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

Submitter’s comments: Two great tastes in one- protection from fraud and a ministry. At least, I think that’s what it is. They are on patrol to protect people from scammers claiming to represent police and firefighters’ organizations and other charity groups. Their web site could use some re-organizing and focus.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: These two disconnected concepts reminds me of a joke home page I once created for the “Bakesfield School of Law and Auto Body Repair.” I’ve heard of people receiving a calling to save the sick and dying children in India but, hey, why not save Americans from scammers. It’s not like we’re doing a good job of protecting ourselves.

Speaking of bad jobs, this website is a jumble. We’ve got a small logo, large graphic that doesn’t really represent anything, multiple text sizes, multiple colors, centered text along with flush-left text, colored divider bars, a home page that goes on forever and other types of mistakes found on Over-the-top Websites. I’m sure they provide a wonderful service, but their site doesn’t reflect this fact.

Police Fire Crime Line (pfcl.org)

Submitter’s comments: This one really HIT HIT HIT me in the face!! It still hurts and my eyes are still twirling around…LOL

Vincent Flanders’ comments: The page submitted is for chocolate bouquets.

At least you can read the text. In many ways it looks like you’d think a gift website would look. It’s not spectacularly sucky, just a little tacky and inelegant.

Elegance With Style

Submitter’s comments: Don’t even know where to start with this one. I’m sure you’ll do a better job than me.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Actually, it’s fairly nice for an Over-the-Top Website (OTTW). My favorite part of the home page has to be the use of logos from different media organizations. You can’t click them and go anywhere, but they lend an aura of authenticity to the site’s material. Interestingly, the red triangle on the home page, which I’m assuming is the Bermuda Triangle, doesn’t seem to match up to Wikipedia’s Bermuda Triangle. Who to believe? Who to believe?

This home page is different from your average OTTW because it doesn’t keep going and going down the home page. It’s compact. The navigation menu looks strange—the lines above the menu items runs through the text. If what’s at the top left is the logo, then it’s too small and unreadable. There are drop shadows on the

The subpages seem to look different from every other subpage. My favorite page is the Bigfoot/Sasquatch Overview page. Make sure your sound is turned up. There are lots of contrast issues, with the color of the links on the green background being the most glaring. On the plus side, this page is not all that long. On the negative side, clicking the Home link doesn’t take you to the real home page.

Other pages have text that’s too small, backgrounds that repeat, lack of links to the home page, justified text, animated images and the other usual issues found in OTTW.

Bermuda-Triangle.org

Submitter’s comments: I used to think your site had too many ads. I apologize. If you look at The Jerusalem Post with and without ads (I use an ad-blocker), you’ll notice that the site looks just fine without ads. When you see the home page with ads, it’s a totally confusing mess.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Apology accepted. I guess. Ads are good. Ads are necessary. But, like the submitter said, The Jerusalem Post’s home page is very disjointed and confusing with the ads (screenshot). In fact, my initial reaction was that some putz designed it. However, when the ads are removed, the design is obviously professional (screenshot). You have a lot of white space on the right side, though.

When I went to the Post’s site, a very strange text ad was at the top offering Jewish men the chance to meet Mormon women. I don’t keep up on religious practices, but this doesn’t seem logical.

As far as newspapers go, the current poster child of all that is good in web design is The Boston Globe. It’s often used to tout Responsive Web Design. Here’s a screen shot of The Globe’s home page. Here at WebPagesThatSuck the sites almost always use Un Responsive Web Design.

The Jerusalem Post

Eric Anderson’s take on  how I feel all the time. – http://bit.ly/FPyHgK