that went on to become a feature in songs by The Beatles, Kraftwerk and The Doors and has since garnered an avid fan base among professional musicians. In May 2012, its distinctive sound was replicated in a Google doodle that allowed people to play a tune, without being a maestro, whilst adjusting knobs and dials to get a different tone.

For the first time, Web Audio API was utilized in a doodle through Google Chrome, while other browsers used Adobe Flash to run the specification. The “instrument” promoted both Google and its browser, and at the same time it entertained users. A win-win situation!

3. Jules Verne’s 183rd Birthday

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Arguably the father of science fiction, Jules Verne is best known as the author of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Around the World in 80 Days, and Journey to the Center of the Earth. His detailed stories have been favorites for well over a century, and they inspired Google to honor him with a stylized doodle on what would have been his 183rd birthday. It was launched in February 2011 and was designed to imitate the Nautilus, the submarine from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Users could pull a “lever” to plunge the vessel to the depths of the ocean. There, they could investigate all the different marine life by peering through the portholes, or, if viewing on a handheld device or laptop, could simply tilt the screen to explore different areas of the sea.

2. Year of the Snake

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To celebrate 2013, the Year of the Snake, Google created a doodle that featured Snake, the cult classic game that’s found on most Nokia cell phones. The Google logo appeared in the background of the doodle, with the revamped game itself having a definite Chinese feel to its music, as well as dumplings for the snake to gobble.

Each year in the Chinese zodiac is allocated a different creature, and people born within the timeframe are said to exhibit certain personality traits. This doodle was shown in several countries in the Far East that also observe the Chinese Zodiac. And in case you were wondering, the characteristics of someone born in the Year of the Snake include endurance, planning, and application.

1. Pac-Man’s Anniversary

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In May 2010, Google globally launched its first interactive doodle in order to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man. An icon of the 1980s, the Pac-Man game resonated with people who remembered playing it in arcades and on their home computers – although, thanks to Google, even the uninitiated could have a go at the addictive time-waster.

Players could cruise their little yellow friend around the maze, which was designed to resemble the Google logo. The doodle reinforced the Google and Pac-Man brands while entertaining and amusing the demographic (even if managers were less impressed with the wasted office hours!). It was a great way to keep users on the Google homepage for a little longer, before they actually carried out the search they came there to do. If you fancy trying your hand at any of the doodles featured here, visit www.google.com/doodles.

Web Design Tutorial Blogs

1. Web Design Ledger: This well-rounded web design blog is loaded with free fonts and layout tutorials.
Highlight: 21 Inspiring Examples of Typography in Web Design

2. Hongkiat.com: This site shows the user how to use Photoshop to create a wide range of website layouts.
Highlight: Working With Bootstrap Plugin: Modal Window

3. 1st Web Designer: A blog providing a steady stream of free resources with accompanying tutorials to show you how to use them.
Highlight: From Failure To Success – How Three Freelancers Learned From Their Failures and Succeeded

4. Web Designer Depot: This colorful addition to the list has information on everything involved in creating the perfect webpage.
Highlight: How to Use the Fullscreen API

5. gomediazine: Packed with design insights and tutorials, this online magazine is a great place to find information and listen to helpful podcasts.
Highlight: Ampergram: Capture. Tag. Type. Share.

Blogs from Professional Web Designers

6. Smiley Cat: The online home of designer Christian Watson helps you stay current on web design developments and e-commerce.
Highlight: Web Design Trends to Help You Spring Clean Your Resumé

7. Veerle’s Blog: A graphic designer from Belgium gives an artist’s input on the world of web design, as well modern home design and Belgian graphic design.
Highlight: Getting started in Illustrator

8. Andy Sowards: Andy Sowards brings his readers a bright spin on the art that is web design. He mixes his knowledge of art and coding to present an excellent result.
Highlight: 50+ Epic Toy Photography

9. Just Creative: A specialist in logo and brand identity design, Jacob Cass shares his advice on becoming a successful web designer.
Highlight: Coworking Explained & How To Make It Work for You

10. Web Designer Wall: Toronto-based web designer and illustrator Nick La keeps you up to date on today’s web design trends.
Highlight: Setting Breakpoints in Responsive Design

Web Design Inspiration

11. Colour Lovers: A wash of beautiful color photography and art, this blog teaches you how to best incorporate color into your projects.
Highlight: Amazing Fractal Patterns Found in Nature

12. The Design Inspiration: Hundreds upon hundreds of pictorial examples of great web and logo designs along with articles that will get your mind spinning with creativity.
Highlight: 20 New Creative Products You Must Get

