The Daily Sucker

Submitter’s comments: I have never submitted a suggestion as the Worst Web Site in the World before, and if you think it just belongs on the Daily Sucker, be my guest. But I don’t know when I have seen a worse site by a serious big-time corporation than Hyundai’s www.thinkaboutit.com. This site is supposed to sell you on Hyundai itself, not any of its vehicles in particular.

Already you can imagine the potential. This high-minded pretentious nonsense belongs in a European art house, not in a commercial web site.

I could not list all the things wrong because I only looked at part of the site, but you could look all day and keep finding things to hate.

But don’t because this site would slow down a mainframe! I’ll just start with the name–it tells you nothing about the site, but inside there is a caption that calls the site a “thoughtscape.” It all goes downhill from there.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Thoughtscape? More like a CrapScape. The voice on the FlashSplash page says:

Question It
Ponder It
Dare It
Test It
Flip It
Flop It
Think About It

I’d like to add “Leave It.”

Think About It

Since I solicit recommendations for the Daily Sucker, I receive a lot of email recommending different sites as possible candidates. Not all sites qualify. Some sites are actually quite good and I’d never use them. Other sites, while sucky, just aren’t sucky enough— “Your site sucks, but it’s not sucky enough for my site.” Most suggestions, however, are quite good and worthy of inclusion.

My readers also can’t get enough of a good bad thing. Also, not everybody wants to write a comment about the Daily Sucker (98% of those who do are quite good). I’d thought I’d make things easier by giving you a bunch of sites and letting you vote on them. You’ll click on a selection and be presented with a web site, a poll, and a comment box. The question will be “Does XYZ suck?” and the arbitrary choices are

1. Yes, like a black hole of death.
2. Yes, but it’s supposed to suck.
3. Yes. It’s pretty bad.
4. Yes.
5. No, it’s great.
6. No, it isn’t quite bad enough.
7. No.

After you vote, you can see how I voted.

“How do you choose between ‘3. Yes. It’s pretty bad’ and ‘4. Yes”? Beats me. That’s part of the fun.

Web Page Suck or Not?

Submitter’s comments: I love your “Worst Sites of 2007″ (and 2006). I think I’m right on target when I say I’ve got the winner for 2008.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I’m not ashamed to admit that I cry every time the Pedigree commercial “A Dog Named Echo” comes on my TV set (it even ran during a poker show!). On the other hand, today’s sucker makes me want to cry — but in despair.

Bullseye Supplies

Submitter’s comments: This web site looks like it was created as an example what NOT to do.

• There is no MMN and no background music, but we have:
• Mixture of fonts, some of which almost unreadable (”Monotype Corsiva” / “French Script MT”)
• Images instead of text (right column)
• Unreadable text because of lack of contrast
• Animated/blinking GIFs all over the place
• “Never-ending” bold text on front page

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Normally, I wouldn’t use this site because it looks like a personal page. Then I thought, “He’s like Bob the Locksmith or Bill the Consultant — trying to drum up business.” Fair game.

This site is also really good example of Mistake #5 from my Biggest Mistakes in Web Design 1995-2015 — Have you ever seen another web site? Really? Doesn’t look like it.

Consistency in design is missing. Many pages look like they belong to a different web site. The TITLE tags are not correctly formed and are not search engine friendly. The text on the home page is not aligned correctly — you’ll have 14 words on one line and 3 on the next followed by another line of 14 words. What does the link entitled, “More” mean?

Nuke it. Start over. Read some design books or pay someone.

Jonathan D. Crombie

Submitter’s comments: The inconsistent design is jarring and unattractive. The silvery “mascot” is also creepy. I’d enumerate the whole scope of its flaws, but that might take a few hours.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I’m not really fond of the red on black color scheme nor am I fond of the Splash page. When you do get to the home page, I wasn’t able to go anywhere when I clicked on the bottom navigation — “Location, Guarantee, Competitive Advantages, Press Room and Employment.”

Signs of Success

Submitter’s comments: Splash Madness — five splash pages before getting to completely empty content.

1. Red Splash Page with “Warning”
2. Black text Splash Page
3. Really Boring text ..”history” splash page
4. Black Splash page with some “mystery” control that does not load
5. Blue splash page with “cinema ticket” to click on

And finally the content…an empty black screen

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I think we have a new world’s record for number of Splash pages. The movie file is about a megabyte in size and it would be better to make it a clickable link. Give people the option to load it or go on.

On the other hand, this site comes within a hair of being a personal site. Maybe it is.

British Ice Sailing Web Site

Submitter’s comments: Please take a look if you haven’t already. If it matters, I believe the cost of this site is astronomical: something like one million dollars - no kidding.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: It took me a while to figure out what the site is about. The URL confused me — “OwnYourC” (my capitalization) and I wasn’t sure what “C” represented. Turns out it’s “Choices.” It’s an anti-tobacco site that, I assume, is paid for by tobacco companies as part of a settlement or to get some good PR or something like that. What’s a million bucks to a tobacco company?

The text version is pretty straightforward but it’s the Flash version that’s out of control (surprise!). It’s the usual Mystery Meat Navigation silliness. Ironically, the Flash version has a big message that tells you what the site is about. It’s much better than the non-Flash version.

On the other hand, the Mystery Meat is horrible. Normally, when you mouse over an object you find out its purpose. Not here. You have to click. What’s great about the site is that once it went online, they’ll never need to update it. It’s a disposable web site — just like an empty pack of cigarettes.

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