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

Submitter comments: I’m looking for a photo gallery for this architect. Is there one? I don’t know. Maybe down below in all the 100s of buttons, but by the time I get there I’m fed up.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Normally, architectural web sites make the Daily Sucker because they’re over-the-top like the ones I’ve featured. This one is under-the-floor. It’s too bad because it looks the architect knows what he’s doing. The houses shown aren’t my cup of tea, but I can appreciate the quality and complexity.

On the other hand, the web site sucks. There’s no organization, unless you think shoving everything on the home pagte is the definition of organization. There’s no focal point to the pictures at the bottom (why is the navigation at the bottom?). You don’t know where to look and, frankly, I got dizzy looking at them trying to figure out what they were about

Mountain Homes Architect

Submitter comments: This site was redesigned a few months ago. It used to have Flash just in the header, but now Flash is used for everything. It won’t function at all without Flash and scripting.

The front page displays text, but all the text is pure images.

I couldn’t find the names of any of their staff or their credentials. There is no email link or even a web form.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: As you know, I’m totally against using Flash for navigation for the simple reason that it can be problematic. Besides not always working, there are indexing issues (although Google is working on the problem).

I find it interesting that the logo doesn’t show up correctly in IE7. The words “of America” are truncated.

Envita

Submitter comments: I have a nomination for a sucky website — All Natural Botox & Proactive Alternative.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Actually, about the only thing that’s working for me physically these days is my lack of wrinkles. My wife and I were at a gathering of old friends in Vancouver over the 4th of July and the consensus was that, except for my white hair, I looked about 10 years younger than my wife. Thrilled the crud out of her to hear that. For an old fogey, I have incredibly few wrinkles, which is due to staying out of the sun and getting plenty of sleep. On the other hand, I don’t have any great stories to tell about living an excess of excess. I remember the 60′s all too well.

While I don’t need Botox, this site needs a major Webtox injection (or two or three). There’s too much text, the page was designed for a small screen and the background image repeats, text and graphics are in the wrong spot because of centering, we’ve got multiple text sizes and colors, underlined text that isn’t a link, the top of the page has a huge black box where the gray background color doesn’t show up, and the links on the left suffer from a lack of contrast. As I like to say, “If people can’t read it, they will leave it.”

All Natural Botox & Proactive Alternative

Submitter comments: I am looking for an architect to design my new audio recording studio. This guy looks like he’s got some good projects and I want to call him and talk to him. Oh, wait, I can’t find his phone number… What’s his name? Don’t know that either. What’s the company? Um… jadg?

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I’m totally jealous of the submitter and the company that builds these recording studios. I’m just simply jealous.

Here is a company that looks like it creates masterpieces, but forgot to let people know how to contact them. It’s unfreaking-believable.

REDWERKS (jadg.com)

Submitter comments: Only the URL was sent to me.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: What really sucks is the picture panorama doesn’t stop and words keep flashing up and you can’t read them. Some of the words also look like they’re being cut off. Somebody didn’t do any QA testing on this site.

A380 Delivery

Submitter comments: Toy Joy’s a really weird store in Austin that sells all kinds of toys and other goofy novelties. It’s a bit of a disjointed place but, hey, if you want tons of fake fish, dashboard hula girls, or giant fake bats, it’s the place to go.

To some extent I can understand having an equally crazy layout, but it’s not as crazy as it is just plain terrible. It’s a garish green background with white mystery meat navigation. Ow. No contrast at all. I think all the numbers just lead to Quicktime VR tours, which is interesting considering that while there are generally some themed areas that rarely move, I’m pretty sure the store layout has shifted since the site was put up four years ago. That, of course, isn’t really taking into account the obvious fact that it requires you to have the proper plug-in to view everything.

So…what’s the point? Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if they just wanted to break my brain.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I love stores like this and I’m going to make sure I visit Toy Joy the next time I’m in Austin. On the other hand, the site sucks like the black hole of death. Yeah, yeah, I know it’s supposed to be a Roky Erickson-13th Floor Elevators kind of site, but those days are over.

Toy Joy

Submitter comments: I swear this is real! I grew up not too far away from Martinsburg, WV, which is kind of near Washington, DC. I haven’t seen anything like this since about 1997.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Oh, the power and glory of police web sites. This site should be declared an endangered species because it makes about every mistake in the book starting with the TITLE “Index” and ending with Javascript loading in the status bar. It’s a classic police site from 1997. I love it.

Martinsburg Police Department

Submitter comments: After seeing this site, my engagement is off! I now totally, absolutely, 100% vow a life of celibacy.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I remember the priests and nuns at my Catholic grade school telling us that if we thought we were facing immanent death, we should say an Act of Contrition and our sins would be forgiven — or something like that. After viewing this site the only thing that’s keeping me alive is the thought of death.

You have to love the keyword stuffing that’s going on. Most people try to hide the fact. Because of all the color combinations on the page, they just put the keywords at the bottom.

You must click the ENTER YVETTE’S link and see the home page. OMG. This site is a shoo-in for inclusion Worst Web Sites of 2008.

