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

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I love Alistapart’s new redesign because I can read the text since the text is large with plenty of contrast. The site is following the current trend of using large font sizes (which I’ve been advocating for years). It’s not perfect. If you read Comment #22 on the A List Apart 5.0 page (I can’t provide a direct link since the comments use Ajax), you’ll see alfred’s list of deficiencies. I can live with all of them. What I can’t live with is the effing logo. It’s cut in half!

In the 18 years I’ve been commenting about bad/horrible/mediocre/semi-ok web design, I’ve seen tons of awful logos. I’ve seen logos half-way down the page, too small to read, animated, sideways, using 15 colors, on the top-right side of the page, but I’ve never seen a logo like this from people who have forgotten 10x more than I’ll ever know about web design. Jeez. What’s wrong is the logo makes me think. What’s really wrong is the logo makes me think something is wrong with the site or the browser. It’s Mistake #1 from Biggest Mistakes in Web Design 1995-2015. You’re getting in the way of the visitor. He’s noticing the design.

Oh. Everyone’s favorite site, Constellation 7, has a logo that’s outrageous and rainbow-colored, but you aren’t surprised by it because the rest of the home page has stunned you.

A List Apart 5.0 Redesign

Submitter’s comments: There are some pages that are badly designed, and then there are pages that are just terrible. This is one of the terribly designed ones. The home page is wide, REALLY wide and you have to scroll horizontally. The text is not searchable because the text is graphics-based and most of the text is in some crazy font that isn’t readable. The navigation and legibility are just a nightmare.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I rarely ROTFALMFWAO (Roll On The Floor And Laugh My Fat White Ass Off) when I visit a website, but I rolled around when I discovered this site had disabled the right click mouse function because the site owner didn’t want any of his graphics stolen. Wow! Talk about delusions of adequacy. It’s also an insult to every gun-toting visitor to the site—a website thinking that their visitors don’t know how to disable JavaScript to get the images. Of course, who would want them?

If you ever wondered where all the beveled text on the Internet ended up after everyone stopped using this technique, it ended up on this website. Jeez Louise. This technique stopped before my site started in July 1996.

On the plus side, most of the text on many of the pages is readable—but then there’s the “Questions” page.

High Noon Holsters

Submitter’s comments: This has to be the single most annoying site I’ve ever come across. The bizarre autoscrolling… the flashing graphics… the “mystery meat” navigation, with hidden nav elements popping out at random as you move the mouse around (all the while the page scrolls nauseatingly under it)… words fail me! Must be seen to be believed… but I recommend taking Dramamine first.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: As I like to say, “Crap on fine China is still crap.” It’s a beautiful website, but useless as far as navigation goes. It’s no fun to try to read the text,either. I love the jewelry, but I certainly can’t afford anything. The company is located in Ojai, California—the word “Ojai” is Indian for “expensive tourist trap.” Well, most of what I saw in Ojai is worth the money, but the town is a little too-too for my taste—just like this website.

Jes MaHarry

Vincent Flanders’ comments: It’s a Flanders Family tradition to go to the Seattle Dog Show. Only illness and pregnancy (my daughter) or quarantine (my grandson was a preemie and couldn’t mingle with the public) keep us from going. The American Kennel Club keeps track of all sanctioned dog shows so it was natural I go there to find out about the dates for the Seattle Show. Imagine my surprise when I arrived. You can squint at the image above, or open up a bigger image of the AKC home page in a new window.

Here are the problems (as marked on the image)

1. There’s a large image that tells you to watch the 2012 AKC/Eukanuba National (Dog) Championship on February 2, on ABC TV.
2. However, at the top of the screen, there’s a message under “Top News Items” that a Wire Fox Terrier named “Sky” wins the Eukanuba championship.
3. If you somehow missed the news item, there’s a picture of Gabriel Rangel (I obviously spend too much time watching dog shows if I know his name) holding the winner and the ribbon.

Why the @#$% would anyone, outside of dog show participants, want to watch a dog show if they know who’s going to win?

Maybe the AKC thinks only serious dog show participants are going to go to their site. Wrong. There’s a whole section on how to choose a dog that’s aimed at newbies. Regular people view the site. I won’t watch the show on TV.

THIS IS SO STUPID.

American Kennel Club

We’re getting closer to the bottom of the barrel!!

I’ve gone through the Daily Suckers from September through December and I whittled the list down to 14 “winners.” I’m now faced with the unpleasant task of going over the previous eight month’s worth of garbage and come up with my lists of the Worst Websites of 2012. Pray for my sanity.

Worst Websites of 2012: September to December Contenders