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

Submitter’s comments: Small museums should probably get special dispensation like artists because their websites are probably done by little old ladies. But I thought this one was particularly notable. First you click to “Enter.” Then you click to “Come on In.” (Is entering twice a sign of quality?) Then click yet again to see the exhibits

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Entering twice is a sign of bad web design. I haven’t seen a double Splash page in a while. The last one I remember is Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University. Personally, I prefer Gwinn’s two splash pages, but I’d prefer they didn’t use any at all.

There isn’t anything right about this site. Seriously, take a look at almost any other museum page. Take my home town museum’s website. Gee, does Gwinn’s look like this? Heck no. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever been to the Indy website, but I like it a lot. It’s simple and you can read it.

Gwinn’s Island Museum

Submitter’s comments: No words needed to describe this one.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I can think of a couple of words: big, Microsoft Office, white space, and eight TABLES. According to the Charles Proxy, the home page eats up 3.25Mb of bandwidth and WebPageTest says it takes over 20 seconds to load. It’s ugly in a harmless way. On the plus side, the facilities look very, very professional. It’s a shame the site doesn’t.

If your company is totally PC, then this site might be sorta-kinda not suitable for work because of photos of female gymnasts. Hell, how would I know what’s politically correct? I’ve spent my whole life embracing the incorrect <grin>.

Oshkosh Gymnastics Center

Submitter’s comments: I didn’t know these sites still existed…

Vincent Flanders’ comments: You can always find sites like this at the sucky end of the street. Small text, lack of contrast, an image that’s over 100K that’s crammed down into a 95 x 86 JPG, a home page entitled “Untitled Document,” animated GIFs whose use make no sense, and plenty of other mistakes.

I dare you to click “Click Here.” It’s not as bad as WebPagesThatSuck’s Click Here, but it leads to boxed text where somebody has forgotten the meaning of the word “paragraph.”

Recovery Pals

Submitter’s comments: A bad website.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Succinct.

Just another poorly constructed restaurant site. I’m especially fond of the fact that the first menu item on the left is blocked. Not all the graphics are links. Some are and some aren’t, which is very confusing.

Marvelous Muggs

Submitter’s comments: A website belonging to a company that has an unfortunate name. Oh, the site sucks, too.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Yeah, it’s a bad name. If it were my company, I’d change the name to Assman Equipment, Inc. I know it’s a cliche, but here I go anyway, “Hey, 1995 called and they want their website back.”

I guess what’s confusing is the URL is missioncaseih.com.

Assman Implement, Inc.