Does this sound familiar? You’re sitting in the office, taking a short “break” to do some important Google research. You find the site you’re looking for and are greeted by an obnoxiously loud classical piece, causing you to search frantically for the tiny mute button buried at the bottom of the page. You have just become the victim to one of many site fads, the digital equivalent of Uggs and velour pantsuits. Everybody’s sick of them, but maybe you just can’t let go? Here are 3 trends you’ve got to ditch, and why you should do it now.

The Excessive Audio Track

You don’t need Bach playing at 100 decibels to communicate a sense of elegance on your site. The only emotion that unexpected audio will incite is annoyance, and most likely your visitor would rather close the website than try to find a volume setting. If you need audio on your site, put it where a mute button is easily available and have it set to play after the visitor clicks the play button. Even better? Replace the audio with purposeful (and way more eye-catching) video interaction.

The Obnoxious All Flash Website

Flash was all the rage a few years ago, and with good reason. HTML and CSS were not capable of the dynamic, interactive visuals that Flash could implement. But it quickly became apparent what it’s downfalls were: slow load times, a busy and confusing user interface, and little or no support for visitors with disabilities. And as one flash site’s load bar said: “It takes time to look this good.” Flash has its place today in small animations and interactive features, but don’t fall for creating your entire site with Flash. With CSS3 and HTML5 becoming more advanced and kickass, there’s no need to sacrifice high impact visuals for performance.

The Hideous Splash Screen

With the popularity of Flash came the ubiquitous splash screen. It’s purpose was to enable the site developer to launch the site in a Javascript controlled new window—without browser elements such as scrollbars, address bar, etc. But if that’s the case, why do so many static HTML sites have them today? Because it’s another die-hard trend. Think of a splash screen as having to walk out of the house and back in through the front door every time you wanted to get something from the fridge. Inconvenient? Time consuming? Totally unnecessary? All of the above. Trash the splash screen, and get your visitors closer to the content.