The Daily Sucker

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