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

Vincent Flanders’ comments: My British readers are, as you might suspect, dignified, reserved and a bunch of other nice terms. They’re even polite when discussing the newly redesigned BBC Sport page. If you read between the lines, there seems to be a sense of anger and disappointment <grin>.

Submitter’s comments #1: Until the end of January 2012 the BBC Sport site was far the best UK site for general sports information, with clear, easily findable information about sports news, results and fixtures, but take a look round the site now.

Basic things that were previously available one or two clicks away from the home page, such as a list all of today’s football (that’s what you probably know as “soccer”) fixtures involving British professional teams, now take an age to find, and then you can never be sure that you have found everything because you have to check each individual English, Scottish or European league or cup competition to see if there are any matches.

And all this while having your eyes assaulted by seas of yellow in the name of branding. Other obvious failings are images with text obscuring important features, text not being left-aligned and “headlines” squeezed into a ridiculously narrow column down the centre of the page.

There are many more things wrong with this site detailed in the thousands of complaints listed at:

Live page issues
Changes to the BBC Sport website
More on our new website
Our new website – next steps

This is a worthy candidate for the Daily Sucker, and I would be amazed if doesn’t come near the top of the list of Worst Websites of 2012.

Submitter’s comments #2: The redone BBC Sports website is in my opinion one of the worst wastes of public money ever and as soon as you head on in there it reminds me of a hazard warning jacket with its profusion of YELLOW! But the most galling of  its glaring problems is how it is set out.

To
Read
Some
Of
Its
Editorial
Content
You
Have
To
Read
Like
This
All
The
Way
Down
The
Column.

The photos are alarming in that they have massive headlines blocking you from viewing the subject. An appalling waste of time, effort and licence payers money.

Submitter’s comments #3: I had to send this as the old site was easy to use, now it is just confusion :(

I used to be able to navigate everywhere by the sidebar in a standard fashion and it was easy to use. Now if I got to find a league from the top menu I get a box appear, however if I look for a team I’m taken to a new web page, it seems to be so cluttered.

Submitter’s comments #4: BBC’s new sports website has GOT to be a candidate for one of the worst designs of the year.  Just came into effect this past week.  What on earth were they thinking of?

Submitter’s comments #5: I am guessing that you have already been told about the “new & improved” BBC Sports website (who ever wrote new and improved obviously doesn’t know the meaning of improved) It is total crap, full of errors, badly designed, impossible to navigate or understand!

It’s the worst website of 2012, no matter what else comes along!

BBC Sports

Submitter’s comments: Even on a higher-resolution display, there are still two scroll bars.  Some text is graphic while other text is text.  Large graphics make for a slow download. How did they get people to pay for ads on a site as bad as this?

Vincent Flanders’ comments: On my portrait monitor system (width is 1200 pixels), there’s just one horizontal scrollbar which, of course, sucks. I looked at it on my landscape monitor and the page is approximately 1419 pixels wide. This certainly isn’t responsive web design.

The text is that marvelous gray known as #666. However, because the text is large you can actually read it. Kudos, I guess. On the other hand, the “Attendee Comments” on the top right can’t be read.

Primary Care Education

Submitter’s comments: I’m afraid I have Daily Sucker nomination.  While checking the hours on a (really good) local restaurant, I couldn’t help but notice their web page is absolutely terrible.  Just awful.  I can only assume the owner puts all his talent into the food (which is excellent).

Vincent Flanders’ comments: It figures that the food is excellent—the site isn’t. Sigh. Look. Hire someone, buy a template, do anything but don’t do it yourself. It’s like that commercial for a product or service that I can’t remember (great ad, huh?). It has a doctor playing violin in a string quartet. Obviously, it isn’t going to work. You’re not a designer so stay in the kitchen where you belong.

Bavarian Brathouse

Submitter’s comments: Site looks nice. Plain, but nice. Kinda like an old-fashioned ice cream palace. Unfortunately that is all there is to the site, the home page. Also, all that text is actually images.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Not sure if it’s true Daily Sucker material. It might be nice to know what types of pastries and ice cream are available, but I’m the type of guy who would just go. On the other hand, Using graphics for text is definitely on Web Design Checklist 1: 165 Mortal Sins That Will Send Your Site to Web Design Hell.

Churn

Submitter’s comments: They need to update their website.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: It’s a Flash-based website and there’s very little here that requires the use of Flash. Certainly not the Flash-Splash page. There is at least one video and it’s fine to use Flash for video. In fact, Adobe is only focusing Flash on gaming and premium video.

Now, more than ever, Flash isn’t the best solution for websites. Use it for what it’s meant to be used for—games and video.

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