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

Submitter’s comments: This site is a rainbow-licious flavor of suckiness. Yikes! And thanks for your service to the Internet :-)

Vincent Flanders’ comments: This is an internal page for a company that makes “100% blended fruit juice concentrate that is specifically designed for childcare centers, preschools, Head Starts, etc.” Since many of those in their target audience are too young to read, I don’t understand the need for rainbow colors, centered text and lots of ALL CAP TEXT mixed in with regular text. I doubt the real target audience (administrators and purchasing agents) appreciates the design and layout. Well, I hope they don’t appreciate it.

Fortunately, in the HTML version there doesn’t seem to be any animated GIFs, but in the Flash version of the site there is at least one animation. The Flash version doesn’t really need to exist. The HTML version would be sufficient—except for the reasons cited above.

Interestingly, the above page was given a 95 by Yslow (but a 78 by Page Speed). The back end seems to be in better shape than what the public sees.

As a lark, I did a quick search for [juice company] and the first result I clicked was a sucker on the high-end of the spectrum: Odwalla. It’s an expensive Flash-based site that wastes your time.

For grins I clicked on Naked Juice and the site is infinitely better than either of the two mentioned

Who is Pennyjuice?

Submitter’s comments: Searching for a local service I came across this site.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I suspect this is a large, well-respected company who doesn’t understand that their image is being hurt—especially by their images. Like yesterday’s sucker many of the images are resized in HTML or CSS. Because someone designed the page wider than 1200 pixels, you have to scroll horizontally to see the complete page. One of the partially cut out images is 581 x 388 pixels and it’s scaled down to 300 x 300 pixels.

The menu items have a white “aura” around them, which shows they were designed for an all-white background. You also don’t center text content.

Wet Water Equipment Technology

Submitter’s comments: This is a site of a local woman who deals in Feng shui decorating amongst a million other things that are all listed on the same site in no particular order.  I really like the “Clear (your) Clutter” advertisement on the right column of the page.  I wish it worked.

I thought Feng shui decorating was about proper placement of things.  It’s hard to find my Qi on this site.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Qi whiz, I’m always losing my Qis.

The submenus on many/most/all the pages are impossible to read. Some pages are centered and some pages are flush left (Interior Design), we’ve got rainbow dividers (which, thank God, are not animated) and while I like color around me, there’s just a little too much color on the site.

If this is what websites should look like when they’re Feng Shuid, then we’re all Wang Chunged (tonight. [Sorry for the 80's musical reference.]).

Feng Shui Interior Design

Submitter’s comments: The website is stuck in the 1990s and it’s terrible to navigate.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: They also have links that are unmarked PDFs—lots of them. I viewed the source and counted 103 unmarked PDF links!

The home page has a Google Page Speed score of 14—one of the lowest I’ve seen. It’s major error is it resizes images in HTML or CSS. There are 32 of them and if they were properly scaled, they could save 2.5Mb in bandwidth each time the page loads. The site doesn’t enable caching or compression.

We have too much material on the home page (of course we do), the usual text problems (multiple colors, sizes, etc.). If scientists conducted experiments the way they design websites, all the scientists would have been blown up.

Ohio Academy of Science

Submitter’s comments: First of all, FLASH!!!!  It’s everywhere, the entire site is built in Flash with animations, flashing, auto playing background audio and not to mention that the intro audio file on the splash page sounds like I’m going to see Ron Jeremy appear on the screen any moment.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I don’t think I want to see Flash or Ron Jeremy appear on the screen. I certainly don’t want Ron Jeremy to appear in a Flash video.

I swear I’ve used this site before , but I can’t find any record of its existence. I suspect there’s some sort of horrible Flash template out there that reminds me of this site. There is nothing on this website that requires Flash. Why use it?

Industrial Painter is a classic example of Mistake #6 from Biggest Mistakes in Web Design 1995-2015 — “Have you ever seen another web site? Really? Doesn’t look like it.“ I wanted to find out if every painting company looked like today’s site. I conducted a search using the term “military painting” (which Industrial Painter also performs) and clicked on the first link I found, which was for Breton Industries. While the site won’t win many awards, it’s infinitely better than today’s sucker.

