Back to The 10 Worst Web Sites to Navigate in 2006
I'd like to mention that some of these suggestions were for the Australian version of Crumpler Bags which, to me, looks like the American version.
Here's the e-mail that caused me to put up this commentary:
Hi,
Why on earth did your web site rate the Crumpler web site as the 2nd worst of 2006. I would like a good explanation. It is a great web site, it isn't supposed to be a professional corporate site. It fulfills it's obviously intended purpose as a fun site for people like uni-students who want to buy bags.
Well I rated it as the #2 site for Navigation. More people have suggested this site than about any other I've featured (except Chipotle -- who have modified their site). Here are just some of the comments:
From 2006 (#3):
I would like to nominate Crumpler Bags as the worst web site design of all time.
I went there to find out about their products, but after visiting the web site, I’m convinced they all must be such utter jerks I’d never do business with them.
Everything that could possibly be wrong with a web site is wrong with this one. Seriously. It’s so bad I can’t even come up with words to describe how terrible it truly is. If you designed a web site with the specific goal of making it so obnoxious that it drove people away, and with the secondary goal of making it maximally difficult to clean even the smallest iota of information about the products from the web site, this is the design you’d come up with.
It’s really, really, REALLY bad.
From 2007 (#1):
Hey Vincent, you missed the best (worst) part of the Crumpler bag web site. See that chain hanging down to the right? Well, if you hold you mouse and drag on it, you are rewarded????? with the sound of a flushing toilet. OK, it's supposed to be kitschy, but that's wayyyyyy over the top.
From 2007 (#2):
Thank you for including Crumpler's site (in the '06 worst nav awards). I like their bags, and would like to recommend them to friends, but their site is so awful that I really can't. The last time I looked, they had their print catalog available for download (.pdf), and it could also win print design awards for awfulness. Anyway, I've long maintained that theirs was one of the worst sites out there, and it's nice to see some confirmation.
From 2004:
Let me see.... how can I explain this site....... Um..... Sound, flash, Mystery Meat Navigation. Oh, and the best part is the nards. Well.. I don't know what else I can say except this is a perfect page for your site.
From 2005 (#1):
I was at a UI conference last year where a web application at Crumpler bags was demonstrated as a good example of design (very good use of Flash where you could create the bag of you dreams in front of you then order it). I didn't see much of their web site back then so I didn't know what it was like.
I just visited the site for the first time and it is astonishingly bad. I went in with a really positive attitude towards the site and it started out OK. I like the use of the multiple "Loading" messages as you are waiting for the Flash to load - mind you I usually HATE hitting a flash loading page as soon as I get to a web site but this time I knew that the use of flash was useful (or thought I did) so I was more patient.
Then the experience goes seriously down hill. I am on a dial-up line. When the next screen came up I thought everything had finished loading and tried to navigate through the seriously mystery meat navigation! Strange things happen but no catalog which is what I am looking for! I then find the catalog (purely my accident) and the display of their bags is too small and the whole thing is difficult to navigate --> it just sucks! Looks like they have had a re-design!
I really can't believe how badly the design co stuffed up on the usability here. I was prepared for a bit of MMN, a bit of craziness, but this experience was just appalling.
And don't get me started on the looping song that I can't stop...
From 2005 (#2):
Crumpler used to have a very nice, hip, easy-to-navigate web site But then for some reason beyond comprehension they switched to that bizarre confusing piece of $%^& it is now.
From 2005 (#3):
I'm not one to complain often about web site usability design (I pretty much assume all artsy web sites have bad usability), but I found one I couldn't help submitting to the Daily Sucker. I visited Crumpler Bags looking for a sleeve for my 12" PowerBook, and came away with nothing — not even a glimpse of a single bag.
I entered the web site to find a Flash page loading, which I have become cautiously optimistic about lately (web designers have discovered that people still want to be able to use navigation so most of them have it built-in).
After the site loaded, I followed the instructions ("Click and drag for the bags") and nothing happened... I clicked on a few different things and finally I found myself staring at a blue-to-white gradient backdrop with trippy little nonsensical hand-rendered drawings of random objects floating all over the place. In the background played some equally absurd tune that I finally figured out how to shut up.
Along the top, there are four icons that don't give you half a clue as to their meanings. The whole drag-and-drop thing might work better if it said where to drop the objects, but instead I had to figure out for myself that I needed to drop them on the weird disappearing hand sticking out from the side of the "frame". All of the objects were a total let-down; I never actually saw a bag on their web site
To this web site, I say "boo." I get what they were going for, but the execution was a disaster.
From 2006 (#1):
This site was recommended as a good place to go for laptop bags. I never got as far as seeing any laptop bags: the site was just too horrible. Can you work out how to make the links on the links page work? First you have to work out which is the link to the links page...
From 2006 (#2):
I’ve been checking on WPTS for a couple years. I recently brought up “Mystery Meat Navigation” to my senior project group as we were discussing the design for the Flash web site we have to create.
One of my group members sent me a link to Crumpler Bags. Mystery Meat Navigation abounds. No clue where the top buttons lead to and the user needs to literally move stuff out of the way to get to links that give any sort of hint where they leave. If you owned a store, would you put a giant cartoon cutout in front of your door and make people move it out of the way to enter? Not to mention bad music (at least you can disable it), and scatological humor (press the button) that just obscures the site.