Sites featured in articles like Worst Websites of 2010 often are redesigned, which explains why some sites mentioned in my articles don't match their current look. The Daily Sucker features current examples of bad web design which haven't been fixed (yet).
If you see a site that you think sucks, email the URL to me. No personal pages (personal pages are supposed to reflect the individual's personality and artistic freedom) or web site designers (it would look like a conflict of interest), or others of their ilk.
Vincent Flanders’ comments: While I get hundreds of e-mails asking for a free site review, I rarely look at the sites in question. For some reason known only to God/Yaweh/Allah/Fill-in-the-blank, I looked at one such site because the author stated he didn’t know what was wrong with his design. I often get messages like this but, like I said, I took the bait.
It’s an all-text site so I said, “Hmm. I’ll change his home page around and use it as an example for the Daily Sucker.”
Please click on the link below, read the complete page and leave your own comments below in the Comments Section. The comments are not about WPTS (which we all know sucks), but this site that someone wanted me to critique.
Submitter’s comments: He’ll entertain you with unforgettable classics from the past. He is available for all types of events including dinner entertainment, special engagements, weddings, birthday parties and much much more! Too bad his web site is entirely comprised of graphics used to represent what would otherwise be search-engine friendly text!
Folks, I present to you the poster child for don’t use graphics to represent text — Kent Chapman.
Vincent Flanders’ comments: He also is the poster child for bad TITLE tag — “index” — instead of something that would help the search engines index the site.
It’s a bunch of graphics that make up a 1Mb Flash movie. I can’t figure out if it would be an improvement if it were just one large graphic image. Oh, click each song one after the other. You’ll get an entertaining cacophony.
Submitter’s comments: Vikki Carr, who is somewhat famous and internationally known, must have the worst web site for a celebrity of her status.
Vincent Flanders’ CURRENT comments (02-17-08): I went back to look at the site and discovered it has been massively overhauled — and for the better. They also got the site moved to a .com from a .net — which makes the site more easily discovered. The site has improved by about 350%. Congrats.
Vincent Flanders’ ORIGINAL comments: Normally, I don’t discuss music sites because their fans will put up with just about anything (Coldplay’s Rush of Blood to the Head web site comes to mind). These sites tend to extravagant use of Flash and/or Mystery Meat Navigation.
Today’s sucker demonstrates the extravagant use of bad 1996 design. However, even 1996 web design isn’t stupid enough to put the navigation scheme halfway down the page. Oh, and the home page weighs in at 3.34Mb.
There are a lot of photos of Vikki with other people. Hint: Put these on a separate page like one of my favorite bands, the Gin Blossoms, did. They have a page called “Gallery” that deals with — guess what? — photos. Yes, yes, yes. I hate the Flash navigation on the Gin Blossoms’ site and the outdated information.
An addendum: Comparing the Gin Blossoms’ with Vikki Carr may be comparing apples with oranges. An apple-to-apple comparison would be Vikki Carr and Patti Page. Patti’s web site needs more contrast between the text and the background, but I think this overall look and feel should be something to aim for in Vikki’s web site.
Submitter’s comments: The most shocking thing about this is that it was NOT made with Front Plunge. Mostly it is just ugly. Neato animated gif there on the front page. The Family and Friends Package page is almost unreadable.
Since the site uses frames, I can’t give you a direct link to the Family and Friends Package page, but it sucks. Obviously. The repeating background in the middle frame is tacky. Heck, it’s all tacky.
(Once again, I apologize for the Daily Sucker icon appearing.)
A heat map is an important tool because it shows you where and on what your visitors click on a particular page. It’s not the only tool you should use, but it’s helpful in spotting trends and possible areas of confusion for your visitors. Online heat map services used to be expensive, but the prices have dropped to the level of If-You-Don’t-Use-Them-You’re-Stupid. I’ve been using Crazy Egg and it’s quite interesting.
Submitter’s comments: I am a Harley rider and a couple of my friends have been asking me about attending one of the Easy Rider shows coming up. I have never been to one, so I thought I would look it up and see if I could get more info. I searched for it on Google and found a site that, well, sucks.
The main pages look like scans of magazines, scrunched down into some goofy border. I was surprised that there are actual links in there and even more surprised that they actually worked, well some of them did.
On the Photo Gallery page if you click on one of the city names, sometimes you actually get a gallery of a few photos. Other times you get one photo. Then some of the city links look like they are going to work, but nothing happens — I felt like I needed to click harder, then I realized “Dumb-a–, clicking harder isn’t going to make it work,it will only make your finger sore.”
After going to this site, I think I have decided to pass on the event.
Vincent Flanders’ comments: The most important sentence in this review is — c’mon, you know what it is — “After going to this site, I think I have decided to pass on the event.” It’s a lost sale. Interestingly, the first city I clicked — Louisville (I can’t give you the direct link because the site uses frames) — didn’t work just like the submitter stated above. Well, actually I can give you the direct link, but you’re missing all the wonderful frame info.
It’s like I said in my book, “If you don’t look like a pro, the people will go.”
