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

Submitter comments: City of 3,000 located just south of conservative Cincinnati, OH.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Well, it’s Halloween and this site certainly scared the bejesus out of me. I find it somewhat amusing that the web site infers that Halloween is between the hours of 6:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. The site is pretty much of a wreck and I can only hope that the new “hub” site will be an improvement. I hope they only play music on Halloween.

One thing that annoys me about government websites is how they throw figures around like they’re important. On the History page, they mention that back in 1926, houses in the town were selling for $10,000. The implication it looks like they’re trying to make is that $10,000 back then equals a really large sum of money today. Nope. I fed the data into the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis “What is a dollar worth?” calculator and discovered that $10,000 in 1926 translates into only $117,118.64 in 2007. I suspect that $117,000 doesn’t buy you much of a house — even in Park Hills, Kentucky.

Park Hills, Kentucky

Submitter comments: (Just the URL)

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I never know what I’m going to find when the subject line of an email is “It sucks” and the only text is a URL. About half the time there really isn’t much wrong with the site. The other half of the time the site sucks the oxygen out of a room.

This site is a little different. The first sign that it’s going to suck is that it uses Metaphor Navigation — in this case, the metaphor is a desk. I don’t need to tell my audience that if there ever was a hackneyed metaphor it’s Desk Metaphor Navigation. I love all the Mystery Meat books in the bookshelf — itself, another cliche. On the other hand, the author is quite prolific.

I thought the navigation at the top would match the Metaphor Navigation, but it doesn’t and that’s why this site is a Daily Sucker. The author obviously is successful and has money to burn. This site could have been much more effective for far less money.

Julie Garwood

Submitter comments: Have I found a website for you.  The place is called Mahogany’s Coffeehouse & Bar.  Their website is www.mahoganyslive.com  This has got to be one of the worst websites that I have ever seen.

When you first click to visit the site, an image of the bar appears and you have to click to enter the site.  If you stay long enough on this page and scroll down a calendar of events page finally loads beneath the picture.

The menu page is absolutely unreadable.  They used a script font and then saved it as a picture and placed it on the site.  I have no idea what they serve.

They have not checked out their cross-browser compatibility.  For the site that it is, the placement looks okay in Internet Explorer, but check it out in Firefox.  Nothing is where is should be.  Everything is all screwed and nothing is where is should be.  I haven’t checked it out in Opera or Netscape, but I would bet it is screwed up there.

This should win a prize for the worst web site ever.  Someone should seriously redesign their site.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: It’s pretty easy to check what your site looks like in different browsers. I checked out this site’s home page using BrowserCam and here’s what the site looks like. I only checked it in Firefox, Safari, and Chrome on Windows because I didn’t want you to wade through over 125 different combinations of browsers and operating systems.

It’s even easier to fix the stupid Splash page. Delete it. You don’t need a splash page. I’m amazed that my system has the script font that’s used on the Menu page. It truly is unreadable.

What’s going to be impossible to fix is the code used to generate this site. It’s straight out of Microsoft Publisher 10. I think there’s a special place in hell reserved for the Microsoft employees who created the Publisher-to-HTML conversion feature. Take a look at what passes for code. If I were a programmer and I produced crap like this, I’d go start a coffee shop.

Another problem I discovered with Firefox is that the home page downloads about a billion CSS files that have something to do with the calendar. This is even worse programming than my Microsoft example. Yikes.

Mahogany’s Coffeehouse & Bar

Submitter comments: See below.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: The bad news: somehow, I “lost” the email. The good news: The content was easy to remember. Yale University didn’t read Does My Web Site Suck? Checklist 1 and has a “Welcome To” message on their home page.

No web site needs a “Welcome To” message, but Yale? Everybody knows they’re welcome to your web site. That’s why you have one. They’ve already made a commitment when they clicked on a link or typed in the URL. You don’t have to sell them. That’s one of the reasons splash pages (like Sucker #2, below) make no sense. You don’t need to seduce them into exploring your site further. They’ve taken the bait.

Before the folks over at Harvard start yelling, “We don’t need no stinking ‘Welcome To’ message,” I’d like to point out that it’s in your TITLE tag. Tsk Tsk. What Harvard really needs is someone who understands DNS. While http://www.harvard.edu gets you to their site, http://harvard.edu/doesn’t.

Yale University

Submitter comments: The amount of MMN on this page is amazing – not to mention the fact that they are using 36 links to point to approximately five different pages total (which they already have links for right at the top), and didn’t even bother to organize the links into any coherent order. I think one link is repeated about nine times, and another is used only once. Have fun finding it!

Just keep an eye on your CPU performance if you do (at least in Firefox).

Plus, I personally found that mouseover effect on the actual readable links at the top of the page to be obnoxious.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: After looking at this site it should be obvious why Mystery Meat Navigation is so obnoxious and why it should never be used.

