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

Submitter’s comments: Small museums should probably get special dispensation like artists because their websites are probably done by little old ladies. But I thought this one was particularly notable. First you click to “Enter.” Then you click to “Come on In.” (Is entering twice a sign of quality?) Then click yet again to see the exhibits

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Entering twice is a sign of bad web design. I haven’t seen a double Splash page in a while. The last one I remember is Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University. Personally, I prefer Gwinn’s two splash pages, but I’d prefer they didn’t use any at all.

There isn’t anything right about this site. Seriously, take a look at almost any other museum page. Take my home town museum’s website. Gee, does Gwinn’s look like this? Heck no. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever been to the Indy website, but I like it a lot. It’s simple and you can read it.

Gwinn’s Island Museum

Submitter’s comments: So you want to contact the Village of Lake Zurich (IL). There’s an “Email Page” link up in the top right of every page. That’s good. Then you click on it.

You are required to know the Email address of your recipient or the form doesn’t work. I have six different Email clients on this box. I could have just used ANY of them if I knew the address I wanted to send to.

Someone’s tax dollars were spent on a buttload of Javascript and zero common sense.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: This story reminds me of a conversation I had with my phone provider yesterday. My credit card had expired and a new one was issued. The only difference was the expiration date. Since I pay my phone bill (and Dish Network and my internet connection) with the credit card, the amount due was approaching a ridiculous figure. The big print on the bill had the monthly total, which was in the usual range. The small print, which I hadn’t noticed until yesterday had the huge total and a notice that my credit card expired.

I called up the billing department and said I wanted to pay. I asked Scott, the guy in the billing department, “You guys knew my credit card expired and you know my phone number because you provide me telephone service. Why didn’t you call me up and tell me about the problem? Or couldn’t you send me an e-mail since you provide my internet service?” His response. “I don’t know. It kinda makes sense that we have ways to contact you.”

If I know the email address of the person I wish to contact, I don’t need your stupid email form. This is really stupid.

The navigation, starting with the home page, is problematic. Under “Quick Links” on the left, are black text links on a darkish blue background. That’s a definite contrast problem. Oh, their home page has lots of contrast problems. According to AccessColor:

Both color difference and color brightness do not meet the recommended standard for 92.44% of the total text.

Here’s a screen capture of the report. Hope the citizens of Lake Zurich don’t have vision issues.

City of Lake Zurich – Email Page

Submitter’s comments: No words needed to describe this one.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I can think of a couple of words: big, Microsoft Office, white space, and eight TABLES. According to the Charles Proxy, the home page eats up 3.25Mb of bandwidth and WebPageTest says it takes over 20 seconds to load. It’s ugly in a harmless way. On the plus side, the facilities look very, very professional. It’s a shame the site doesn’t.

If your company is totally PC, then this site might be sorta-kinda not suitable for work because of photos of female gymnasts. Hell, how would I know what’s politically correct? I’ve spent my whole life embracing the incorrect <grin>.

Oshkosh Gymnastics Center

Submitter’s comments: I didn’t know these sites still existed…

Vincent Flanders’ comments: You can always find sites like this at the sucky end of the street. Small text, lack of contrast, an image that’s over 100K that’s crammed down into a 95 x 86 JPG, a home page entitled “Untitled Document,” animated GIFs whose use make no sense, and plenty of other mistakes.

I dare you to click “Click Here.” It’s not as bad as WebPagesThatSuck’s Click Here, but it leads to boxed text where somebody has forgotten the meaning of the word “paragraph.”

Recovery Pals

Gee, you would think that companies who specialize in making other websites better would be paragons of good web design techniques. You would think they would follow their own guidelines. Some do and some don’t.

Shouldn’t Web Optimization Companies Own Sites Be Optimized?

Gee. That’s pretty logical, right? Being the clever little boy that I am, I just had to run three popular optimization-type tests on some companies that provide page/site optimization services. What do the results mean? Heck if I know. I just gather information, I leave interpretations up to others.

Shouldn’t Web Optimization Companies Own Sites Be Optimized?