The Daily Sucker

Submitter comments: Clean is most certainly happy for your behind, but it is not happy for your website! Apart from the multitude of butts that seem to take forever to load and the navigational (faces?) buttons, I would have to say that this site’s biggest crime is not having any words.

That means if you’re looking at this site at work, the sound has to be muted and that means that this site doesn’t actually tell me anything unless I go clicking around. By that time I’m too bored to progress further. By the way, this is the line of toilets that Google outfits their offices with.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: (Note to self: abstain from any obvious and crude references). Obviously, this site is NSFW.

I find the TITLE tag amusing — Toto | Washlet - Flash Player Installation. Personally, I don’t understand the need for Mystery Meat Navigation when regular navigation would work just fine. (Whew! I made it without saying anything crude and rude — mostly because I didn’t say much.)

Toto | Washlet (MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR WORK)

Submitter comments: Good tools, really sucky web site.

I went to the Estwing tool site to look up warranty information. Since I block Flash I was greeted by “The Estwing Web site requires the FREE Flash player. Please download Flash now.”

Assuming that I had found a sucker I unblocked the site.

Your eyes are drawn to the hammers at the bottom of the page. Not true mystery meat navigation because, for the most part, the users of the site should be counted on to be able to ID the tools. At the very least it’s overly cute navigation and a totally pointless effect for the sake of cool.

Put your cursor over the Products drop down menu. Isn’t that cute, too? I am assuming someone thought the bounce was “hammerish.”

Select a hammer, any hammer. Instead of a picture of a hammer with its characteristics you get another Flash movie. Since you cannot move the hammer around to see it at different angles, this seems unusually pointless even for a Flash site. Note those circles with the + mark in them. You are instructed to mouse over (them) for more information. Navigation instructions are always a sure sign of web design “quality.” You don’t need Flash because there is plenty of space to put text info on the page.

Oh, note the animated flag! Not a gif! An animated Flash flag.

It would not be difficult to make this purely informational site look nice and be useful without using any Flash. Using Flash for everything on this sort of site is complete nonsense.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I found it difficult to select a hammer. Unless I was really careful and moved my mouse just right, I couldn’t select the hammer I wanted information about. It’s even worse after you get the correct hammer. Try to select another hammer and the chase is on.

I really hate to say this, but the Flash flag doesn’t bother me because it’s promoting “Made in the USA.” What I object to is throwing a flag up just to have a flag. A lot of Midwest industrial company web sites needlessly feature flags. I’ve never heard of an industrial company — or any company that manufactures a real product — that’s unpatriotic. Have you?

Estwing

Submitter comments: I was doing some research on police web sites and came across a link on Google, “The Seekonk Police Department web site sucks #27. … It turns out I used this site as an example of bad web design back in October 2000. Guess what? …”

Since I have looked at some of the sites listed on your website in the past I couldn’t help but take a peek. The Seekonk Police website is bad but I may have one for you that is even worse. Check this out from Douglas County Missouri.

P.S. Try to right click on some text.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Interestingly, my daughter and I were watching the latest Reno 911 DVD tonight (background on the show) and it occurred to me that today’s Daily Sucker is just the type of site that this mock police department would have up and running.

Today’s sucker uses every cop cliche I’ve ever seen (including the theme from Bad Boys). The animated bullets being “fired” on the home page are not the kind of message you want to see on your local police department’s web site. This tacky technique reminded me of one of the bonus features on the DVD — Cop Psychology Inside the Minds of Reno’s Deputies.

The different officers were interviewed by a psychologist/psychiatrist and the question that was asked of everyone was “Under what circumstances do you feel deadly force is justified?” The answers are hilarious. I’ve provided a link to one of them and it’s TOTALLY NOT SUITABLE FOR WORK (or for those folks who have a sophisticated sense of humor or are easily offended).

Just as you wouldn’t want your local cops to spout the same nonsense as Lt. Dangle about deadly force, you don’t want your local police web site to use animated bullets.

Today’s sucker is how cop sites used to look like in the old days. The problem is “these are the new days” and this site proves that police brutality doesn’t always involve a billy club.

Douglas County Sheriff’s Department

Submitter comments: Here is a bad site I recently came across — New Belgium Brewing, makers of one of my favorite beers, “Fat Tire.”

It’s not just the Mystery Meat Navigation. The navigation keeps going and going. Use your arrow keys to “ride” endlessly past moving pictures, exposing an ever growing amount of where do I click? and what does this picture do? crap.

The one thing they have going for them is the “Low Bandwidth” version is more familiar, but not really easy to use. Where the hell is the contact us link? I guess they have become tired of hearing how bad their Flash site sucks.

Thanks for all you have done.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: There’s a part of me that says, “The site is supposed to look stupid” and there’s a part of me that says, “The phrase ’supposed to’ is just an excuse.”

Even when you accidentally go to a page with content, you can’t read it because of the lack of contrast between the small text and the background. Sheesh. It’s just an overwraught Flashturbation fantasy.

I love the fact that if you click the link below, you bypass the site’s age check mechanism. Of course, underage visitors can just as easily claim to be 55 years old.

New Belgium Brewery - Flash Site

I’m not the only person who recognizes that architects have problems with their web sites. treehugger takes architects to task over their web sites. I’m going to add these suckers to my Bad Architects Sites.

Here are some more articles about bad architectural web sites: bd and the Guardian.

I just got up from a cough-syrup-induced coma (I’ve got bronchitis) and realized that today marks the beginning of the 13th year of WPTS.

I’m reminded of what some famous musician (Roger McGuinn of the Byrds?) said: “Make sure you like the songs you record because you might have to sing them every night for the next 40 years.”

Back in 1996 I thought this site would be up for a couple of weeks since it was an adjunct to my HTML class. I wanted to show bad web design examples and I wanted to come up with an edgy domain name. The rest is history.

In the beginning I received a lot of complaints about the site’s name. Thanks to Bill Clinton, Beavis and Butt-Head, and American culture, I can’t remember the last time anyone found the name objectionable.

It’s been an interesting ride. Thanks.

I have bronchitis (I’ve had it for the last three days). It’s hard to imagine, but here in SW Washington (NW Oregon), the temperature hasn’t hit 70.