13. Fuel Your Creativity: Inspiration for and by other creative types, including plenty of freebies to get you started.
Highlight: An Interview with Designer and Illustrator Benjamin De Cock

14. Abduzeedo: A plethora of creative material to get you started on your next design project, including tutorials and interviews with professionals in various design fields.
Highlight: Logo Design: Labyrinths And Mazes

15. Fubiz: Mind-stirring images and daily inspiration that will help get your creative juices flowing.
Highlight: Macro Soap Photography

Web Design Firm Blogs

16. Weboritm: The blog of Weboritm, a full service design agency dedicated to helping their customers grow their business.
Highlight: Virtual Fitness Trainer

17. Vandelay Design: This company offers advice as well as high-quality, free WordPress themes.
Highlight: Comparison of WordPress Theme Clubs

18. PixelSpoke: Strategies and data on web development and design. This blog is perfect for someone looking for information on the business end of the field.
Highlight: If you build it, they might go away

19. Spinx: A digital agency led by a team of web enthusiasts and business professionals who provide turnkey solutions for their customer’s web design needs.
Highlight: Is it Necessary for Small Business to Have a Mobile App Development?

20. Mad Wire Web Design: This Colorado-based design firm is committed to providing its customers with excellent services and an amazing end result. Also check their webpage for advice and job opportunities.
Highlight: So Many Big Commerce Templates Available Today…

Web Coding Blogs

21. A Web Coding Blog: Started in 2011, this blog serves as a liaison between the blogger and his reader. Look for step by step guides on various coding projects.
Highlight: How To Make an Android Home Screen Widget Update Only When Visible

22. Coding Horror: Coding Horror is a humorous yet informative blog about programming and technology from coder Jeff Atwood.
Highlight: Web Discussions: Flat By Design

23. A List Apart: An important resource blog for people who make websites from A List Apart Magazine.
Highlight: The Era of Symbol Fonts

24. Net Tuts Plus: This popular coding blog provides a plethora of web development tutorials for the novice beginner to the advanced professional.
Highlight: Relational Databases for Dummies

25. Cats who Code: This “100% animal friendly web development blog” aims to make web development easier and more enjoyable by providing helpful advice and useful tutorials.
Highlight: Super Useful Online Tools to Make JavaScript Development Easier

Web Design Resource Blogs

26. Smashing Magazine: By far the most popular blog in the world of web design, Smashing Magazine is at the forefront of a rapidly growing field. Not only will you find updates on every web design based topic you can think of, but also places to buy books and a job board, too.
Highlight: Communicating Complex Ideas With Comics

27. Web Resources Depot: The goal of this blog holds true to its name. Visit every day to find new and useful resources for your current project, or search for tutorials and easy tricks to bring your web designs to the next level.
Highlight: Formula.js – MS Excel Formulas Brought To JavaScript

28. Bitt Box: Not only is Bitt Box a great resource for free web resources, but they also alert you of sales going on in the web design field. Also, take their online course on web development and see your business become a success.
Highlight: Need Vectors? 3200+ Royalty Free Vectors!

29. Tutorial 9: With an endless list of tutorials and downloads, wandering onto this site might have you surfing for hours. Read articles on web design or submit your own links and share your design knowledge.
Highlight: Basics of the Mesh tool in Illustrator

30. Design Shard: Design Shard was started by professional web designer Max as a way to contribute his skills to the design community. Read up on the latest design news or stop by for the freebies.
Highlight: 18 Free Hi-Res Paper & Cardboard Textures

General Resources

Elementiks: This site catalogues many useful, powerful and free tools for web designers. Many of these are strong alternatives to some of the more expensive professional design tools.

For Web Designers: This website lists many strong design resources for web designers including CSS, Font, Flash, Graphic Sources, Photoshop Tutorials, Stock Photos and much more.

Web Design List: An exhaustive general resource guide for cascading style sheets. This site also lists several web design magazines that any designer might find useful.

W3: The World Wide Web Consortium website is the primary resource for internet standards and any news regarding changes happening in the website design field as a whole.

Web Design Layout and Tutorial Sites

Web Designer Depot: A fantastic resource for designers of all levels, Web Designer Depot understands that content is king on the internet and shares information on creating quality content and creating a quality home for that content with tutorials on any number of technologies.

WPDFD: With articles on everything from minimalism in web design to the importance of understanding the personality of punctuation, this website is geared toward helping designers understand the ins and outs of creating an attractive sight.

Web Resources Depot: Web Resources Depot is a resource website updated daily with new featured resources focused on keeping readers up to date on developments in the field.

