How Were the Bloopers Compiled?

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I began collecting examples of Web usability bloopers shortly after GUI Bloopers (Johnson 2000) was published in early 2000 and continued collecting examples through October 2002. I found most of the examples through my own use of the Web. Some examples of bloopers were submitted by friends , colleagues, and GUI Bloopers readers who knew I was writing a book about the Web.

In early 2002, my publisher posted a notice on GUI-Bloopers.com -its website for that book- inviting submissions of examples of Web bloopers. The publisher also distributed flyers issuing the invitation . This resulted in many submissions, some of which are included.

In collecting examples of bloopers, I avoided personal web-sites and websites of very small businesses and organizations. Developing and maintaining a website can be expensive. Individuals and small organizations don't have much money to spend on Web development, so it isn't surprising when their sites contain bloopers. Furthermore, websites of individuals are often more for personal expression than anything else and so must be viewed with a large amount of tolerance.

Instead, I focused on larger organizations: companies, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations. All have-or at least should have-put significant effort and resources into designing and developing their sites.

All examples of bloopers in this book are dated to show when the example was collected. Many of the websites cited have been updated since the example was collected, in some cases several times. At many cited websites, the bloopers have been corrected. Sadly, a few sites cited as examples of avoiding a blooper no longer avoid it. A 6-month publication lag guarantees that many more cited websites will have changed by the time the book appears. Nothing printed can keep up with the Web.

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