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

Submitter’s comments: I’m not sure what to make of this beast. It’s so ugly I sort of want to
keep looking at it because sooner or later, maybe I’ll “get it.” At the
present moment, I don’t.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I don’t know if it’s ugly. It seems misguided. My problems start at the very beginning—the company name and tagline. Atomic Data: Simple, Safe, Smart. When I read those words I think, “Nuclear, Complex, Explosive, Dangerous, Japan, Boom.” Nobody outside the nuclear industry thinks “Simple, Safe, Smart” when they think “at0mic.”

Instead of getting the feeling I’m looking at a data center and a cloud, I feel I’m looking at a nuclear reactor. That’s not a good impression. The yellow motif consciously makes me think “emergency.” Yellow is the wrong color for this site. Blue would work much better. Almost any color except yellow and red.

The home page Lightshow conveyor belt is very annoying. I should know. I’ve used them here and annoyed lots of people. Almost as many as my slow-sliding elevator menus <grin>. When I go to the TV page, I don’t see anything relating to video. The conveyor belt goes too fast and it’s too hard to stop where you want to stop.

On the other hand, I like the fact the PDFs are identified.

Atomic Data

Submitter’s comments: Here’s my ALL-TIME favorite, awesome, architect website.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I seem to have a fetish for architects’ websites. My initial fascination was over how outlandish and mysterious they were because they seemed to adore Mystery Meat Navigation. I even have a page devoted to architects that I’m revising because so many of the sites I featured have changed. I hope I provided some inspiration and impetus to get them to change.

Today, we have an architectural website anomaly. Instead of an architect’s website that’s “out there” like the old Zaha-Hadid site, we have an architect who is inspired by 1997 website design.

Yes, it’s using some sort of Microsoft-generated theme but it’s doing something I’ve never seen done on a website. I’ve seen websites that tell you that your monitor needs to have a specific resolution, but I’ve never seen one that tells you your monitor’s resolution and then tell you to change it. Cleverly arrogant.

Thank God I can’t tell you the last time I saw a Java-animated logo that ripples when you move your mouse over it. Other elements that are wrong include the marquee, animated GIFs, cheesy navigation buttons and—oh, my God!—I haven’t seen the following two mistakes from Web Design Checklist 1: 156 Mortal Sins That Will Send Your Site to Web Design Hell for a long, long time

Our site has “Download latest browser” text or buttons.

Our site prominently displays what hardware and software was used to create the site.

Tamborra Design Group

Submitter’s comments: I would like to submit the following website for consideration: Sixties Press. When I went to their website I gave an involuntary shudder. The header is barely readable: it looks like something created in Microsoft Paint with every imaginable effect added on. The picture of the editor has this weird effect where it looks like ripples in a pond. There has to be at least 20 different colors on the page with no rhyme or reason. I hope you will agree, this web page really sucks.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I suspect that everyone except the site owner agrees with you. I suggest the owner read (and as a publisher he has no excuse not to read) about Mistake #6 from Biggest Mistakes in Web Design 1995-2015 — “Have you ever seen another web site? Really? Doesn’t look like it.“ Actually, he should read the whole article along with my series of checklists on bad web design:

Checklist 1 – Fatal Mistakes
Checklist 2 – Big Mistakes
My Site Sucks. What Do I Do Now?

Actually, the home page reminds me of some things I saw back in my college dorm in the 1960′s. Fortunately, the color combinations were much better.

Sixties Press

Submitter’s comments: I came across this, the website of famous British actress Lesley Joseph, and I have to say I think it’s the worst, most pointless website I’ve ever seen.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: It’s really pretty amazing. A small text logo—on the right side, but directly across from a graphic that you think would contain a real logo. I assume the large empty space at the top is for a banner ad, but right now it’s large and empty. It’s also difficult to read her last name because it conflicts with the background.

My favorite part is her comments on the mid-right side:

Do not be fooled, this is the real Lesley Joseph official website. I am an English actress and am starring in The Vagina Monologues!

I wonder if the fake Lesley Joseph has a better-looking unofficial website.

Leslie Joseph

Submitter’s comments: This site is based on the work and experience of Mike Rowe and his Dirty Jobs program. Great idea to help America work for America, but the designers of the site are clearly stuck in 1995 and are fans of MS Bob.

This site’s “navigation” is so counter-intuitive that I couldn’t spend more than 10 seconds mousing over crap objects to figure out what did what.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Time Magazine called Microsoft Bob one of the 50 Worst Inventions of All Time. Well, at least one person found success with Microsoft Bob.

