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

Your understanding of architects (Architecture — An Industry With Sucky Web Sites) is way off, which is understandable as most everyone views architects incorrectly. Sadly, us structural engineers do nothing to change that perception. Well, some of us do, but few.

“I don’t know what the deal is with architects. For an industry that depends on accuracy and stability, they seem wildly inaccurate and unstable.”

Architects don’t have much to do with accuracy and nothing to do with stability. It’s the structural engineers who provide this for them. It’s no surprise that when they attempt to provide this themselves, in say a web site, they fail miserably at it. They haven’t consulted with a structural engineer for this part of the project.

“They love, love, love, love Mystery Meat Navigation, which doesn’t make sense because they wouldn’t use this technique on their buildings.”

Yes they do love it. And, believe me they try to use it on “their” buildings. Structural engineers manage to squeeze out as much of this as they can before concrete and steel hit the site.

“When it comes to their web sites, architects seem to be one floor short of a complete building. They all need to be redesigned.”

Their buildings wouldn’t be much of a building without structural engineers as well.

I enjoyed the architect bashing. ;-)

“Hulu’s Overrated Web Design” at http://ping.fm/UUwvQ

“Let’s make the web faster” http://ping.fm/wrDkj

“The Billion Dollar HTML Tag (attribute)” http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/06/24/the-billion-dollar-html-tag/

There’s a new, FREE stock photography site called PhotoXpress. Here’s an article about it.

I’ve often said that if you have a web site and aren’t reading Seth Godin’s blog, you don’t really belong on the web. Seriously. The man is brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. The only thing that keeps him from ascending to the heaven’s is that stupid, unmarked home page bar across the top of his blog. On the other hand, I mentioned that he really should find a way to use the picture of his head and he came up with a, naturally, brilliant concept.

In today’s post, Mr. Godin sums up why you should care about bad web design.

Every time you visit a new website, enter a new airport, visit a new store, examine a new book… the question you ask first off is, “what’s this like?”

At a strange airport, if it’s ‘like’ your airport, you know just what to do. It’s easy. If it’s totally different, you have to stop, regroup, and start to understand what’s involved.

… Visit a website with a brown on brown color scheme, a stock photo of a nautilus, some flashing graphics, a bunch of widgets and a typeface that’s not quite right, and you’ve already decided how you feel. Entirely based on the fact that this site is like those sites, and you didn’t like those sites.

He gets it. You got it? Get reading his blog.

Another great Seth Godin post — you are reading his blog aren’t you?

The trap: Use all your money to build a fancy website and leave no money or patience for the hundred revisions you’ll need to do.

The trap: read the tech blogs and fall in love with the bleeding-edge hip sites and lose focus on the long-term players that deliver real value.

Definitely not a Daily Sucker.

The secret of the web

Have you ever wondered, “Did Bob read my e-mail that had my quote or is he just ignoring me?” Well, if Bob uses HTML e-mail (and lots of folks do) you can find out if he opened your e-mail.

About.com has an article entitled “Windows Email Return Receipt Tools and Services” and it mentions a good number of services and software. The one I bought and use is from a company called MSGTAG. (While MSGTAG has an affiliate program, I’m not a member.)

There are 3 versions (one if free, but your e-mail has a footer about MSGTAG) I bought the high-end product MSGTAG Status 2 ($59.95) and it’s really amazing. For example, I discovered that my daughter — the person I love more than anyone in the universe — waited 3 weeks and 23 hours to open one of my e-mails.

On the other hand, it only took Seth Godin 2 minutes and 12 seconds to open an e-mail I sent him entitled “Bad Marketing at the American Diabetes Association.” Hmm. I think there’s a point here.

I was really disappointed when a program called RescueTime stopped working. I tried everything suggested and I couldn’t get it back. Well, the great news is IT WORKS AGAIN. The solution was one of the following:

1. There was a new version of the software.
2. I updated Windows and the .NET 2.0 upgrade decided to finally install (third time’s the charm).
3. I created a new user account.

I really like the way it tells me how much time I’m spending on each application on my computer. It’s very cool and the individual version is free (the business version hasn’t been release so I don’t know pricing.) I have no commercial interest in this product. I’m just happy it’s working again.

On the other hand, WebLog Expert has gone down the tubes. Sigh.