Sites featured in articles like Worst Websites of 2010 often are redesigned, which explains why some sites mentioned in my articles don't match their current look. The Daily Sucker features current examples of bad web design which haven't been fixed (yet).
If you see a site that you think sucks, email the URL to me. No personal pages (personal pages are supposed to reflect the individual's personality and artistic freedom) or web site designers (it would look like a conflict of interest), or others of their ilk.
Submitter’s comments: Searching for a local service I came across this site.
Vincent Flanders’ comments: I suspect this is a large, well-respected company who doesn’t understand that their image is being hurt—especially by their images. Like yesterday’s sucker many of the images are resized in HTML or CSS. Because someone designed the page wider than 1200 pixels, you have to scroll horizontally to see the complete page. One of the partially cut out images is 581 x 388 pixels and it’s scaled down to 300 x 300 pixels.
The menu items have a white “aura” around them, which shows they were designed for an all-white background. You also don’t center text content.
Submitter’s comments: This is a site of a local woman who deals in Feng shui decorating amongst a million other things that are all listed on the same site in no particular order. I really like the “Clear (your) Clutter” advertisement on the right column of the page. I wish it worked.
I thought Feng shui decorating was about proper placement of things. It’s hard to find my Qi on this site.
Vincent Flanders’ comments: Qi whiz, I’m always losing my Qis.
The submenus on many/most/all the pages are impossible to read. Some pages are centered and some pages are flush left (Interior Design), we’ve got rainbow dividers (which, thank God, are not animated) and while I like color around me, there’s just a little too much color on the site.
If this is what websites should look like when they’re Feng Shuid, then we’re all Wang Chunged (tonight. [Sorry for the 80's musical reference.]).
Submitter’s comments: The website is stuck in the 1990s and it’s terrible to navigate.
Vincent Flanders’ comments: They also have links that are unmarked PDFs—lots of them. I viewed the source and counted 103 unmarked PDF links!
The home page has a Google Page Speed score of 14—one of the lowest I’ve seen. It’s major error is it resizes images in HTML or CSS. There are 32 of them and if they were properly scaled, they could save 2.5Mb in bandwidth each time the page loads. The site doesn’t enable caching or compression.
We have too much material on the home page (of course we do), the usual text problems (multiple colors, sizes, etc.). If scientists conducted experiments the way they design websites, all the scientists would have been blown up.
Submitter’s comments: First of all, FLASH!!!! It’s everywhere, the entire site is built in Flash with animations, flashing, auto playing background audio and not to mention that the intro audio file on the splash page sounds like I’m going to see Ron Jeremy appear on the screen any moment.
Vincent Flanders’ comments: I don’t think I want to see Flash or Ron Jeremy appear on the screen. I certainly don’t want Ron Jeremy to appear in a Flash video.
I swear I’ve used this site before , but I can’t find any record of its existence. I suspect there’s some sort of horrible Flash template out there that reminds me of this site. There is nothing on this website that requires Flash. Why use it?
Industrial Painter is a classic example of Mistake #6 from Biggest Mistakes in Web Design 1995-2015 — “Have you ever seen another web site? Really? Doesn’t look like it.“ I wanted to find out if every painting company looked like today’s site. I conducted a search using the term “military painting” (which Industrial Painter also performs) and clicked on the first link I found, which was for Breton Industries. While the site won’t win many awards, it’s infinitely better than today’s sucker.
Submitter’s comments: This is a viable candidate—it’s actually been mentioned many times in the national media. But actual content is harder to read than a circa ’05 Myspace page.
Vincent Flanders’ comments: Many people have said “Military Intelligence” is an oxymoron. I don’t think anyone ever said “Military Corruption” is one. Then again, you can put almost any organization’s name in front of the word “corruption” and it makes sense.
This is just another Over-The-Top Website where nobody in their right mind is going to believe a word that’s said simply because of the site’s look.
If you have an OTTW like this one, make it look like Pinterest. whose design is over-the-top but it looks like a normal site so it’s not an Over-The-Top Website. I know it sounds confusing, but it isn’t.