Yeah, what’s with this layout? I’m thinking it’s more 1997 than 1995. I’ve featured a few of these Bobs in the past: Billy Connolly, Brill Publications and the old BVS Performance Center for Banks come to mind—probably because they burned a hole in my brain. No, wait. That was the subdural hematoma. If my memory serves me well—and it doesn’t always—this type of format seems to be popular with TV, movies and other artistic endeavors. It needs to stop being popular.

Mike Rowe Works

Submitter’s comments: A link on their home page points to a parked domain, so I filled out a contact form to let them know. Their form is a nightmare, by the way–there’s no line wrapping or right margins. Then I click send…

The form becomes a photo of a deer in a gun’s crosshairs! This is next to a list of aaca’s animal cruelty officers!

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Actually, the form has problems that are much worse. I didn’t enter anything into the form. I just hit the SUBMIT button and it sent the form off. Whether they receive it or not is something I don’t know.

I can’t get to the Alabama Humane Federation. I get a message saying the referrer is blocked. Why this is happening I can’t say. At least one link is to an unmarked PDF and there are a couple of links marked with two most frightening words that I know—Click Here. It’s not enough to just say “Click here” (NSFW, perhaps)

I couldn’t find the link to the parked domain.

Alabama Animal Control Association (form)

Submitter’s comments: Despite having seen a lot of bad websites being an active reader of your website, I was shocked when I took a look at this website.

It is definitely a website with potential: Good domain name (-> SEO) and (to translate the German term “Freizeitpark Herne” to “amusement park herne”) well structured.

The flaws primarily concentrate on the site’s content, which is a perfect example for nearly all terms of bad web design you defined since 1996.
Moreover, redirects are not well set and there is duplicate content on familienparkherne.de.
To put it short: It sucks, because it is 100% Flash, 100% over-the-top, too saturated and “filled” (even if a child developed this site), the navigation is spread all over the site (MMN?), epileptics are endangered (check out the sub-sites) and despite being filled with a lot of content, it is hard to find any information about the park itself (You don’t even have to speak germ an to figure that out).

Vincent Flanders’ comments: It’s a very strange-looking site. Since I’m y0ur average American guy, I only speak English so I’m not sure what the site is about. In order to get a pass, it would have to be a website for kids. Young kids. Very young kids. Why are you letting your toddlers surf the Internet?

I clicked about half of the links and didn’t find any seizure material, so why press my luck?

freizeitpark

Submitter’s comments: Long first page with a jumble of sections and paragraphs meaning God-knows-what? No discernible navigation scheme? No discern able layout? Various fonts and colors used at whim? Many content pages different from each other? Lack of focus? Animations? Yes to all that and more! One glance and an attempt to figure it out makes me want to point to Gang Stalking World and say “See? Not sharing the consensus reality is no reason to avoid at least trying to make your web site less annoying.”

Vincent Flanders’ comments: In a battle between Sosbee and the FBI, I’m putting my money on the FBI. Some people call this type of website a loon website. I would classify it as an Over-the-Top Website.

The definition of an “Over the Top” industry is just like the definition of pornography — you know it when you see it. Over the Top sites generally deal with philosophy, religion, politics, end times, etc., but they’re generally not mainstream.

Actually, the scarier website is Gang Stalking World because it doesn’t look like a loon website—assuming it is one. A superficial look-see really can’t tell you much other than the site looks credible.

My favorite part of the home page is the graphic that says, “The fbi and cia regularly hack this site, deleting material or intentionally misspelling and changing words…” Damn. I wish I’d thought of that excuse when I screw up.

Even if Sosbee is 100% correct, no one is going to believe him because his site looks like it was created by someone with ADHD. And I know a thing or two about that.

Geral W. Sosbee vs FBI

Submitter’s comments: A complete disaster in every sense of the word. What do you do when a potential client sends this to you as a reference? Puff puff pass until it looks good? (Didn’t work by the way.) Swallow my pride to put food on the table? Hell no! Cost me less to pass up the job than to be in therapy for the next 3 years. I may still have nightmares of floating objects whirling by my face.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Only the fact that it’s a site for a clothing line keeps me from pulling out whatever hair my grandson hasn’t already pulled out of my head (it’s cute when a 5-month old is doing the pulling). It’s cute when fashion boys and girls create these type of “sites” (events? whatever). It’s not cute if anyone out there has a real business—one that knows the difference between appearance and reality—and pulls this crap.

Interesting choice of a name for a business. I thought I was going to be sent to some religious cult.

Obedient Sons & Daughters

Here’s Your One-Stop Guide For Everything You Need To Know To Make It In Tech

CSS3 Rainbow Dividers

The author commented that he was disappointed I didn’t catch that the whole page was wrapped in a <sarcasm> tag. I apologize. It was that kind of day. On the other hand, a lot of other people are going to be fooled. After all, when sites that use Mystery Meat Navigation are lauded, why not rainbow dividers. Nah. You’re right. I should have seen it coming.