The Connext Project

Submitter comments: Vincent, I don’t know how I keep stumbling across a bunch of sites that really suck — but I just did it again, when looking for the address of a restaurant where a live remote from the radio station we wake up to here in St. Louis is scheduled to be tomorrow morning (or this morning by the time you read this).

It’s for a restaurant called Reynolds Roadhouse, and their site sucks due to the following no-nos:

1) They’ve got out-of-date information on their homepage from almost five months ago (yes, the same morning radio crew mentioned there is scheduled to be there tomorrow morning, too).

2) The very same text on their homepage is on some other pages, too.
Again, the same crap that’s way the heck out of date.

3) Poor contrast.

4) I was looking all over for the address of this joint so that I could look it up on Mapquest (I’m thinking about going over there tomorrow morning), but their address is nowhere to be found.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: There’s a simple reason why you keep stumbling across sucky web sites — you’re surfing the web.

I don’t remember seeing a restaurant web site without an address. That’s a new, bad concept. On the other hand, I did find a phone number so I guess you could call for the address, but that defeats the purpose of having a website. It’s possible their menu had the address except that I don’t like to download Microsoft Word documents. Oh. Why are they forcing you to download an MS Word document?

The biggest problem is lack of contrast. As AccessColor points out:

Both color difference and color brightness do not meet the recommended standard for 17.97% of the total text.

Either color difference or color brightness does not meet the recommended standard for 75.78% of the total text.

Reynolds Roadhouse

Submitter comments: I especially like the violent blood red, scrolling conveyor built and animated Product Categories text.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: The biggest, most obvious, and fastest improvement they could make to the site is to get rid of the background color. You could improve the site’s appearance by 200%.

Cost Compass

Submitter comments: Hi, Here’s a secure winner for your “Worst Web Site of 2008″ contest. BTW, the “GAT” is the Counter-cybercrime department of the Italian law enforcement corp “Guardia di Finanza” (Finance Guard). See Wikipedia for more details.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: We have the obligatory, but unnecessary,Flash Splash page and if you click the Flash web link, you get one of the most horrible Flash introductions I’ve seen. Clicking on the building takes you to the “real” home page.

You’ve got to hand it to the Italians. The music on the “real” home page is much nicer than what you hear on American police sites. Still, it’s a bit over the top.

GAT

Submitter comments: How to anti -market yourself (drive business away), should be used in marketing classes everywhere!

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Well, it’s entirely possible this is just a placeholder page and we’re soon going to see a CSS Zen Garden masterpiece. Right. And I’m going to be the next dancing machine at Chippendale’s.

Don the Poolman

Submitter comments: Can you handle this?

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Yes.

OK. I suppose I need to say a little more than just “Yes.” It’s a classic example of Mistake #5 from Biggest Mistakes in Web Design 1995-2015 — “Have you ever seen another web site? Really? Doesn’t look like it.“ I call this type of design the “I haven’t taken my antipsychotics in a while school of web design.”

The designer should read Does My Web Site Suck? Checklist 1 (and Checklist 2).

Alpha Signs

I’ve often said that if you have a web site and aren’t reading Seth Godin’s blog, you don’t really belong on the web. Seriously. The man is brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. The only thing that keeps him from ascending to the heaven’s is that stupid, unmarked home page bar across the top of his blog. On the other hand, I mentioned that he really should find a way to use the picture of his head and he came up with a, naturally, brilliant concept.

In today’s post, Mr. Godin sums up why you should care about bad web design.

Every time you visit a new website, enter a new airport, visit a new store, examine a new book… the question you ask first off is, “what’s this like?”

At a strange airport, if it’s ‘like’ your airport, you know just what to do. It’s easy. If it’s totally different, you have to stop, regroup, and start to understand what’s involved.

… Visit a website with a brown on brown color scheme, a stock photo of a nautilus, some flashing graphics, a bunch of widgets and a typeface that’s not quite right, and you’ve already decided how you feel. Entirely based on the fact that this site is like those sites, and you didn’t like those sites.

He gets it. You got it? Get reading his blog.

Submitter comments: I have to get some portraits taken and I have to go to this one photographer (he’s the official guy for our school). Unfortunately, even though I have a 4.0 GPA and successfully completed five AP classes, I don’t have a clue how to register.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: This site might be the archetype for “Unclear on the Concept.” Our first problem is the Splash page. Quite simply, you don’t need one. The TITLE tag of “Home” doesn’t help search engines find the site.

That isn’t the real problem. Click on Fast Lane, which opens a new window. There are a total of 17 freaking steps you have to complete to set up an appointment. If this is the Fast Lane, I don’t want to see the slow lane. Obviously, the designer didn’t read Mistake #1 in my article Biggest Mistakes in Web Design 1995-2015 — “Believing people care about you and your web site.”

