Considering that you recommended one of them to me, I don't see that *you* have any room to mock, missy.

I've never read any of the stories you just recommended! Unless you mean MPREG stories, in which case I freely admit to pimping Shrift's story endlessly. Cause doood, it's funny!

What things are especially common and especially annoying in terms of color, layout, etc.?

Anything animated, flashy, blinky, or otherwise visually distracting. Low contrast. Teeny-tiny fonts. Script, gothic, or other low-readability fonts. Splash pages. I-Frames (and anything else that doesn't work in non-IE browsers). Any background graphic that's visible enough to mess with text visibility. SOUND OF ANY KIND. Lack of persistent navigation (which means, umm -- you notice how the links for message center, home, and the like are there on every page, so you don't have to use the back button to get home before going anywhere else? That's good. Not having a way to find your way around, get home, or grasp where you are in the site, wherever you are, is bad).

I did indeed mean Shrift's story.

checks for pod people under Micole's bed

t ditto

What things are especially common and especially annoying in terms of color, layout, etc.?

Black bg with green or red text/links is evil. Plain beats the hell out of gaudy. Fast-load beats the hell out of complex, and sound files or animation are the tools of the Devil. Simplicity and ease of use are my twin beacons.

Actually what irritates me no end is story files in many many parts, rather than one file. When you're on a dialup and your roommate is expecting a call, it's a lot easier to snag one big file than to go through loading 40 smaller files one at a time. If it's a really long story, sure, 4-5 parts. But 40??

Fic site pet peeves: Make it clear how to get from one page to another. I don't care how pretty it is, if it takes me more than two minutes to find the link that will get me to what I'm looking for I'm bailing.

Then I read shalott's The World Turned Upside Down, a crack-addled Master & Commander AU. I have not read the books or seen the movie. I love this story. Jane Austen with genderfuck! It is the most delicious thing ever.

Oh, god, wasn't it wonderful? Though I'm not sure I'd really define it as mpreg. Actually, one could probably have a very interesting discussion about whether or not it's slash.

What do people like to see in a personal fic site in terms of design, organization, etc?

I really like Te's setup. (I'd link, but her site isn't one I want to go to while at work. Which is also why I love it, but still. Teland's pretty google-able.) She organizes everything by fandom, suborganizes series and standalones, and marks the most recent. She also uses a high-contrast color scheme.

I like it when websites clearly separate the fiction and non-fiction material. I like a minimum of graphics. (It's pure selfishness -- I'm on dialup at home.) I like stories with pairings, ratings (R, NC-17), and a brief summary near the title. I think Shrift's fic site is well organized.

What things are especially common and especially annoying in terms of color, layout, etc.?

Tables that look good on one browser and break into uselessness on another are a pet peeve of mine. Windows of a set size that aren't big enough for you to find what you want, so you have to scroll forever are another. Incoherent organization techniques are also annoying. I don't feel that I have to be able to find the author's HC non-con mpreg series based on the fonts used for the title, but some easily understandable order -- alphabetical, by character, by fandom -- would be nice. Busy patterned backgrounds make it hard for me to read the text. Light backgrounds with light text are hard to read. Likewise dark on dark. And light backgrounds with dark text can still be a problem when the link color is left at its blue default if there isn't enough color contrast.

I find bright shiny images irksome. They waste time loading, fail to (for the most part) inhance the content, and distract me. Okay, I have *one* image on my site, well, two, but it's small and absurd.

I hate links that spawn a new window. My right click or apple-click controls where I want to go, thank you kindly. I hate iFrames. Actually, I hate frames, period.

Light background + dark (preferably black), scalable text = happy eyeballs for me. Too many places reverse that, and the Baby Jesus weeps for my eyesight.

What things are especially common and especially annoying in terms of color, layout, etc.?

People have covered most of mine, but here's one more: if you're posting a story in seperate chapters, please make it easy to get from one chapter to the next -- you don't want your reader to have to go back to the main page.

Also, the main page should say how many chapters there are in the story, and have a link to each individual chapter. It's annoying to be on chapter 8 and have no idea if it's 8 of 10, or 8 of 52.

Also, the main page should say how many chapters there are in the story, and have a link to each individual chapter. It's annoying to be on chapter 8 and have no idea if it's 8 of 10, or 8 of 52.

At the very least, an indication that there are chapters is nice. I tend to save a lot of stuff for later reading, and it drives me nuts when I get to the end of the downloaded page and realize that all I've got is the first part, or even just an index page. But if your story is 27 parts, please, please give me an option to save it all at once, even in a text file.

Ideally, the info I'd like to see next to the link would include title, some indication of length or number of chapters, pairing, and some sort of description. Where warnings might be considered necessary, my preference is for those to be available by a separate link so that you can choose to read them or not. And yup, black or dark background with red text or some other color is probably going to make me say bye-bye without looking further.

I hate links that spawn a new window.

Now, see, I like when outside links open in a new window. Or, at least, until I realized how to make them do it myself. Because when something links away from a site, I used to get lost and not be able to find my way back to the original site.

As I said, though, now I know how to make links open in a new window.

I ain't smart, but I sure is pretty.