The Drive By Truckers (DBT) are one of my favorite bands. I bought tickets for their last concert in Seattle, but I got violently ill and couldn’t make it. Back in 2010 DBT were playing in my birthplace on my birthday and I thought about flying out for the concert. It would have been cosmic to hear them play their great song, “Birthday Boy” on my birthday in the town where I was born. Trifecta Perfecta. They’re coming back to Seattle and so I checked out the venue, Showbox, to see prices, etc. I noticed that…well, I’ll let the video do the talking.
Submitter’s comments: The Havenworks website might be dead, but there’s another website that seems to love the Never Ending Scroll of Death. Pinterest is a social networking website that seems to cater to middle-aged women. You can share and comment on various things like shoes and clothes, but all I see is a bunch of crap loaded onto one extremely long page. Crap and social networking sites go hand in hand, but this is really bad. All that is missing is some obnoxious Flash.
Warning: Scrolling down the home page of this website could cause vertigo and nausea.
Thank you for considering this site. I actually have friends who think that Pinterest is great.
Vincent Flanders’ comments: I’m definitely not Pinterest’s target audience. Our submitter says the site caters to “middle-aged women.” Om Malik of Gigaom says “It is especially popular with young women.” Of course it is. That sounds better to investors. Either way, this site represents the pinnacle of achievement for Over-The-Top websites.
The only difference between Pinterest and Dreams of the Great Earth Changes is the quality of Pinterest’s web design. Initially, it looks gorgeous—and it is—until you start to focus and then it becomes a long, blurred jumble of scrapbooking, inspirational quotes, cute animals (Cute Overload comes to mind), food and pastries, and—well, just look at the site.
I can’t stress enough how impressed I am at the quality of the design. However pretty the pictures and layout, it’s still a extremely long (61,250 pixels) crazy quilt of material It’s a very beautiful mess, but it’s still a mess.
Submitter’s comments: Who puts a diaper around the world? And a badly drawn one at that? Never mind the logo, this site does not take ‘a fresh look at diapers’. It looks about as fresh as 1998. Read the rest of this entry »
Submitter’s comments: An early front runner. (Does that make it the Herman Cain of web sites?)
Vincent Flanders’ comments: I doubt Herman had a website quite like this. I swear I’ve used this before, but I couldn’t find any evidence. Sadly, I guess it reminds me of another political website.
You would think the folks at One Nation might notice there’s something wrong with their website if they just looked at a couple of American political party’s websites. Does the Republican Party website or the Democratic Party website look like your site? No? Then your website sucks! (I’m not saying these two sites are wonderful, but they’re not going to show up on WPTS in their present form.)
Submitter’s comments: This one page seemed to take its sweet time loading in the 97-99% range while this god-awful music played and never ceased to attack my ears. Also, there is a bit of Mystery Meat Navigation (MMN) going on with the unlabeled bags. Ironically, though this is the “festive” collection, the screen is awfully dark.
Vincent Flanders’ comments: Not sure why the page hangs starting around the 97% mark. It takes a long time to get there and, frankly, I’m bored and would normally leave. I notice the MMN occurs both in the left navigation and in the middle. The left-side navigation is hard-to-read because someone doesn’t appreciate contrast.
While exploring the site, I discovered the Men’s Business Accessories page. More importantly, I discovered the Textured Leather Crossboy Briefcase. While the bag is gorgeous, the price isn’t at £795.
Burberry is your typical high-end fashion/designer site.
Worst Websites
Submitter’s comments: Searching for a local service I came across this site.
The Drive By Truckers (DBT) are one of my favorite bands. I bought tickets for their last concert in Seattle, but I got violently ill and couldn’t make it. Back in 2010 DBT were playing in my birthplace on my birthday and I thought about flying out for the concert. It would have been cosmic to hear them play their great song, “Birthday Boy” on my birthday in the town where I was born. Trifecta Perfecta. They’re coming back to Seattle and so I checked out the venue, Showbox, to see prices, etc. I noticed that…well, I’ll let the video do the talking.