Smashing Magazine: The goal of this online magazine is to deliver quality content to web designers, keeping them up to date on cutting edge trends and techniques as they rise to prominence in the field.

A List Apart: This web magazine is updated roughly twice per month with new articles covering many aspects of the website design industry from dealing with the increased pixel capacity of many computers and its effect on aesthetics to how to test websites on video game console browsers.

Site Inspire: Site Inspire features unique and high quality web designs from real world websites with the goal of inspiring new designers to think beautiful with interesting, functional and gorgeous design.

UX Movement: The UX Movement is devoted to improving user experience by communicating with designers the best practices in user interface design.

Search Engine Land This website covers everything from the greater search engine market to using search engines for marketing, and search engine optimization techniques to ensure that your website is noticed by the people it targets.

Adobe Browser Lab: This is a fantastic Adobe tool that will allow designers to test their designs on every browser and operating system. The tool is completely free and even comes with diagnostic tools to help pinpoint problems.

I Love Typography: A site devoted solely to educating designers on typography, its importance in the field and the myriad of factors to consider when making certain design choices for a website.

CSS Play: This website has had a torrid love affair with cascading stylesheets for seven years now. The creator of this site is focused on educating people on just how powerful CSS can be and how to unlock its full potential.

HTML Dog: HTML Dog is a fantastic website for designers just dipping their feet into html and css; the site is also a fantastic reference tool for any designer but the real value here is in the beginner and intermediate tutorials in both html and css.

Tutorial 9: Tutorial 9 is a site where members can share links to various tutorials, guides and articles about web design from around the internet. Members earn points as they share information and help other members. Members in good standing will often have at their fingertips the eager help of a broad web design community.

One Extra Pixel: One Extra Pixel is one of the foremost online web design magazines. With many articles on every aspect of web design and a devotion to providing readers with the most cutting edge, useful information available.

Web Design Blogs

Design Bombs: A blog showcasing some very sleek designs, everything from complete website designs to blog site designs. The actual blog portion of the site also has articles about various elements, tools, widgets and more.

Design Ledger: This is a blog that covers everything from freelancing advice to inspirational design showcases and tutorials.

Design Instruct: This blog’s focus is on tutorials and instructional articles on website design. The site also features a “freebies” section with some quality, free, niche resources.

UX Booth: The most beautifully designed website means nothing if the user experience doesn’t measure up. Nothing drives users away from a site more often than a poor user experience and this blog’s goal is to help designers avoid many UX blunders.

The Web Design Blog: This blog is the whole package with a design inspiration showcase, tutorials, articles and tips, downloads, app reviews, and interviews and stories all focused on helping budding and experienced designers alike.

Just Creative: Often web designers must play the part of graphic designer as well especially when freelancing. This blog is a graphic design centered blog, high quality and perfect for those web designers that do their own graphic design whether out of enjoyment or necessity.

Six Revisions: Another blog with many helpful articles for designers and developers. The blog is frequently updated with many notable tips, tutorials and resources for the professional developer.

Line 25: Line25 is a blog that prides itself on being a drawing board for website design. The blog features tips, tricks, tutorials, and roundups that feature cutting edge design.

Specky Boy: Specky Boy is the personal freelance web design blog of Paul Andrew. Starting as just a basic blog Specky Boy eventually evolved into a design resource powerhouse that still has the personalized attributes of a blog but offers so much more.

HONGKIAT.COM: Hongkiat.com’s blog section has great articles with a personal perspective. Hongkiat itself is a web design, inspiration and technology site.

Design Mag: Design Mag is a freelancing web design blog with articles on every topic from textures to what to do when your client asks you to do something stupid.

Design Shack: Complete with design galleries, articles, tips and freebies, this design blog takes the reader through everything from small time to major corporate designs, what goes right, what goes wrong and everything in between.

Web Design and Technology Conferences

How Interactive Conference: This interactive design conference is focused on helping designers of all stripes take their skills to the next level. Whether you want to perfect your abilities or branch into emerging markets, this conference may be the boost you need to take your career to the next level.

Future of Web Design Conference: This is a forward looking world class conference series constructed around the goal of keeping attendees ahead of the curve when it comes to website design.

An Event Apart: The makers of the website A List Apart present the An Event Apart conference series; an exceptionally intense two day conference for web design professionals, particularly standards based designers.

Web Design Conferences: A meta-list for web design conferences designed to aid designers find conferences of interest to them far and wide.

New Adventures Conference: This UK conference is a single track conference with eight talks from prominent industry names and up and coming designers both. The conference also features networking events including bowling, a massive party and a five-per-side football (soccer to attendees from the US) tournament.