Any site that has 17 registration steps was not designed for the customer, but for the site owner. That sucks.

Bill Smith Photography

Submitter comments: HORRIBLE

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Yep, that’s all the email said to describe Sucker #2.

I’m using the English version of the site because, like most American Boomers, I only speak one language (my wife once spoke four different languages, but now only speaks “Wife.”) I appreciate the fact that their English is better than my Italian, but they really need to hire a professional interpreter. Their English is actually quite cute as this example from the Aluminium page shows (since the site uses frames, you have to click Aluminium):

Metallic aluminium is not found on its one, but linked to oxygen and incorporated in rocks in the form of oxide, found in bauxite and there was no technical way of separating industrial quantities of it up until two hundred years ago.

I have no idea what the graphic in the center of the home page is supposed to represent. Maybe it symbolizes the Black Hole of Death that most of the Daily Suckers have been sucked into. The home page also has the TITLE tag of “Untitled document,” which isn’t very helpful for Google and other search engines. They’re in good company. Google found 46,900,000 other sites with “Untitled document.”

erreti

Submitter comments: Vincent, I was just looking for some info on their homecoming activities this coming weekend in conjunction with Missouri State University’s homecoming. The general look and feel is tolerable, but whoever maintains it really needs to get their act together. For instance, I clicked on “Calendar”, only to find that they’ve got September’s calendar still up. Wake up people, it’s been October for TEN DAYS already!

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I see a lot of calendars that aren’t up to date, but not that many for institutes of higher education. The link typo “Jesus Christ an In-Deth Look” leads to an amusing Facebook page where there’s a graphic placeholder that says, “Photo Not Available.” What? There’s no photo available of Jesus?

Yeah, yeah, it’s not a car wreck but it is a serious mistake.

Baptist Student Union, Springfield, MO calendar

Submitter comments: Tiny grey type on a black background that can’t be changed with the browser accessibility options for increased legibility, and can’t be printed out except as grey on black. It can’t even be cut & pasted into a new document. This is particularly a failure since the product is being marketed to government agencies, which often require hard-copy print outs attached to all manner of forms before a given item can be purchased. Don’t they want people to be able to read the information on this page!

Vincent Flanders’ comments: The only statement I disagree with is not being able to cut and paste into a new document. It worked with MS Word 2003. On the other hand, the last thing I want to spend my time on is cutting and pasting text.

All they have to do is create a print stylesheet. Here’s a link to one how-to article. You’re welcome, Mr. Leica.

Leica Scanstation 2

Submitter comments: I’m at a loss for words regarding this site. It has everything, music, flashing and the billowy trail of the cursor is infuriating.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Maybe one of the reasons Yahoo! is sucking so much air these days can partially be attributed to their SiteBuilder product. Initially, I thought the home page was created with (Af)FrontPage, but I was wrong. I’m not wrong when I say this site sucks.

It’s a classic example of Mistake #5 from Biggest Mistakes in Web Design 1995-2015 — “Have you ever seen another web site? Really? Doesn’t look like it.“ I call this type of design the “I haven’t taken my antipsychotics in a while school of web design.”

Sarasota Tampa Express

Submitter comments: I am an interior decorator and just found this really ugly site that
advertises furniture. Check this out! Thank you for all your useful information. I have had such fun on your site.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Clarity through hilarity is the motto I try to live by.

Speaking of clarity, I always thought white text on a black background gave a certain kind of clarity to the reading process. Well, these folks certainly found a way to screw it up. Bravo!

Quinze & Milan

Submitter comments: I’d like to submit this website to you: www.the-cosmic-forces.net. It’s for a well known radio show, but it looks like the person who put it together learned his HTML in 1994. The part that really annoys me about this site is the site map which takes forever to load. I honestly don’t know why he was inspired to make a map like this. It takes too long to load and it is not easy to read in any browser.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: This may well be one of the worst site maps I’ve seen. Toward the bottom of the page it says, “This page was last modified on Sunday, January 28, 2007.” This is one of the reasons I don’t like to put dates on web pages.

It definitely looks like a 1995-96 era web page and sucks for the same reason that most sites sucked back then.

They put up a message that there might be a service interruption in the next few days. The second and third links are in case the first link doesn’t work.

The Soul Patrol

The Soul Patrol Link 2

The Soul Patrol Link 3

Submitter #1′s comments: The web site TV.com, a television show-oriented website.

I’ve been a member there since 2005, within a month of them taking over the old TVTOME website, and a show editor for almost as long.

They just redid the site in an eye-searing white background that gives a lot of people headaches (see the poll in forums under “community”), and, in my own experience, is DOG slow. One of the chief reasons for the site taking as much as 10-30 seconds to show anything at all (on a 1.7 GHz Athlon running Windows 2000 — which is much faster than XP or Vista under both Opera 8 *and* IE6) are most of the data pages. It’s downright painful to use the site.