Pedigree makes the best commercials about dogs and it has recently made the saddest dog commercial I’ve ever seen that doesn’t involve abusing a dog. TSFW — Too Sad For Work. Oh, if you’re a sensitive dog lover and you don’t want anybody to see you cry, view it in private.
Submitter’s comments: OK. I think I just found the worst web page in the world, or at least the second worst, after AJFF. Especially the fireworks on the home page are, well, at least irrelevant for a site with accordion sheet music and aesthetically not very pleasing, not to say, extremely ugly. Then there are all those moving words, horizontal scrollbars at 1024 x 768. Over half of it has enough contrast though, for example /valse.htm:
Both color difference and color brightness do not meet the recommended standard for 2.64% of the total text.
Either color difference or color brightness does not meet the recommended standard for 43.35% of the total the text.
BTW, this site IS actually still being updated: ” Page à jour le 22 JANVIER 2008″ (Page dates of 01/22/2008)
Vincent Flanders’ comments: It’s nice to see someone else using AccessColor to check out a web site.
As a typical American, I don’t speak a second language. However, the TITLE tag “partitions musicales gratuites + à user et même abuser sans modération” looks to me like it says “a gratuitous user abuses without moderation.”
This web site is certainly abused without moderation.
Submitter’s comments: I’ve stopped by this site a couple of times. He´s not that bad when it comes to programming and interface for that matter. But the look is terrible.
I actually tried to do a little research on the guy, and it turns out he´s serious about this.
Anyway, check it out.
Vincent Flanders’ comments: You have to love the title of the home page “Forsidden,” which translates to “front page.” Duh. This is really helpful for the search engines when they come by to index your site
BIG INTROS. It takes about 20 seconds to load each one, OVER CABLE.
The Skip link doesn’t show up in either until the load is finished.
There is no way to link directly to the first “real” page.
Vincent Flanders’ comments: I discuss one of my favorite mistakes in Why You Can’t Use Music On Your Web Site. It always amazes me that people think they have the legal right to put music files on their web sites without paying royalties.
I have to admit that I’m stunned by two FlashSplash page. TWO! Making the situation as stupid as a knife in a gunfight is the fact that you’ll click everywhere but “Skip” to try to go to the home page that doesn’t exist. You have to click “Skip ” to get to the next intro and then click “Skip” again to get to the home page. On the plus side, on your next visit there’s only one FlashSplashPage — but that’s one FlashSplashPage too many.
Submitter’s comments: My wife and I just finished watching tonight’s episode Extreme Makeover Home Edition and tonight’s episode involved the Freedom Hills Therapeutic Riding Program.
After the show, I was curious to see if they had a web site, and yes, they do. However, on their main page, they’ve got text that runs right over a small collage of photos, which naturally fouls up the contrast. Not to mention, I’m sure the text over the right end of everything in the navigation column likely wouldn’t pass muster with your contrast analyzer, either.
How I spent my Friday, Saturday and most of Sunday:
I hate Easy Media Creator 10 (and 9). It took forever to get 9 installed and even then I couldn’t write DVDs. That didn’t bother me because I had other programs that filled in for that function. Like a complete, total idiot I buy the full version of 10 and try to install it. Won’t happen because of some old versions of other software programs. The installation stopped and rolled back.
Like a complete, absolute, total idiot I go in and rename ONE file that was allegedly a Roxio file (drvmcdb.sys) and reboot the system. BSOD with an error code only three suspicious Chinese sites had any info about. Even Microsoft didn’t have info about the code. No emergency boot disk I had would work (thank you Acronis) so my backups were useless. Oh, and I can’t get to my e-mail in Outlook and there were four speaking inquiries that had just come in.
As a last, desperate measure I created a bootable Knoppix OS disk and went in, booted up my PC and re-renamed the file and lo and behold Windows works and my computer works. Knoppix Rocks!
What do you use to create CDs and DVDs. I’m obviously in the market for something that works on my XP system.
Submitter’s comments: Here’s a web site that sucks!
Vincent Flanders’ comments: The site is 1996 frozen in time. Seriously. I hope they don’t fix the site because it’s a great reference point. Where else can you see an an animated 3-D logo? Where else can you see those two stock 1996 background images on the same page? Where else are you going to see links to the home pages at the bottom of the sub-pages? All this and Frames. Lordy! This is wonderful. It’s like visiting Colonial Williamsburg except it’s on the web.
Submitter’s comments: It’s laid out using tables and spacer GIFs, has Flash navigation, ugly yellow gradient background, marquees…Also has a stupid name for the homepage “Launch Pad” and a really annoying pop-up when you right click, which you can EASILY DISABLE by just disabling JavaScript, but then again, that ruins the navigation anyway GRRR!
Vincent Flanders’ comments: I’ve used several astronomy sites in the past. This one isn’t quite as bad as the others because the backgr9und isn’t the black void of space with twinkling stars.
You folks have to quit using Flash for navigation. Not everybody is allowed to use it (businesses and the military come to mind). Also, there are a lot of folks who use Flash blockers to prevent those hideous Flash adverts.
Submitter’s comments: I found a web site you might like. They are a French company established in the South East UK, and are food supplements wholesalers.
