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

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.

Pinterest

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.)

One Nation

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.

Burberry Festive

1. Paratom Investigative Unit

Submitter’s comments: Spooky, psychic awfulness. Every site has its day, and I think Paratom.com has earned it.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: To say the home page photo is inappropriate is to insult the definition of inappropriate.

Paratom Investigative Unit

2. The New Gmail interface

Submitter’s comments: Some of the offenses:

• Mystery Meat Navigation (MMN)
• Two identical MMN gears that point to separate menus.
• Redesign that requires (even in the most compact view) 4x’s the amount of scrolling and 2x’s the amount of clicks.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I’ve gotten lots of complaints about the new Gmail look. Even my wife complained about it. I don’t see two identical MMN gears, I just see two different types of MMN.

3. Black Hills Youth Football League

Submitter’s comments: This site causes the blind spot in my vision to expand to cover the screen.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: It’s sites like these that amaze me. I’ve been trying to find "the average-looking website." You know, the website that’s "just good enough" so I can point to it when I run across sites like this sucker and say, "Does your site look as good as this one? No? Fix it!" This site not only is over-the-top, it’s under the bar.

Black Hills Youth Football League