Submitter’s comments: So, my mother happens to be a slightly successful poet and was looking for a magazine to submit a few poems to. She found this site on a list of them and it sounded interesting. Then, she looked at the web site, and decided not to submit anything. I can see why. Font choice is hard on the eyes, navigation is hidden at the bottom, and the site…well…why is that image even there? Oh, and that’s just the home page. It just keeps on getting worse. Pay attention to the navigation.

My favorite page is definitely submissions.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: The problem with white text on a black background is obvious — what color do you make links and visited links so that people can see them? This site fails because it chose default blue for links and purple for visited links, which are impossible to read. The Submissions page is, for some reason, needlessly centered.

Basement Stories

Submitter’s comments: Here’s one that really sucks!

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Yes, but it sucks in such an interesting way. Here’s a screen shot of what the home page looks like to the average visitor. Here’s what I find “amusing:”

1. The focus is definitely the logo. Even so, what does that buy you? I suspect most people who end up at the site know where they’re going. The web is all about expectations and your job, as a designer, is to meet those expectations. Logos are supposed to be unobtrusively “there” at the top-left of the page.
2. If you’re using horizontal navigation, it’s supposed to be at the top of the first screen — not down in the middle.
3. I realize it’s a golfing site, but the golf clubs are not a good idea to use for your navigation.
4. Fortunately, you can read most of the text — because it’s quite large and has to be large because it’s white on a black background.
5. The TITLE tag on the home page is “home page,” which isn’t very helpful for search engine optimization purposes. Speaking of SEO, I’m taking an ADHD detour here to mention Google’s own SEO Report Card. The description is at the Webmaster Central Blog. It talks about their failure to meet their own guidelines (which include the TITLE tag) and there’s a 49-page PDF file you should read.
6. There are pictures at the bottom of the page which seem to be centered, but they clash with the bottom navigation which tries to be centered.
7. The subpages are too long.

There’s lots more, but this list is a start.

Southern Crescent Tour

1. A JavaScript Content Switcher That Works Without JavaScript – Impressive Webs
2. Five Reasons Why Landing Pages & Forms are More Valuable than Homepages – Performable
3. How To Use Google’s Free Online Hard Drive – BusinessInsider
4. Breaking Up Large Documents for the Web – Part 1
5. Breaking Up Large Documents for the Web – Part 2
6. Breaking Up Large Documents for the Web – Part 3
7. Customers Increasingly Intolerant With Slow Web Sites – PC World

Submitter’s comments: The gracious host starts his high pressure sales talk as soon as you get to his site. He even wants to “point out a few valuable areas for you to take advantage of.” Given his first impression, I was too scared to look any further. I’ll leave that to the professionals. Does this qualify for a new category of what not to do?

Vincent Flanders’ comments: It’s a variation of those talking people you see on Mr. Bottles or Connecting Point (video).

I was afraid that this site was going to degenerate into Guns Guns Guns (video). Thankfully, it didn’t. What gives with the large, black space in the middle of the page. Allegedly, it’s something called “Hacker Safe.”

It would be nice if the site used cookies so that you’d only hear the message once — on each page. Visited links don’t change color (hard to do on this blood-red background) so you don’t know what you’ve already looked at.

I love the “2 Day Shotgun Skill Builder” page. First, as soon as you go to the page, a video starts. Wrong. You’re never supposed to do that. Let people click if they want to see the video. Trust me. I’ve gone through the site and the videos and sound files really get on your nerves — especially when you return to a page you’ve visited. Second, the video shows a guy shooting a handgun instead of a shotgun.

Like so many sites, there’s so much information that’s poorly categorized. Oh, there’s too much text that’s too little.

Frontsight.com

Submitter’s comments: When I first saw this site and noted the dreaded “schemas-microsoft-com:office:office,” I figured it simply didn’t work well with Firefox. Not the case. It looks the same in I.E.

I am not certain there are any lessons to be learned here. This is simply stupid. On many pages the content simply starts half-way down the page due to a doubling of the side menu. Even if you are part of the slap-it-together-and-post-that-puppy crowd, it is hard to believe that no one noticed this on the damn homepage at least.

There are a couple of other problem (home page is named “Index”), but who cares?

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I always admire people’s inability to see the obvious. This isn’t one of the dreaded IE6 bugs that screw your site up but you won’t notice cause you don’t have IE6 on your machine situations. You can see it in about any browser you try.

Hobo.com

Submitter’s comments: ColoradoPols.com recently ran an article entitled The Worst Campaign Website We’ve Ever Seen.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: As readers of this site know all too well, just when you think you’ve seen the worst the Internet has to offer, you discover something else. Yes, their suggested site is bad (actually, it’s been improved — you should see the screenshot in the article). However, the worst campaign site for this year (so far) is George Hutchins for U.S. Congress. It ended up as #2 on my “Ugliest / Worst Over The Top Web Sites of 2009.”

Kennedy for Colorado

Submitter’s comments: Stumbled on this site.  Gave up trying to figure out the Mystery Meat navigation (good luck clicking some of the links…) and stumbled on out of there.

I respectfully submit it for your ah… consideration.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. It’s an art site, but we need to stop promoting these techniques. The good news is the “bubbles” don’t make bubble sounds (I remember hearing them on some site from the past).

Stop it already.

Studio Jan Melis

Vincent Flanders’ comments: When you’re young, you talk about the drugs you take. When you’re old, you talk about the medicine you’re taking. Once of the problems with taking medicine when you’re older is that you forget whether you’ve taken your pills or not — especially when you take several different medicines.

King 5 TV ran a news story about a new type of medicine cap that tells you how long it’s been since you’ve opened that particular medicine. They mentioned that local drug store chain (Bartell Drugs) would have the product available and that it was available from the manufacturer.

I looked at a lot of pages at Bartell’s site , but couldn’t find a search engine. Using the Google Toolbar, I searched the site, but only found one link and the link wasn’t helpful.

When I went to RX Timer Cap’s web site (the manufacturer of the product) and clicked the Buy button, I was greeted with the message “Page Under Development.”

Holy Mother of God. Do these morons realize how frustrating this is? I want your product but you won’t let me order it.

Obviously, there will come the day when they solve this problem (I hope). Here’s a video to memorialize the fact they’re Unclear on the Concept.

RX Timer Cap

Submitter’s comments: This site is guaranteed to give you a headache. The home page has a Javascript slideshow of different sized pictures that cause the footer to bounce up and down uncontrollably. You’ll notice the menu on the right has an orange border while the links are red. To top it off we have an awful bee cursor.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I know how easy it is to screw up a Javascript slideshow. I screwed up the one on the home page (here’s what the adjustable slideshow looked like on my home page). Some bright person complained and I fixed it by setting the box height to a fixed value — 300px (here’s what the revised slideshow looked like). Today’s sucker bounces more than my box did because there is more size discrepancy in their pictures.

I’ve never bee fond of right-side navigation, but that’s a personal preference.

the bees knees