Web Pages That Suck -- Examples of Bad Web Design

These are the Daily Suckers -- Examples of Bad Web Design -- from WebPagesThatSuck.com. I couldn't predict every new sucky design technique that would come along when I wrote the book because there's always a new way to do something bad. This page will keep you up-to-date. Live examples.

My definition of "daily" is "whenever I'm in the mood."


Daily Sucker for December 24, 2002 -- Who's We? We are idiots. Here's the e-mail:

Here's yet another mystery meat navigation example.

This one took me while to realize that when it says "Pick a Pill", the idea is to mouse over one of the pills on the left and keep the mouse there until another larger pill pops open with the name of the link.

I spent over 60 seconds thinking about how to enter various links before I figured it out. I should have known better ... "pills look like buttons ... doh!"

Oops. Now you folks know the secret of how to get in. Doesn't make any difference. This is just awful. The "only" redeeming feature is the phrase "Smartcard applications for" that appears on the FlashSplash page. Otherwise, who would know what the page is about. Bluemore.

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Monday, December 23, 2002

The Daily Sucker Backgrounder

The Daily Sucker contains material that should be considered updates to the book, "Web Pages That Suck." and Son of Web Pages That Suck. I can't see the future -- if I could, I'd be picking lottery numbers and stocks. The Daily Sucker features new sucky design techniques not in existence when the book was written. Since Web designers are stubborn, I also include old sucky techniques featured in the book. Maybe if they see a bad technique featured enough they'll stop using it.

The suckers are based on user input. You see a site that you think sucks and then e-mail the URL to me. No personal pages (personal pages are supposed to reflect the individual's personality, artistic freedom, and lack of taste -- a commercial site is about making money) or Web site designers (it would look like a conflict of interest). If I think there's some merit to your selection, I post it along with some commentary -- and quality commentary helps determine whether I use the suggestion. If you know of a site that qualifies, let me know.

The sucky example will usually be available for only 24 hours (or thereabouts -- weekends and egregious examples are exceptions) -- never to be seen again. Well, probably. Somebody could always suggest them again -- and they do.

E-mail Vincent