Industrial Painter

Submitter’s comments: This is a viable candidate—it’s actually been mentioned many times in the national media. But actual content is harder to read than a circa ’05 Myspace page.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Many people have said “Military Intelligence” is an oxymoron. I don’t think anyone ever said “Military Corruption” is one. Then again, you can put almost any organization’s name in front of the word “corruption” and it makes sense.

This is just another Over-The-Top Website where nobody in their right mind is going to believe a word that’s said simply because of the site’s look.

If you have an OTTW like this one, make it look like Pinterest. whose design is over-the-top but it looks like a normal site so it’s not an Over-The-Top Website. I know it sounds confusing, but it isn’t.

Military Corruption

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

Submitter’s comments: I count:

• Sparkling
• Long, incoherent “splash” (?) page
• Big “SALE” GIFs and a credit card logo stripe, but no indication of what they’re selling
• Sparkling
• Four items on the “sitemap” don’t link to anything (Our Show Pictures Our Champions, About Us, Visit Our Chapel Room)
• For no apparent reason, the “family photo” at the top of the sitemap page looks startlingly like a Photoshop construction
• The “Home” page linked to on the sitemap has no text on it whatsoever
• The Home page also has a “Home” link, except this one points back to the sitemap
• Sparkling
• Largely unidirectional navigation (nothing links back up the tree)
• Inconsistent page designs
• The “Designs by Bev” image prominently displayed at the bottom of each page sometimes isn’t actually a valid mailto: href (SiteMap), and sometimes causes a popup window
• One confused man from Mars
• Did I mention the sparkling?

The music is catchy, though! And it’s in the WAV format – how considerate of them

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Those of you who thought my initial reaction to this site was “Jesus Christ!” were right. If the flamboyant Liberace were alive today and he looked at this website, he’d scream, “Stop it right now. There’s too much sparkling going on.”

For the life of me, I don’t get the use of the Standard White Jesus everywhere. The Jesus Of This Site is not 5’3″ tall and doesn’t weigh 110 pounds, which is what the archaeological evidence suggests for the real Jesus. I have an iPhone app I call My Personal Black Jesus and he dispenses wisdom each morning, but it’s OK to have Jesus on an iPhone app—and he’s on lots of them—but he doesn’t belong on a site for dogs. Hell, the Mormons don’t have a sparkly Jesus on their home page and they’re a religion. The Baptists don’t have him either. There’s a point here.

For the life of me, I don’t get how these people can look at their site and think, “This design is wonderful.” Go to your favorite search engine and key in “inspirational websites.” I don’t agree with a lot of their choices, but guess what? There isn’t a single inspirational website that looks like this. None.

Oh. I suspect the site is illegally using sound files. I guess they didn’t read my article Why You Can’t Use Music On Your Website.

My favorite page is the Toy Pomeranian Breeder page. If you somehow accidentally ended up on this page, the “Welcome Pombreden’s Adults for Sale” logo might make you think you stumbled upon a human trafficking website.

Pombreden’s Pomeranians

William Glenn & Son – Example of Bad Web Design for December 12, 2011

Submitter’s comments: This is Scottish, yet crap.

I came across this turkey when seeking out a Scottish gift shop in San Francisco that I remembered visiting previously, before my fiancée and I head out there tomorrow. I found the site for the store – unfortunately, first on my iPhone, which wouldn’t render this Flash-only monstrosity. (And, if not too obscure, my Subject reference is to the “All Things Scottish” series of “Saturday Night Live” skits Mike Meyers starred in in the late 1980′s / early 1990′s.)

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I love the tiles-on-amphetamine look the page has. Uh…aren’t liquor sites supposed to verify your age before you can see the content? Not that it works. It’s a joke, but at least they pay lip service.