Yvette’s

Submitter comments: I could go on for days about this site, but it clearly explains itself. It really is that bad.

Also, if you think the front end is a mess, try having a crack at digging through the code!

Vincent Flanders’ comments: We have a semi-useless splash page with an even more useless “Welcome to our site” message. I say “semi-useless” because if we go to the “real” home page, you wouldn’t have the slightest idea what this site was about because of its use of Mystery Meat Navigation.

Initially, I thought the site was for a web design firm (and I don’t discuss web design firms), but as I ate my way through the mystery meat, I didn’t see anything that said they were a web design firm. I’m guessing they’re a video company. The fact that I have to guess what they do for a living should be the first warning site that something is seriously wrong.

Their splash page has a Google PageRank 0f 0 and their home page has a rank of 1. Sheesh. That’s barely above some scam site. I’m sure these people do great work, but their web site says “We’re clowns.” Clever clowns, but still clowns. That’s why it’s important to have an effective web site. You want it to reflect who your really are.

Passport Media Creations

Submitter comments: My opinion: So close to not sucking at all. But I can’t read the pages because of the color issues. Gray background. They think it’s a newspaper.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I love this site because, as the submitter stated, it’s “so close to not sucking at all.” I’m not sure about the “so close” part, but it certainly isn’t a car wreck on the Information Highway.

Run the site through the online AccessKeys color report and you’ll discover:

Both color difference and color brightness do not meet the recommended standard for 26.78% of the total text.

Either color difference or color brightness does not meet the recommended standard for 6.45% of the total the text.

Translation: There’s not enough contrast between the text and the background so the site’s hard to read. Not as bad as many sites, but it’s still a big problem

The page really needs to be centered so it doesn’t look so scrunched on the screen and they need to get rid of the gray background. I’m also not fond of the menu items being placed on the swoosh.

Knight Digital Media Center

Submitter comments: This site has very little content but still manages to pack in lots of mildly annoying ‘features’

Splash

• Animated Splash Page!
• The ubiquitous (in1995) globe (Non Spinning)
• Bad Pun “seaking – to better your world”

Home Page

• 3 Big Buttons leading to three blank pages (maybe there is content in Firefox?)
• Phone Numbers…good…but in an image so I can’t copy and paste them!

Contact Us

• Background image causes an optical illusion!….it’s more obvious when you press the Send button and see how the bottom of the box appears to bend towards the centre of the pool!

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Another big problem is there really isn’t any text on the real home page for search engines to use. Search engines need text to index.

If the splash page were eliminated, the three other pages were created, and some text was included on the home page, the site probably wouldn’t qualify as a Daily Sucker.

Seaking Supplies and Services

Submitter comments: None.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I ran across a new search site called Searchme Visual Search and I think it has a very interesting approach to search. Key in a query like “Roger McGuinn” and you get complete web pages for results. Earlier versions of the site had Mystery Meat Navigation at the top, but they’ve improved it somewhat. The problem, and why they’re Daily Sucker #1, is that they darken the search categories and you still have to mouse over them to read what they have to say.

There’s a small arrow at the bottom of the page that makes the web page results bigger (and more readable). Not sure about the quality of the results, but it’s an interesting approach that I really like. As my wife, the special education teacher, says “We each have different learning styles.” Maybe Searchme will work for you.

Searchme Visual Search

Submitter comments: Horrendous! :)

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I agree. This 5Mb monstrosity sucks like a hurricane. First of all, why in the name of Jakob Nielsen, do we have dark blue text on a black background? Doesn’t anybody look at a fricking monitor to see what the page looks like? Mouse over one of the images (and there’s something like 3.8Mb worth of images) and it flashes the message “Let’s Dream” at you. Yeah, let’s dream about your web site not sucking air. Speaking of dreams, they’ve got this total BS slogan “Can You Dream Reality?” No, I can’t. That’s why they call it a dream.

The logo may just be the crappiest I’ve seen in a long time. Mouse over it and you’ll pray that God comes down and strikes you blind. Here’s the kicker. They have a link to the home page, but it’s on the home page and it’s not the logo! It’s the TV screen. Sure. Why not?

Everlucent Home Theater Installation

Submitter comments: In order to fully appreciate this site, you have to scroll down. . . . way down. . . you won’t believe how much crap is crammed on one page.  I didn’t think it was possible, and in rainbow colors.  I strongly advise against clicking any of the links as it takes you to equally horrendous pages and sites. 

I now have a headache.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: What is it with web sites for “Over the Top” industries? The definition of an “Over the Top” industry is just like the definition of pornography — you know it when you see it. Over the Top web sites generally deal with philosophy, religion, outer space, science fiction, and politics — but not mainstream philosophy, religion, outer space, science fiction, and politics.

I think there are two possible reactions to this site. As the great movie reviewer Mr. Cranky has said:

1. “This is so godawful that it ruptures the very fabric of space and time with the sheer overpowering force of its mediocrity.”
2. “Proof that Jesus died in vain.”

Burlington Ufo and Paranormal Research and Education Center