It’s been removed from Daily Sucker status and placed in Not a Daily Sucker.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Since Sunday is the 10th anniversary of 9/11, I want to present three different 9/11-themed web mistakes. One is accidental; one is interpretational; and the last one is an example of horrific bad taste.

1. The Accidental Mistake.

One of TheStreet.com’s many different home pages from 9-11 needed a sharper editorial eye.

2. The Interpretational Mistake.

Massport left up graphics showing an airplane in the crosshairs of who knows what. Since Massport runs Logan Airport, where two of the three passenger jets were hijacked, they should have removed the graphics immediately.

3. The Horrific Bad Taste Mistake

Some days after 9/11 a company said, “You know, I think we can use 9/11 to sell online wills.”

Here is a video of the world’s worst banner ad and it still leaves me gasping for air.

Submitter’s comments: Subtitled “Where valuable information is dumped on you without charge 24/7.” This site has a lot to dump on the visitor.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Dump is the operative word. Don’t click on anything. I clicked on “Click Here” and a PowerPoint presentation immediately downloaded itself. Of course, there’s no warning..

Supervideo

Submitter’s comments: It’s bad enough dealing with the US Post Office’s 20-digit tracking numbers, but they figured out a way to make online tracking even MORE complicated.

Type in your tracking number, which looks like this:

0310 3490 0001 0692 1429

and the form removes the spaces as you type, making it much more difficult to proofread the number.

Good design would strip the spaces AFTER the number gets submitted, so the user deals only with the more user-friendly version of the number. Duh. Appalling to think that millions of people get to deal with this lousy interface. :(

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Well, it’s entirely possible we won’t have the Postal Service to kick around for much longer. You can copy the above numbers or copy some of the example numbers on the page and paste them into the form. It scrunches them together and the small font makes them difficult to read. Oh, well.

U.S. Postal Service Track and Confirm

Submitter’s comments: This is a terrible play on legal websites!

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I think “play” is the operative word here. When I first went to the site, my first reaction was, “Holy stuff! This can’t be real.” Then I remembered, “Hey, this is the Internet. It’s full of crappy, stupid web design. Of course, it could be real.” I poked around and I found a link that referred to the TV series Breaking Bad. I think this site was an attempt to get some PR for the show.

You have to love the site. You want to believe it’s real because it’s so believably bad.

Better Call Saul

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I clicked an article link on Hacker News and it took me to a site called Good Stuff. Wrong. Bad stuff. Very bad stuff. I couldn’t read the freaking text. I’ve called #666 Satan’s CSS, but this guy uses #777—which is an order of magnitude worse. AccessColor failed their site and here’s the screenshot.

The guy calls himself a geek. Wrong, again. He’s an ArtFart. ArtFarts are the opposite of designers. They waste your time by being pretentious, obtuse and other pretentious words. Real web designers understand the term contrast and use it in their work. A new website has taken up my cause about contrast and it’s called, logically enough, Contrast Rebellion. Since ArtFarts think graphically, maybe if they look at Contrast Rebellion they’ll understand the importance of contrast and change their ways.

If you’re going to write, let me read your text.

Good Stuff

Submitter’s comments: My husband is into mountain biking and bike-packing and has been shopping for bike bags lately. He loves the products made by Carousel Design Works…or he probably would if he could order them. I present you the product site that won’t let you buy products.

This is a great example of sucking. At first glance it seems like this is a really nice site…but I dare you to try and buy something…seriously, you can’t do it. What’s the point of showing off your awesome products if no one can order them? All they have is a Flickr page with photos of the great things that you can’t have. My husband finally found a PDF download of their “order form” and most of the items m are sold out and there’s no info on how to actually place an order.

What a strange company website. Maybe one day we’ll get to own one of their fantastic bags, if we can just find a dang “Buy Now” button somewhere on the site…even a phone number or other directions for ordering would be good, but you’re not going to find that here.

Oh, and just to make it better the blog has one post that’s been there since the site’s inception. Way to go Carousel Design Works, you did a good job creating a whole bunch of nothing. I guess we’ll buy our bags somewhere else.

Thanks for listening to my rant

Vincent Flanders’ comments: It’s not a rant if you’re right. I tried to figure out how to buy something. I found how much items cost, but no link to buy. I spent about five minutes in my search—which is 4 minutes 40 seconds too long.

I don’t understand what’s going on. Maybe it’s a northern California wine country thing.

Carousel Design Works