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

WebPagesThatSuck.com is on its 15th year of sucking. To celebrate, here are 15 of 2010′s worst websites.

You can’t believe all the depressing crap I had to wade through to pick these 15 sites. I’m going to cleanse my mind by catching the impossibly talented James McMurtry’s performance at the Tractor Tavern.

Worst Websites of 2010: The Contenders

The section “Standards, Standards, Standards” in Christina Warren’s article Why Designers and Developers Should Care About Internet Explorer 9 is so full of crap that no enema bottle can unplug it.

The web site HTML5Test provides “an indication of how well your browser supports the upcoming HTML5 standard and related specifications. It does not try to test all of the new features offered by HTML5, nor does it try to test the functionality of each feature it does detect.” It gives each browser a score and here are the scores I got on my machines (highest possible score is 300):

217 Google Chrome 6.0.472.59 beta (plus 10 bonus points) – Windows 7 and Vista
207 Safari 5.0.2 (7533.18.5) (plus 7 bonus points) – Windows 7
207 Safari 5.0 (7533.16) (plus 7 bonus points) – Vista
204 Firefox 4.0b5 (and 9 bonus points) – Vista
159 Opera 10.60 (plus 7 bonus points) – Vista
159 Opera 10.62 (plus 7 bonus points – Vista
139 Firefox 3.6.9 (plus 4 bonus points) – Windows 7
139 Firefox 3.68 (plus 4 bonus points) – Vista
106 IE 9 Beta (9.0.7930.16406) (plus 3 bonus points) – Windows 7
037 IE 8 (8.0.6001.18943) (and no bonus points) – Vista
022 IE 7 (7.0.5730.13) and no bonus points – XP

Yes, IE 9 is almost 3X more compliant than IE 8 and almost 5 times more compliant than IE 7, but its score is one-half of Google’s.

Why is everybody sucking up to Microsoft’s not-quite-as-crappy-as-it-used-to-be browser? The Browser War is not the Special Olympics.

Submitter’s comments: I enjoy your site and here is one that seems to keep on sucking in spite of the fact that the TED.com—the organization’s main site—seems to okay. The “heroin content” is obscured by Mystery Meat Navigation. It baffles me that no one has bothered to fix this.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Well, there goes my invitation to TED <grin>. Hey, if it sucks, I’ll tell you it sucks and, yes, it sucks. What’s worse, in my humble opinion, is the text above the Mailing List form. You can’t read it.  For the clueless web designers out there, please read Wikipedia’s definition of contrast. (Another site gives a really great visual demonstration of contrast.)

If you won’t take my word about the need for contrast, take Alistapart’s. Between the two of us, you’ve got the alpha and omega of web design telling you to wo/man up and make your site readable.

TEDMED

I like FastCompany magazine, but their recent article, The Worst, Most Exploitive 9/11-Themed Ads, didn’t present the WORST ad. When it comes to what’s sucky and what’s worst, I’m the King. Here’s the worst ad:

Worst 9/11 ad

A person wrote in saying they couldn’t buy this software because when they clicked the shopping cart button, it didn’t put the product in the cart. I tried it out periodically for several hours and then made a video. Not long after posting the video, the page miraculously worked.

I’m not asking much, but when I click to put something in my cart I WANT TO SEE IT IN MY CART!

Diabetes Pilot video on YouTube
The SmugMug video version

The page in question at Diabetes Pilot

Submitter’s comments: None.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I’m so very, very tired of beautiful websites where I can’t read the text.

Where’s the Contrast? For the clueless web designers out there, please read Wikipedia’s definition of contrast. (Another site gives a really great visual demonstration of contrast.)

There’s no excuse for this mess. If you won’t take my word about the need for contrast, take Alistapart’s. Between the two of us, you’ve got the alpha and omega of web design telling you to wo/man up and make your site readable.

Since I can’t read the text and since I refuse to stick my face two inches from the monitor, I’m not sure what the site is about. This site reminds me of the lyrics to a song by the Bottle Rockets (one of my favorite bands):

I wonder if she’s real.
I really couldn’t say.
But I don’t want to know
’cause she’s so perfect far away.

You can watch a video of this song at YouTube.

relogik

Submitter’s comments: This is the website of a town ambulance service—the people who are supposed to save your ass if you have a medical emergency—in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. Not only is the design bad, but the content would make me move out of the area in fear of my life.

“Shortage of body bags”? WTF?

Vincent Flanders’ comments: We all make grammar mistakes, but this is a little much:

Both Apparatus and patient care equipments is need. shortage on body bags also

We also have what appears to be loon ravings at the top of the page. WTF?

George’s Township Civil Defense EMS & Fayette_County_Ambulance_Service Fayette-EMS 306