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

NVEnergize – An Example of Bad Web Design for April 15, 2012

Submitter’s comments: AHHHHHH!

What rule doesn’t this website break? Constant scrolling whilst you move your mouse, plus the loading page just looks like the whole website (because who’s going to think that a barometer {I think it is} going upward SLOOOOOOOOWLY is a loading page?)

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Initially, I wasn’t sure if this qualified. Then I started scrolling and ran into a bunch of Mystery Meat Navigation. The worst culprit is “Renewable Generation.” You have to mouse over the first solar panel to bring up the tooltip. You would think that it would be enough to mouse over any other part of the building. Nope. That seems like an incredible oversight and I can’t believe someone at NVEnergy didn’t notice. When you mouse over the house to the right, there’s no link. You have to go up to the top of the hill for “Traditional Generation.”

Finally, why are they using the secure https protocol?

NVEnergize

Vincent Flanders’ comments: My daughter said, “One of my friends posted on Facebook, ‘Two gay men just brought VD into my house.'” Naturally, my interest was piqued. The “VD” turned out to be “Voodoo Doughnuts” instead of something more salacious. Of course, I went to the VD website and immediately decided they were using Mystery Meat Navigation because I didn’t see a normal menu. Wrong. I use a portrait monitor and, as you can see from this screen capture, the menu is at the bottom of a very long page. The page isn’t so long on a monitor in landscape mode, but the menu is not on the first screen. Like every normal user, I don’t want to figure out where the navigation is located. I just want to find it now.

VD is using a technique I haven’t seen in a long time—they’re disabling the right mouse click. I realize their images should be protected, but they are using watermarks. Anybody who really wants the images knows how to get them, so I’m not sure why they’re disabling the right click.

As someone who knows his way around doughnuts, their menu looks exciting and I’m sure their doughnuts are just as great as their names (Cock-N-Balls is my favorite name for a doughnut). All VD really haa to do is make it easier to enter the site. I can overlook the rest of the design because this is the type of business that can have a fun website. Dunkin’ Donuts can’t and doesn’t.

Voodoo Donuts

Submitter’s comments: Two great tastes in one- protection from fraud and a ministry. At least, I think that’s what it is. They are on patrol to protect people from scammers claiming to represent police and firefighters’ organizations and other charity groups. Their web site could use some re-organizing and focus.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: These two disconnected concepts reminds me of a joke home page I once created for the “Bakesfield School of Law and Auto Body Repair.” I’ve heard of people receiving a calling to save the sick and dying children in India but, hey, why not save Americans from scammers. It’s not like we’re doing a good job of protecting ourselves.

Speaking of bad jobs, this website is a jumble. We’ve got a small logo, large graphic that doesn’t really represent anything, multiple text sizes, multiple colors, centered text along with flush-left text, colored divider bars, a home page that goes on forever and other types of mistakes found on Over-the-top Websites. I’m sure they provide a wonderful service, but their site doesn’t reflect this fact.

Police Fire Crime Line (pfcl.org)

Submitter’s comments: This one really HIT HIT HIT me in the face!! It still hurts and my eyes are still twirling around…LOL

Vincent Flanders’ comments: The page submitted is for chocolate bouquets.

At least you can read the text. In many ways it looks like you’d think a gift website would look. It’s not spectacularly sucky, just a little tacky and inelegant.

Elegance With Style

Submitter’s comments: Don’t even know where to start with this one. I’m sure you’ll do a better job than me.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Actually, it’s fairly nice for an Over-the-Top Website (OTTW). My favorite part of the home page has to be the use of logos from different media organizations. You can’t click them and go anywhere, but they lend an aura of authenticity to the site’s material. Interestingly, the red triangle on the home page, which I’m assuming is the Bermuda Triangle, doesn’t seem to match up to Wikipedia’s Bermuda Triangle. Who to believe? Who to believe?

This home page is different from your average OTTW because it doesn’t keep going and going down the home page. It’s compact. The navigation menu looks strange—the lines above the menu items runs through the text. If what’s at the top left is the logo, then it’s too small and unreadable. There are drop shadows on the

The subpages seem to look different from every other subpage. My favorite page is the Bigfoot/Sasquatch Overview page. Make sure your sound is turned up. There are lots of contrast issues, with the color of the links on the green background being the most glaring. On the plus side, this page is not all that long. On the negative side, clicking the Home link doesn’t take you to the real home page.

Other pages have text that’s too small, backgrounds that repeat, lack of links to the home page, justified text, animated images and the other usual issues found in OTTW.

Bermuda-Triangle.org