Warm Gun Conference: Designers from some of the major names in the industry such as Youtube and Twitter will be in attendence at Warm Gun which is the first conference specifically on the topic of measurable design.

User Interface 17 Conference: One of the leading User Experience Design conferences in the world, this event tends to sell out quickly and the prices are steep but worth the investment for the many attendees.

Interaction13 Conference: The focus of this conference is on the social design portion of websites. Namely, how one might design websites or apps that allow users to interact with each other in intuitive ways.

LEWEB Conference: The LEWEB (Leadership Web) conference brings together designers and entrepreneurs with the leaders and influencers that guide the direction of the internet for a conference filled with dialogue, brainstorming, discussion and networking.

James Surowiecki: When social media became news

The blogosphere’s performance in providing a complete and dramatic picture of the tsunami event is seen as a turning point for blogging becoming legitimate news. Surowiecki uses this as an example of a collective intelligence outperforming an individual one under the right conditions.

Seth Godin: On the tribes we lead

The act of someone committing to making a change in the status quo makes them become a leader. These efforts create a culture which attracts a core group of people who believe the same thing allowing the idea to spread and become a movement.

Adam Ostrow: After your final status update

Digital information being left behind by deceased persons is creating a lasting digital essence that may one day be capable of interacting with the living.

Eli Pariser: Beware online “filter bubbles”

The effort by news services to specifically target information to individuals leads to people being cut off from potentially important information. This ultimately restricts social change by limiting the outlook of people. No one works for change when they don’t realize there is a problem.

Rebecca MacKinnon: Let’s take back the Internet

There is a need for sustained effort at creating genuine Internet freedom so that technology serves the people of the world and not the other way around. Innovation in the political arena is necessary to help make this movement successful.

Tim Leberecht: 3 ways to (usefully) lose control of your brand

Loosening the grip on a brand or reputation through transparency is a positive way to influence long term sustainable results. This forces companies to show their true essence and make that something of value.

Alexis Ohanian: How to make a splash in social media

Introducing a new idea to the Internet is so easy and inexpensive that it creates a level playing field so long as there is net neutrality. Those releasing the idea must understand that no one is in control. The Internet itself is the final determinant of success.

Lisa Gansky: The future of business is the “mesh”

Sharing resources in all manner of things is the business model of the future. The success of this new paradigm will force reluctant businesses to participate.

Luis von Ahn: Massive-scale online collaboration

A collaborative effort of people solving large problems by breaking them down into small pieces. A few seconds of previously wasted time multiplied by a percentage of the Internet population equals an enormous number of man hours applied to problems thereby generating great value.

Joe Sabia: The technology of storytelling

Sabia points out that technology has always been a part of storytelling. New advances in technology will force storytelling to evolve as well.

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When you’re creating a website, good design principles suggest that you should make it as easy and clear as possible for customers to use. Unless, of course, your website is intended to be confusing. These web pages have been nicknamed “dark patterns” by user experience designer Harry Brignull, and are distinguished by deliberate anti-usability features designed to help con customers out of their hard-earned money. But it’s not just scam sites that use these features — everyone from Amazon to Facebook has been getting in on the dark patterns act, sneaking items into your basket without you asking for them or slipping hidden costs onto your bill without so much as a warning. We look at ten devious, underhanded and downright unscrupulous perversions of good web design that big companies are using at the moment.

10. Sneaking Items Into Your Basket

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This has to be one of the most annoying tricks companies use: automatically adding items to your shopping list that you did not select, sometimes without even a warning that they have done it. This is justified as a way of being “helpful”: if you’re going to buy an iPad, surely you need a case to keep it in as well, right? Yes, except that the optional extra features which the shop adds to your bill are often designed to be easy to miss by the consumer; because people scan-read on the Internet, many will just click through the checkout page without realizing that they are paying more. In other words, it’s an up-sell device designed to punish the user for their lack of attention. What a charming business model.

9. Tricky Questions

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This is a clever design trick that takes advantage of the fact that nobody likes to spend ten minutes staring at a page just to work out what it means. Basically, trick questions are deliberately set up so that it’s hard to tell which option to select to avoid paying. For example, Irish budget airline Ryanair’s passenger details page has a box near the top with the words “please select country of residence.” Many customers will fill this in automatically without realizing that this option buys travel insurance, which is included by default: the option not to buy this service is only shown halfway down the list. This is another example of companies using “anti-scan” devices that penalize customers for looking for words and patterns that they recognize and not paying enough attention to what they actually mean.

