The Daily Sucker

Submitter #1’s comments: This website suffers from information overload.  You don’t know what to look at first.  And then there’s this frame in the middle with a scrollbar of doom, which is apparently your content (if you click somewhere on the “menus” it appears there, I think).  All I wanted was an LED grow light, and the website doesn’t make it clear where in it’s mess it might be.  Better luck looking for flowers in vacant lot.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I’ve been interested in trying hydroponics to grow lettuce and basil during the winter months. A few years back I grew some basil in a light cart and it was the best tasting basil I’ve ever had.

I’m really very interested in hydroponics, but this site would make me want to stop gardening. The video starts automatically, you can’t find a focal point, most of the text is difficult to read because of lack of contrast, a lot of text is image-based, and the green color scheme glares at you. Yes, I know the site is about gardening, but you don’t have to use green just because plants have green leaves.

I’m also not sure there is a link to the home page on any of the sub-pages. Hmm.

Homegrown Hydroponics

Submitter #1’s comments: Neil Young is one of my all-time heroes. He’s true to his muse, his art has integrity, and he is a superb songwriter and performer. But, good God, does his Web site suck or what? If you have the patience, try to place an order for a Neil Young/Harvest coffee cup (ok, he occasionally, like the rest of us, compromises some of his integrity). There is enough suck fodder on this one site to keep you going for months.

Submitter #2’s comments: Look, I love Neil Young. He is an amazing artist, great songwriter, activist, even though he is Canadian. But his web page?!?! Mystery Meat Navigation + flash + horrible graphics + crap fonts — it really isn’t great.

Submitter #3’s comments: Neil Young couldn’t find somebody to make him a better site than this?!?! Stay out of “Neil’s Garage.”

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I’m a big Neil Young fan, too. I’m celebrating a very large number birthday today and I appreciate anyone who can Keep Rockin’ in the Free World and stay creative and relevant (Neil’s a couple of years older) after all these years.

Normally, I’d repeat my mantra that musician web sites (like art, movie, music, personal, and experimental sites) are allowed to suck and they don’t qualify for Daily Sucker status. However, I kept getting “stack overflow) error messages on different pages using IE7. I don’t care who you are, that makes you Daily Sucker material. Love your work, Neil, but fix your site.

Neil’s Garage

Submitter comments: I’m a neuroscientist, but I also do the web design for my lab, so webpagesthatsuck.com is a holy text for me. I had to visit this site the other day, and after I finished vomiting, I thought you might appreciate it’s suckiness.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Wow. I’m a holy text, which is an interesting concept during the current Jewish holy days and America’s financial markets’ “Holy Sh*t!” days.

Maybe my constitution is stronger than your constitution, but this site isn’t anywhere near as bad as Accept Jesus, Forever Forgiven! (WARNING! May induce seizures.) Today’s sucker would be better served without the background image that beats you over the head with drawings of hearts and brains. If you don’t think this is a stupid concept, imagine this site with background images of various types of “sucking.” I feel another subdural hematoma coming on.

I hate mission statements on the front page of a site (except for non-profit organizations). Every mission statement can be summarized as follows: “All babies must eat.” The company says their goal is to provide, “the scientific community with state-of-the-art instrumentation.” Duh. Thanks, Captain Obvious. You better be providing me state-of-the-art instrumentation.

The FAQ page is really hard to read. All the yellow links hurt the eyes. You get the idea.

Biosemi

Submitter comments: I’m looking for a photo gallery for this architect. Is there one? I don’t know. Maybe down below in all the 100s of buttons, but by the time I get there I’m fed up.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Normally, architectural web sites make the Daily Sucker because they’re over-the-top like the ones I’ve featured. This one is under-the-floor. It’s too bad because it looks the architect knows what he’s doing. The houses shown aren’t my cup of tea, but I can appreciate the quality and complexity.

On the other hand, the web site sucks. There’s no organization, unless you think shoving everything on the home pagte is the definition of organization. There’s no focal point to the pictures at the bottom (why is the navigation at the bottom?). You don’t know where to look and, frankly, I got dizzy looking at them trying to figure out what they were about

Mountain Homes Architect

Submitter comments: This site was redesigned a few months ago. It used to have Flash just in the header, but now Flash is used for everything. It won’t function at all without Flash and scripting.

The front page displays text, but all the text is pure images.

I couldn’t find the names of any of their staff or their credentials. There is no email link or even a web form.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: As you know, I’m totally against using Flash for navigation for the simple reason that it can be problematic. Besides not always working, there are indexing issues (although Google is working on the problem).

I find it interesting that the logo doesn’t show up correctly in IE7. The words “of America” are truncated.

Envita

Submitter comments: I have a nomination for a sucky website — All Natural Botox & Proactive Alternative.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Actually, about the only thing that’s working for me physically these days is my lack of wrinkles. My wife and I were at a gathering of old friends in Vancouver over the 4th of July and the consensus was that, except for my white hair, I looked about 10 years younger than my wife. Thrilled the crud out of her to hear that. For an old fogey, I have incredibly few wrinkles, which is due to staying out of the sun and getting plenty of sleep. On the other hand, I don’t have any great stories to tell about living an excess of excess. I remember the 60’s all too well.

While I don’t need Botox, this site needs a major Webtox injection (or two or three). There’s too much text, the page was designed for a small screen and the background image repeats, text and graphics are in the wrong spot because of centering, we’ve got multiple text sizes and colors, underlined text that isn’t a link, the top of the page has a huge black box where the gray background color doesn’t show up, and the links on the left suffer from a lack of contrast. As I like to say, “If people can’t read it, they will leave it.”

All Natural Botox & Proactive Alternative

Submitter comments: I am looking for an architect to design my new audio recording studio. This guy looks like he’s got some good projects and I want to call him and talk to him. Oh, wait, I can’t find his phone number… What’s his name? Don’t know that either. What’s the company? Um… jadg?

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I’m totally jealous of the submitter and the company that builds these recording studios. I’m just simply jealous.

Here is a company that looks like it creates masterpieces, but forgot to let people know how to contact them. It’s unfreaking-believable.

REDWERKS (jadg.com)