William Glenn & Son

Submitter’s comments: It has some issues with the buttons, but real problem is how it set up its Search Engine Optimization. When you go to some of the other pages on the site, sometimes the buttons will appear over information, like the company phone number.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I didn’t know people were still trying these old SEO tricks and I didn’t know they are still working–white text hiding behind a white image. For all I know, it’s not working. Paging Matt Cutts.

Steamed Clean

Submitter’s comments: I know I specialize in over-the-top sites, but this is not one. It is virtually useless, not even brochureware, and has been since 2008. I just love the watermarked ("istockphoto") pictures. I guess the owner does not mind telling the huge number of potential clients beating their way to his web site that he does not care to pay even the very modest fee for their usage.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Pretty ballsy–or pretty stupid. I’m in a pretty good mood (3-day weekend with the wife) so I’ll just say it’s been a long, long time since I’ve seen anyone use comps and forget that they used them. I’m sure the designer just forgot to spend the pittance to license the images.

Mallard Adhesive

Submitter’s comments: This one really sucks…It’s from a small town’s (Engenhahn) local committee of one of Germany’s major parties (Social Democrats, SPD). Doesn’t even feature the party’s logo or colors, though, but that might actually be a rather good idea…

Vincent Flanders’ comments: In this day and age, you often don’t want people to know your party affiliation. The only people who can look at the thumbnail and say, “Verdammt, das ist glatt (Damn, this is smooth)” are the people who authorized the site. Everyone else sees it for the sucker it is. Speaking of “Verdammt, das ist glatt,” I came up with this phrase using Google Translate. Google also came up with “Marius White – a member of parliament to touch.” Somehow, I don’t think this is the correct translation.

I love the repeating background, the home page TITLE tag of “home” and the multi-colored text.

spd-engenhahn

http://design.ucdavis.edu/ – Sucks. Sucks. Sucks. Then to suck it up further, it’s Flash.

Original article. Oh. This reading list sucks in Chrome. You want to talk about tiny, tiny type…

Catch UC Davis’ flying birds. Yes, they may be the best flying birds on the web, but it’s still the best of a bad technique you should never, ever use on your site.

Submitter’s comments: Ouch. This site breaks all the rules. I don’t even know where to begin.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Wow! The animated GIF for Breast Cancer Awareness is so horrible it almost makes me want to root for the #2 cancer killer of women. (Lighten up. It’s a joke. On the other hand, it could also be viewed as my commentary on priorities.) I don’t even want to know what extreme football means. These are kids, for heaven’s sake.

The site, while colorful, sucks. Speaking of things that suck, those two malcontents who brought the word “suck” into the mainstream—Beavis and Butthead—are coming back to TV tonight after a 14-year absence. (This is so totally NSFW that it gives me a brain freeze.) Without the Three B’s—Beavis, Butt-Head and Bill Clinton—the word “suck” would still be edgy and I’d still be getting email about how horrible I am for choosing this domain name.

Speaking of horrible, let’s hear it for Xtreme Youth Football Cheerleading.

Miami Xtreme Youth Football

Submitter’s comments: Have a look at this site. What do you think of it? It’s great.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I think the site has some problems. First, there are error messages that quickly flash on the screen and disappear. The messages are:

Warning: ini_set() has been disabled for security reasons in /home/airportf/public_html/libraries/joomla/session/session.php on line 102

Warning: ini_set() has been disabled for security reasons in /home/airportf/public_html/libraries/joomla/session/session.php on line 105

Warning: ini_set() has been disabled for security reasons in /home/airportf/public_html/libraries/joomla/session/session.php on line 682

Warning: session_start() [function.session-start]: Cannot send session cookie – headers already sent by (output started at /home/airportf/public_html/libraries/joomla/session/session.php:102) in /home/airportf/public_html/libraries/joomla/session/session.php on line 423

Warning: session_start() [function.session-start]: Cannot send session cache limiter – headers already sent (output started at /home/airportf/public_html/libraries/joomla/session/session.php:102) in /home/airportf/public_html/libraries/joomla/session/session.php on line 423

Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home/airportf/public_html/libraries/joomla/session/session.php:102) in /home/airportf/public_html/libraries/joomla/session/session.php on line 426

Next we have raw Google Analytics code showing through the page just below the site title. You can see it in the screen capture above.