The page starts with a 15 seconds Flash intro, with music, and no ‘skip’ button. Then you have an English version that is not there yet, frames, annoying Javascript scrolling buttons, and poor contrast in the menu. Also there is a very unique feature on this web site: foreground text that is repeated in the background (see the page “La Gamme Santé Verte).
Vincent Flanders’ comments: Why have a link to something that isn’t there. Here’s how I handled the same situation:
Worst Nonprofit Web Sites of 2007 – #11-20 – Coming Soon!
Just put up the text.
The text over the background is a stunning mistake of mind-bending stupidity. It shows up in IE, Safari and Firefox. Didn’t anyone notice it didn’t work. (Here’s a screen capture). It’s on so many pages that it’s frightening. Of course, my least favorite mistake — lack of contrast between text and background — shows up in lots of places. Oh, and using Flash for navigation — another big no-no.
Submitter’s comments: I know taking a shot a government sites is like shooting fish in a barrel, but this deserves to be held up to public ridicule. The page is distracting and annoying to read. It seems the concept of “good enough for gov’ment work” is alive and well. And this is just one page in a dizzying array of pure badness on this site.
Vincent Flanders’ comments: Oh, God. This is the instruction page for a U.S. Trademark/Service Mark Application. One of the areas I didn’t cover in my article Does My Web Site Suck? Checklist 1 is the topic of forms. Well, you can see why I avoided the topic. Yuck, yuck, yuck.
Submitter’s comments: After seeing a TV commercial for this paper company, I decided to check out their web site. The web address did not make any sense since they did not mention coffee in the commercial, and after seeing the web site. I understand why. Check out the HTML tags at the top of the page.
Vincent Flanders’ comments: Boy, I’m also confused. “WeSellCoffee.com” only has a few references to coffee — compared to the other products they sell. It looks like the site is one of those “it’s a web PAGE so let’s cram as much as we can on the home page.”
Showing a huge picture of their grand opening back in June 2005 is not the greatest idea. It’s just a little dated. THE ALL CAP TEXT IS A LITTLE MUCH, TOO.
I don’t quite understand what the submitter means when s/he says, “Check out the HTML tags at the top of the page.” I noticed some very old image attributes being used, but that’s all. It’s a great URL being wasted.
Submitter’s comments: You got to love this one. You have to chase the menu around screen and when the selected page loads, you get all this colour and movement that add nothing.
Pity that I did not submit their previous incarnation where the user is required to track various objects moving across the home page. Their previous homepage was a seaside scene where there was a lighthouse, a beach umbrella, a seagull flying across the screen, a yacht moving across the screen, a plane in the sky flying across the screen, etc. and the user was required to ‘track’ each moving object before being able/allowed to click on it to select the relevant page. Of course, each moving object/menu item would move behind the lighthouse where you could not click the item.
In fact, the ‘help’ balloons also tracked along with the moving object and would only display when the mouse pointer was tracking the moving object!!! So, it was more like a game than a web site. Pity that the designers did not program a scoring system as well so as to reward the users who were successful in selecting their required menu item.
Vincent Flanders’ comments: I was sick for a couple of days and it’s 4:00 a.m. Pacific Time and I decide I should put up a Daily Sucker. I grab an email and click on the link and WTFITS?!?! What The Heck Is This Stuff?!?! It’s only January 8 and I’m pretty sure that we have the worst web site for 2008.
Submitter’s comments: Where to start? Red text against a yellow background. Random graphics. A combination of font sizes, styles and capitalization that would look more at home on a piece of direct mail.
Submitter’s comments: The worst site I’ve seen for a long time is Zwilling J.A. Henckels. It starts with an unskipable Flash file that took a full minute to load. No exaggeration. Only when the stupid movie loaded was I allowed to choose a brand. Every subsequent page was so cluttered that it took 10-15 seconds to load.
It’s like I was using a 56k modem again.
The reason I was there was to register a offline purchase. The warranty registration form is a sloppy overlap of the previous page (you have to click on “Click HERE to register for your Warranty”).
If I were there to get purchasing information, I would have given up long before. There’s no way this site is making J.A. Henckels any money.
Vincent Flanders’ comments: I guess my internet connection is faster than your connection, which surprises me. Nevertheless, this site makes the Daily Sucker list because of one word: CONTRAST! Well, actually it’s lack of contrast. I ran the above warranty registration form page through the online AccessColor program and received the following message: Read the rest of this entry »
Submitter’s comments: This site is so bad that you can not even link to it if you use it:
music
resizes your browser
frames, lots of frames
Vincent Flanders’ comments: You’re right, I can’t use it because it’s a music site. However, I feel it’s in my best interest to expose this horrible navigation technique to a wider audience.
Worst Websites
Vincent Flanders’ CURRENT comments (02-17-08): I went back to look at the site and discovered it has been massively overhauled — and for the better. They also got the site moved to a .com from a .net — which makes the site more easily discovered. The site has improved by about 350%. Congrats.
The 10 Worst Non-Profit Web Sites of 2007 – The Final List
Vincent Flanders’ comments: You’re right, I can’t use it because it’s a music site. However, I feel it’s in my best interest to expose this horrible navigation technique to a wider audience.