8. Making it Confusing to Make Your Details Private

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Many people are concerned about their privacy on social networking sites, and in many cases they are right to feel this way. For example, Facebook’s default settings mean that users will be sharing valuable information such as the groups they join and their “likes” with advertisers. Opting out of sharing these details is a lengthy process that involves clicking through multiple screens and going to multiple areas of one’s account. Facebook’s default settings also allow everyone on the internet to view users’ profile information, which means that those hilarious photos of drunken college nights out are visible to any potential employer who cares to look at them. And we thought The Social Network painted Mark Zuckerberg in an unflattering light! Seems we didn’t know the half of it.

7. Hidden Costs

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Know how budget airlines can afford to sell flights for $20? Hidden charges, that’s how! This is a very common dark pattern with companies that sell tickets or low budget services and goods. Sites like Ticketmaster have been known to charge as much as half the price of the original service in “extras” such as booking fees, service charges and “convenience charges.” Since these services are often a mandatory part of the goods the company sells, there’s no reason why these charges couldn’t be stated up front — other than a strong desire not to let customers know the real price of what they are buying, that is.

6. No Way to Unsubscribe

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When you sign up for a service on a website, they often use simple one-click methods that allow you to subscribe very quickly and easily. Unsubscribing, on the other hand, is usually a lengthy process, by design, which involves e-mailing, phoning or sending snail mail to a central office. For example, Barnes and Noble make it damn near impossible to unsubscribe from their newsletter. Money Supermarket, meanwhile, cunningly hide their “opt out” with some misleading information (see below). Even the companies that provide an easier unsubscribe option commonly include surveys and other methods to guilt-trip consumers into not wriggling out of their clutches. This is also known as the “Roach Motel” method, because once you check in it becomes very hard to check out.

5. Misdirecting the User

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This method works by hiding important information from the user, either by diverting their attention to something else or by simply placing it somewhere inconvenient where it won’t be immediately obvious. In the Money Supermarket example shown above, attempting to unsubscribe actually brings you back to the subscription page for the website! The option to discontinue their services is hidden right at the bottom of the page, in an area only seen by scrolling down. As a marketing trick, that’s pretty “low”…

4. Deliberately Poor Price Comparison

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Many firms make it very difficult to compare prices properly on their websites — some by accident and some by design. Some businesses, like insurer Direct Line, refuse to allow their sites to be listed on consumer ratings and feedback websites since they want to avoid unfavorable comparisons. Pizza restaurant Papa John’s takes this a step further: their iPhone app allows you to order online, but the menu fails to inform you about the items on special offer, so it’s perfectly possible to end up spending almost double the amount you should be paying for a pizza. This strategy nullifies the Internet’s capacity for sharing information in favor of confusing the customer into paying more. Not exactly the most ethical use of web design.

3. Automatic Renewals

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This is another trick companies use to sneak in extra costs over their customers’ heads. When a gullible consumer signs up with a low-cost domain registration site like Godaddy, which allows you to register domain names and businesses online, they expect to get what they signed up for. In fact, the process includes an extra charge (business registration renewal). In order to get rid of it, the user must uncheck a box in the original agreement. Beyond this, the registration is renewed automatically and the customer is only informed of this after the fact. The automatic renewals are often buried in layers of confusion and red tape in the initial customer agreements with the website. To add another layer of annoyance, most of them have to be cancelled by phone, e-mail or snail mail rather than by an online unsubscribe. Talk about maximizing inconvenience…

2. Disclosing Personal Information

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These days, whenever you create an account for a website, you generally have to divulge all sorts of personal information like your address, name, zip code and email addresses. What does the company do with your details? Well, often it sells them to other companies. For example, Verizon Wireless phone users are required to give information such as email addresses, home addresses and zip codes in order to register for the cellular service. Under the company’s privacy policy, this information can be sold for a healthy profit to advertisers, who can then target customized text messages at users. The next time you’re signing up for a service, be aware of just how much valuable information you are potentially giving away.

1. Ad Traps

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If there’s one thing that’s universally annoying about surfing the internet, it’s those gaudy, animated, bad taste banner ads that seem to appear on almost every website. But, did you know that some of these are not only designed to catch your attention, but also to make you lose money? Some of the worst offenders among them: “Scareware.” These are so-called virus scanning programs like McAfee, which often activate when you enter a website and tell you that you have active threats on your computer. Naturally, the only way to clear these is to download software from the company’s website, often at a considerable price. Even more annoying are the ads that claim that the customer has won an expensive free gift (like an iPod or X-Box 360). In order to redeem it, they are required to sign up for multiple online services and give out personal details. The worst part is that there is often no real prize to be redeemed, after all. Also, anyone remember that irritating “punch the monkey” ad a few years ago…?