Someone was performing Quantity Assurance instead of Quality Assurance.

Airportfleet.co.uk

Submitter’s comments: It’s like a time machine.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Just what the world needs. A time machine that takes us back to a time when suckier web pages ruled the Internet.

You start off at the root site and if you don’t click the globe (another freakin’ globe), you’re taken to The Hempstore and if you dawdle too long, you’re taken to a page about cannabis candy. They say it’s legal, but I don’t think I’m going to try my luck—I don’t have any.

At the Hempstore there are three choices, the HempHotel, the HempFarm, and the HempStore. At least the pages look pretty much the same.

It’s another Over-the-top Website and that’s all you really need to know. One more thing. The copyright dates are 1993-2005. Interesting because the web didn’t really take off until the end of 1994.

(Aren’t you proud of me? I went until the end without one drug reference.)

HempFarm

Submitter’s comments: Here’s a music repository with a monumentally counter intuitive UI. Watch and be amazed. At least it doesn’t use Flash

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Another WTF website. Just because you’re a site about retro game music or something, doesn’t mean you have to keep the motif in your design. Sites with the word “global” in them don’t (usually) use a globe on their site.

Chiptunes

Submitter’s comments: I would love to see Sony castigated on your site. If you look at the EX Series Earbuds page, you’ll see they’re using gray on white text.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I don’t think I’ll castigate them, I’ll just severely criticize them or inflict severe punishment on them <grin>.

WTF is going on? It’s bad enough sites are using #666 (Satan’s CSS) for their text, but Sony is using #999 — which is 50% more of Satan’s CSS. If they don’t want us to read something, don’t use words. In Sony’s case, they’re hiding marketing BS, which is redundant.

They use #666 in their description of the product — ” Destined to become your favorite accessory…” Let me tell you something from many years of experience. If a pair of earphones is your favorite accessory, you lead a very, very sad life.

Heck, by comparison, their footer is easy to read. Normally, that’s where you can legitimately use #666 or 999.

Sony

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I was reading an article about the Apple Store’s design and ran across links to…guess what?…architects. Since architects produce wild websites or beautiful websites that suck, I had to go and visit some of their sites.

What’s the biggest mistake these high-end architects make? Well, they seem to love Satan’s CSS, which is the use of the color “gray” or #666 for text (666 is allegedly the sign of the beast). Why is this wrong? Because it’s difficult to freaking read. The W3C says it’s difficult to read and if architects don’t follow standards, their buildings fall down. Now, their websites fall down. I realize that pictures are what it’s all about for architects, but if you don’t want me to read the text, don’t write any text.

If you’re interested in having a solid foundation, AccessColor describes the intricacies of contrast really well, as does Wikipedia. A new website has taken up my cause about contrast and it’s called, logically enough, Contrast Rebellion. Since artists and architects think graphically, maybe if they look at Contrast Rebellion they’ll understand the importance of contrast and change their ways.

Perkins-Will

It wouldn’t take me very long to go through three-months’ worth of Daily Suckers, pick out the 10-3o worst, write a short paragraph and put a link to each site. In fact, that’s what some KidsToday want. They write and tell me, “You have too many words. Nobody reads.” Translation: “I don’t read.”

Because people don’t read they don’t understand why their site is listed on WPTS. You don’t believe me? The owner of a site that’s on one of the 2011 lists emailed me saying he worked on his site and wanted to know if it still sucked When I went back to look, the only thing that looked different to me was that the background music was removed. He didn’t read what I said and didn’t read the comments.

I’m hoping that what he wants—what everyone wants—is detailed lists of exactly what’s wrong. That’s why I’ve added a section called, “Does your website make any of the mistakes made by XYZ?” When you click, I’ve used my Web Design Checklist 1: 165 Mortal Sins and Web Design Checklist 2: 83 Potential Mortal Sins to try and identify exactly which mistakes they’ve made.

The 20 Worst Websites of 2011: Second Quarter Contenders and How These Sites Relate to Your Website