Web Pages That Suck - learn good web design by looking at bad web design

Submitter’s comments: I am shocked, shocked to find web site suck here: moving banner with flashing and blinking links, animated gifs, multicolored “new” signs, and longish front page in need of organization and a navigation scheme.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I’m confused. I thought electric cars are the future. If they’re the future, the website should be “futuristic”—whatever the heck that means. It certainly isn’t a flat, responsive website. It’s about as sucky as it gets. OK. OK. It’s nowhere near as bad as any of the sites listed in Worst Websites of 2012: Beyond The Pale. I was just trying to make a point.

Personally, I’m absolutely stunned by the logo. Oh, heck. I’m absolutely stunned by the whole site.

Electrifying Times

Submitter’s comments: The homepage is probably the worst, but there’s much more sucky stuff inside.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Normally, I don’t look at source code because it’s often a very scary place to visit. However, the source code for this home page looks fine and the CSS file has lots of comments and there doesn’t seem to be anything unusual.

What we have here is mixed text colors and sizes and an image that goes over the borders of the page (DARE—Dictionary of Regional English). You can see what I’m talking about by viewing a screen capture (1Mb).

One outstanding feature on the home page is they let you know you’re going to download a Word Document or a PDF. That’s rare.

Consistency is key here. The key is broken.

National Museum of Language

Submitter’s comments: Same old, same old. Mystery Meat Navigation (MMN) just never dies, does it? My wife was looking for a phone number to call. She never did find it. I found it after about 5 minutes (which IMHO is about 4:59 too long.) Another case of “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Flash is “deader” than Steve Jobs (who put a few bullet holes in Flash to help kill it), but architects still seem to love it. We have the usual small text that’s hard to read and symbols at the top right that are difficult to read and even more difficult to decipher their meaning (except for “contact us” and “home”).

It looks like there’s MMN on the home page, but the navigation matches up with the pictures. Unfortunately, the MMN shows up when you click one of the pictures. Try clicking “Process” and you’ll see what I mean.

FGM Architects

Submitter’s comments: I found this true gem, which works fine when Flash is blocked -looks like the no-flash section is not as bad, but unfortunately you do not get to choose: If flash is working, you get the flash version. there is not even a link to the non-flash site, although it would not have been a big deal.

The website otherwise not only seems to be completely Flash-based, but also features a huge intro video (without any content), Mystery Meat Navigation (animated with flying items, no less) and, according to my tests, it does not work in Firefox, does not work in Opera and does not work in Safari. In these browsers you only get an image preloader, an then a not-changing more or less empty Flash site.

The only browser to show the whole animation site on my computer without errors was Google Chrome, but I suppose IE should do the trick.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: You’re right. It’s a gem of an example of bad web design because there is very little right with it. We have Flash Used Badly. Very. Badly. We also have Mystery Meat Navigation (MMN) in it’s worst form (OK, this page has the worst MMN).

Yes, there’s a link to a sitemap at the bottom of the home page. Guess what? It’s hard to read because there’s not enough contrast—the text color is #A7A9AC.

I’m guessing the submitter is using a Mac because the site is viewable—which doesn’t mean usable—on my Windows machine using Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, IE7 and IE10. The folks administering the site apparently don’t have a clue about DNS or redirection. If you leave off the “www” and just type enritec.com, you can’t get to the site—which may not be a bad thing.

Enritec

Submitter’s comments: I found this website from an ad in a website that is about genuine food. I trusted the ad, thinking the website must be good if it’s on this type of website.

However, upon seeing the site I see only: “click to read.” Then I see lots of buttons, making me feel that using the website is complicated.

Then I actually read the content. The content does not suck.

Apparently, the website is done is a format which is used in newspapers that you can read on the Internet and catalogs for websites that sell stuff.

The website is unusual in that it has no content except for the “click to read” part. Usually, you can read the content immediately.

Did I mention the website’s content uses words that I don’t know what they mean—even if Swedish is one of my two native languages?

The website uses a mechanism where the website can be scrolled up and down and to the sides, which I don’t know if that exists on other websites.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: What’s wrong with this site can be summed up in three words: “Flash. Flash. Flash.” Geez.

Chef in a box

Submitter’s comments: Focus, people, focus. Organize a bit – try a real menu. If you have your first page filled with almost-every-conspiracy-out-there, most visitors just might think you are more than eccentric. The site does give some warning:

To best understand this site, we highly recommend the classic movies “They Live” think of it as a partial documentary. Also see “The Matrix” and think of it as an analogy of life on earth. (Ignore the two sequels).

As a two-for-one, visit the sister site for knowledge of health and conspiracies not influenced by those nasty extra-terrestrials using us as batteries.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Another great example that fits in with my article: Over-the-top Websites. There is a wonderful warning on the home page that would fit right here on WPTS:

WARNING!

If you get upset, stressed or angry after reading anything on this site, do this simple kinesiology technique called EMOTIONAL STRESS RELIEF

Great idea!

Meta-Tech

Submitter’s comments: Sure their audience are contractors and weekend-warriors looking for that one item that will turn their garage into next “Binford workshop of the week.”

And their prices for items such as angle grinders, ratcheting tie downs and pneumatic tires probably can’t be beat.

Still, you’d think a company with over 400 stores and 20 million loyal customers could do a bit better than posting to their homepage a regurgitation of the printed flyer that fills our mailbox (and later serves as a drop cloth for our paint).

Or at least leverage jQuery for a bit more than nagging users of IE 7 that their browser is as crufty as the home page currently displayed — like say collect analytics on which coupons catch the visitor’s attention?-)

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Gee. I thought Flyer websites were a thing of the past.

Harbor Freight Tools

Submitter’s comments: This is one of the worst active website designs I’ve ever seen.

It takes up literally less than a quarter of my screen, and all 8 (yup, just 8) pages are the same ridiculous size. Oh, except for the one that has the completely mismatched tiled gradient background image that was clearly made to fit that teeny viewport.

I don’t even remember having a screen small enough for that to make sense, especially by the time websites became a “thing.” Do yourself a favor and don’t be tempted to look at the page source; it’s guaranteed to make your brain start dribbling out of your
ears. And yes, they’re still a functional company.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I don’t believe the site is that “active.” As the photo below shows, the home page was last modified on March 24, 2005. It isn’t an active site if it’s been eight years without a redesign.

The header tells us the home page was last modified eight years ago and looks like it was designed back in the 640×480 days of the web.

This is another one of those “I hope they don’t depend on their website for business” websites. I suspect they don’t need the web. Still, the site sucks.

Gorwood Systems

From Seth Godin’s blog Dilbert understands design.

Submitter’s comments: You might have come across this one already, but just in case…

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Wow. Just click and take a look at it. It’s a (pejorative term deleted) joke.

MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies