#6 Worst Web Site Navigation — Leo Burnett Canada

Submitter's comments from September 23, 2005: What kind of "Mystery Meat Navigation" is this?

Vincent Flanders' comments on September 23, 2005: Yes, I know that this type of company (advertising) must use this Mystery Meat Navigation (MMN) because they're in the business of looking cool. They realize they need to present an art-fart image to their audience but this technique gets seen by those web designers who design for auto parts stores and doctors. Next thing you know, MMN starts showing up on "normal" commercial sites.

Of course, there's no HTML version of the today's site using cascading stylesheets and Javascript. There's no reason for this design because it's meant to impress the uninformed, but this isn't some third-tier firm — they're important and if you don't know who they are, why are you even visiting the site?

Other comments from 2005: You know, I'm not one who automatically judges a site to be bad just because it's done in Flash. But then I don't automatically assume that HTML sites are crappy, so maybe I'm biased.

Another point about Flash and JavaScript: there is a very important sector that doesn't have Flash and JavaScript enabled, and that's the search engines. Make your site inaccessible to text-only browsers and screen readers, and you make it inaccessible to Google.

Perhaps with this site it doesn't matter quite so much; maybe the intended audience already knows about the company's existence. Undoubtedly the intended audience expects something out-of-the-ordinary, and for some out-of-the-ordinary things, Flash is the most efficient way of doing it. Granted. But will the intended audience be able or willing to navigate the site? We're talking busy executives who probably have as much patience and computer know-how as Dilbert's Pointy-Haired Boss. If the PHB can't work out this site (and the PHB famously can't tell the difference between a laptop and an Etch-a-Sketch — and my experience tells me that's frighteningly close to the truth), it will fail.

Other comments from 2007 #1: This is HORRIFYING.

Still, at least it's fun to jazz it up by writing "wankers" across the screen with the pencil.

Other comments from 2007 #1: These guys are so old and so prestigious and so respected that they don't need Google or Yahoo. They don't need PHBs. It doesn't matter to them what we think.

They're doing advertising campaigns for Fortune 500 companies. They have contracts with governments across the country from small towns to the House of Parliament. They don't even need a web site. They are *that* big.

I don't even know why they bother.

Leo Burnett Canada