There was no beta testing, no warning, and no feedback. They just announced the radical changes a week before full implementation. Pretty much did everything possible to make it easy for them, mechanically, but bad for users.

This doesn’t compare to some sites for how bad it is, but when you consider that this is not some two-bit site — the number of graphic designers and web designers involved could not have been small — it’s pretty bad.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Not every site that makes the Daily Sucker is a “Car Wreck on the Information Highway.” This site qualifies because they don’t understand the concept of contrast. For the clueless web designers out there, please read Wikipedia’s definition of contrast. This site gives a really great demonstration of contrast in action.

When I checked TV’com’s home page at AccessColor, the report it generated said:

Both color difference and color brightness do not meet the recommended standard for 18.51% of the total text.

Either color difference or color brightness does not meet the recommended standard for 12.99% of the total the text.

Text on background with images is for 46.26% of the total text.

Basically, 31.5% of the text lacked sufficient contrast.

Ironically, the poll page was a bigger failure with a total of 77.81% of the text lacking sufficient contrast. To make matters worse, it’s very difficult to read the text in the comments because the font size is so small.

As I said in my article, the Biggest Mistakes in Web Design 1995-2015, you don’t design (or redesign) a web site to meet your needs but to meet your customer’s needs. Obviously, that isn’t the case here.

TV.com

Submitter #1′s comments: This website suffers from information overload.  You don’t know what to look at first.  And then there’s this frame in the middle with a scrollbar of doom, which is apparently your content (if you click somewhere on the “menus” it appears there, I think).  All I wanted was an LED grow light, and the website doesn’t make it clear where in it’s mess it might be.  Better luck looking for flowers in vacant lot.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I’ve been interested in trying hydroponics to grow lettuce and basil during the winter months. A few years back I grew some basil in a light cart and it was the best tasting basil I’ve ever had.

I’m really very interested in hydroponics, but this site would make me want to stop gardening. The video starts automatically, you can’t find a focal point, most of the text is difficult to read because of lack of contrast, a lot of text is image-based, and the green color scheme glares at you. Yes, I know the site is about gardening, but you don’t have to use green just because plants have green leaves.

I’m also not sure there is a link to the home page on any of the sub-pages. Hmm.

Homegrown Hydroponics

Submitter #1′s comments: Neil Young is one of my all-time heroes. He’s true to his muse, his art has integrity, and he is a superb songwriter and performer. But, good God, does his Web site suck or what? If you have the patience, try to place an order for a Neil Young/Harvest coffee cup (ok, he occasionally, like the rest of us, compromises some of his integrity). There is enough suck fodder on this one site to keep you going for months.

Submitter #2′s comments: Look, I love Neil Young. He is an amazing artist, great songwriter, activist, even though he is Canadian. But his web page?!?! Mystery Meat Navigation + flash + horrible graphics + crap fonts — it really isn’t great.

Submitter #3′s comments: Neil Young couldn’t find somebody to make him a better site than this?!?! Stay out of “Neil’s Garage.”

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I’m a big Neil Young fan, too. I’m celebrating a very large number birthday today and I appreciate anyone who can Keep Rockin’ in the Free World and stay creative and relevant (Neil’s a couple of years older) after all these years.

Normally, I’d repeat my mantra that musician web sites (like art, movie, music, personal, and experimental sites) are allowed to suck and they don’t qualify for Daily Sucker status. However, I kept getting “stack overflow) error messages on different pages using IE7. I don’t care who you are, that makes you Daily Sucker material. Love your work, Neil, but fix your site.

Neil’s Garage

Submitter comments: I’m a neuroscientist, but I also do the web design for my lab, so webpagesthatsuck.com is a holy text for me. I had to visit this site the other day, and after I finished vomiting, I thought you might appreciate it’s suckiness.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Wow. I’m a holy text, which is an interesting concept during the current Jewish holy days and America’s financial markets’ “Holy Sh*t!” days.

Maybe my constitution is stronger than your constitution, but this site isn’t anywhere near as bad as Accept Jesus, Forever Forgiven! (WARNING! May induce seizures.) Today’s sucker would be better served without the background image that beats you over the head with drawings of hearts and brains. If you don’t think this is a stupid concept, imagine this site with background images of various types of “sucking.” I feel another subdural hematoma coming on.

I hate mission statements on the front page of a site (except for non-profit organizations). Every mission statement can be summarized as follows: “All babies must eat.” The company says their goal is to provide, “the scientific community with state-of-the-art instrumentation.” Duh. Thanks, Captain Obvious. You better be providing me state-of-the-art instrumentation.

The FAQ page is really hard to read. All the yellow links hurt the eyes. You get the idea.

Biosemi