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

Submitter’s comments: Here is a good one. Surprisingly, it’s GMC. Everyone here who has to use the site is constantly complaining about how bad the font is. It has rendered parts of the site completely unreadable.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Interestingly, screenshots of the home page make the menu text at the top look better than it looks on a monitor. While text is readable on a monitor, the text isn’t crisp and looks amateurish. The text navigation below the trucks is practically illegible and it lacks sufficient contrast. If you look at the very bottom of the page, there’s some legalese that’s totally impossible to read unless you highlight it and stick your face six inches from the screen. Since it’s legalese, it’s perfectly OK to make is unreadable.

If you mouse over Trucks, Crossovers/SUVs, or Vans, you get even more text that’s difficult to read and “choppy.” (Sorry about “Choppy” but it’s almost 4:00 a.m. here.)

Disclaimer: I have relatives who currently work for Ford. I also had lots of relatives who worked for GM subsidiaries or may still work for them (haven’t seen them in 20 years).

GMC

Submitter’s comments: I can read it on my laptop, but not on my office monitor.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: You can read it on your laptop because you can easily tilt the screen and because the laptop’s screen is a lot closer to your face than your desktop’s screen. The page’s background color is #fff and the text color is #898989 which, according to the Colour Contrast Check, fails the WCAG 2.0 contrast ratio formula as shown below:

If you can’t read it, people will leave it.

iTunes Preview for MapQuest

Submitter’s comments: Slow, difficult to navigate, missing items, pretty.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I didn’t find any missing items, but that doesn’t mean they’re not missing <grin>. I would change the submitter’s comment that the site was “slow” to read “very slow.” I could have cooked a meal by the time the second tab (One-Dish Entrees) loaded.

There are two other major, major problems:

1. Flash. Steve Jobs killed it. If you look at the site on a mobile device you get a bare-bones site that states, in hard-to-read text, “For a better experience, you’ll need to have JavaScript enabled and download Adobe Flash Player 10.” For a better experience, why don’t you make a mobile website I can use without Flash and JavaScript?

2. Image sliders / carousels. The article Don’t Use Automatic Image Sliders or Carousels, Ignore the Fad makes a persuasive case that they are “…a poor way of implementing home page content.”

Marie Callender’s Meals

Submitter’s comments: Found a website that I thought could be a strong contender. Love the gear shaped “oo”s in the name “Crestwood.”

I don’t know why a minivan is for sale on the front of a municipal website. Additionally, the bottom of the page says ” NOTE: This site is not officially associated with the Village of Crestwood. DJM Technologies is funding this project independently…” They are, however, soliciting new ideas for the village’s website and “If you would like to support my efforts in creating the Village of Crestwood web site feel free to make a contribution.”

To make matters even better, I called the village (for a work-related matter) and was told by the person who answered the phone that the offices were closed and that I couldn’t speak to anyone during non-business hours. Why she answered the phone, I don’t know.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: There’s a lack of contrast between the text and the background, which makes the text hard to read; however, the real problem is the “site” is just a bunch of links to other community websites. Speaking of community websites, if you want to see a site that really sucks, try the Crestwood Fire Department.

Village of Crestwood

Submitter’s comments: It’s a catalog! Another case of a company that doesn’t know what a website is FOR. I’m not about to download some stinking huge PDF file just to see what they’ve got.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: The web is not about putting your catalogs online. I like dogs—other people’s dogs. Even when I owned a dog, I would never ever visit a site like this because it’s too much trouble to find out what they could offer my dog.

I couldn’t read yesterday’s Daily Sucker, Carol House Furniture, because there wasn’t enough contrast between the text and the background. Today, I can’t read the text on the site because it’s too small. Didn’t anybody notice that no matter how big/small you resize the window YOU STILL CAN’T READ THE TEXT?

When it comes to websites, If I can’t read it, I’m gonna leave it.

rollingpet.net