ABBC Breeders

Submitter’s comments: Hey, thanks for the great site. I’ve been having fun going through it this evening. It’s kind of like a walk down nostalgia lane. Especially so, this one site that seems to have been updated since you reported on it.

For the January – March of ‘09 worst sites, there’s an entry for ABBC Breeders. In the included screenshot of the post it looks like they had some sort of Arbor Day design up? Well, as Christmas draws near… ah. Words cannot describe. I really feel like I’ve been transported back in time.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Gee. My version of the site is for St. Patrick’s Day. (The screenshot is 1.5Mb and leaves out most of the detail because the full-size version was 11Mb).

I can’t believe I didn’t include this site in Vote for the Worst Web Design Of 2009 (Group 1). The current, Christmas version is amazing. I’m hypnotized.

ABBC Breeders

l.a. Eyeworks

Submitter’s comments: The web site is incredibly stale, outdated and just plain horrible.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: For just plain horrible, you need to see and Vote for the Worst Web Design Of 2009 (Group 1). You’ll get an education in horrible.

The splash home page is trendy, but it’s an ugly, sloppy trendy look. I wasn’t sure where to click, so I clicked on the guy’s face and was taken to a page promoting one of their frames called Kowalski. The page’s green background with red banner did not help enhance the look of the blue and red eye frames. Speaking of the frames, as an overweight, boring, pale white guy I need all the color I can get; however, even I think these frames are excessive. Hell, even Elton John doesn’t wear them.

I went back to the home page to poke around and discovered that the “real home page” link was the swirling circles. Yeah, everybody’s going to understand that.

The sorriest feature of the site is the site’s “find the l.a. Eyeworks provider nearest you” link. It opens up your email program but, of course, it doesn’t inform you that it’s going to open Outlook (in my case). If you can’t provide dealers based on my zip code, let me fill out an email form. Don’t open my email program.

l.a. Eyeworks

The Holiday Light Store

Submitter’s comments: This is Google’s top result for the words "Christmas light store" and I can’t even get the store page to load. It’s the sort of site I can understand being a *little* tacky, and yet I still think it goes overboard.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Electricity just got back on after two days of going without. Oh, the joys of living in paradise.

Overboard? No, today’s Sucker goes overboard and sinks rapidly to the bottom of the ocean. My biggest gripe? There’s a whole section of text you can’t read because there’s no contrast. My second biggest gripe? Everything else.

There really isn’t any navigation as navigation is defined. It took a while to find the store link, which goes to a page that eats up 1.3Mb of bandwidth.

On the other hand, the animated GIFs are perfectly acceptable because they demonstrate the different products.

The Holiday Light Store

Dow Solar Solution

Submitter’s comments: There are so many things wrong with the Dow Solar Solution site:

1. White text on yellow background in the menu.
2. The menu is cut off (it actually says “Talk to Us“).
3. The graphics. Sweet Mother of God, the graphics. Pay particular attention to the house-thing on Dow’s Commitment to Solar page.
4. The typos.
5. If you disable JavaScript, the background disappears.

I can’t look at it longer. I’m sure you could find more.

The worst part? This site is getting more and more exposure as Dow receives awards relating to solar energy.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Contrast, dammit. The menu is just plain evil.

The Commitment to Solar page has typos and grammar issues. Since they’ll fix the mistakes, this screenshot is proof. The home page also has 2 BODY tags.

Oh, I clicked on the bottom link labeled Accessibility Statement. I hate to break the news to you, we’ve got very serious contrast issues on the accessibility page. Oh, the irony.

Disclaimer: Back in 1970 I worked for Dow Chemical in Zionsville, Indiana, cutting up, grinding up and extracting the blood from tens of thousands of human placentas. Here’s a little-known fact: when human placentas rot, they smell just like chicken, which explains why I couldn’t eat chicken for 15 years.

Dow Solar Solution

Eat a Chiquita

Submitter’s comments: It’s basically an ad for Chiquita bananas. The whole site is done in Flash, including the intro, which is nice looking but puts too much strain even on my fairly powerful system to run without stopping every few seconds.

The site also has a horrible case of Mystery Meat Navigation and you need to scroll horizontally (by moving toward the side of the screen) to see the whole thing. Then there’s the constantly playing background music and the shop link that opens a different site in a new window without warning you (presumably so that the Flash abomination can keep running in the background)

Vincent Flanders’ comments: God, these sites are such a waste of time. I hate ‘em because they serve no purpose other than to employ Flash developers which, actually, is a good thing.

Eat a Chiquita

Phonetics

Submitter’s comments: I would like to nominate the following as a web site. that sucks: Phonetics. This site pleasingly combines over-wraught Flash, mystery-meat navigation and weird layout with a complete lack of content. It’s

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I love the phrase “pleasingly combines over-wraught Flash.” God, the British are so damn polite.

I sat there and viewed the intro three times because I thought there had to be more to justify using Flash. I should know better. Depending on your window size, the text slams into the boxes. Of course, everyone knows the eye icon stands for “offers” and the lightning bolt icons is the universal symbol for “providers.” I get the feeling there’s not much information for the web site, so they’re using the Flash and the Mystery Meat to make the site look complex.

Phonetics

Prescription Pill and Drug Disposal Program Network

Submitter’s comments: My eyes don’t want to look at this web site. I was trying to get some information on disposing of prescription drugs, but this site is hard to read. I especially don’t like the red text on blue background.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: My eyes don’t want to look at it either. Heck, AccessColor didn’t seem too thrilled either. Here’s what their report said:

Both color difference and color brightness do not meet the recommended standard for 20.49% of the total text.

Either color difference or color brightness does not meet the recommended standard for 79.51% of the total the text.

Hey! They’re perfect!

The page also doesn’t fit my 1200 pixel-wide screen. You have to horizontally scroll.

Prescription Pill and Drug Disposal Program Network

WMGH

Submitter’s comments: This radio station web site is definitely a contender for worst web site of 2009. I really don’t even know how to explain its awfulness. The list would be longer than the home page!

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Yeah, we have a contender and another example for my list of Over-The-Top web sites. The only thing that can fix this site is a squadron of F4’s and napalm.

Just on the one-in-a-trillion chance they fix the site, here’s a 4.3Mb partial screen capture. I say “partial” because SnagIt, my favorite screen capture program, can’t seem to capture this page and that’s pissing me off. With all the crap that’s on the Internet, SnagIt needs to capture bigger images.

WMGH

Pasupat Textiles

Submitter’s comments: Would you care for some motion sickness while shopping for textiles? This is the place.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: There’s very little except for the tours that wouldn’t be done better with HTML than Flash. At first I thought the site had moving rolls of toilet paper on the Splash page, but it was combed and carded yarn. Oh, we don’t need the Splash page either.

I may be one of the few gringos to realize that orange and green are colors used in India’s flag, but I’m sure I’m not one of the few to realize this color combination makes for a sucky looking web site. This company follows the rigorous ISO protocols, I just wished they were a little more rigorous in their site’s design.

Pasupat Textiles