My favorite page is definitely submissions.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: The problem with white text on a black background is obvious — what color do you make links and visited links so that people can see them? This site fails because it chose default blue for links and purple for visited links, which are impossible to read. The Submissions page is, for some reason, needlessly centered.

Basement Stories

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Basement Stories – Example of Bad Web Design for Friday, March 12, 2010

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Yes, but it sucks in such an interesting way. Here’s a screen shot of what the home page looks like to the average visitor. Here’s what I find “amusing:”

1. The focus is definitely the logo. Even so, what does that buy you? I suspect most people who end up at the site know where they’re going. The web is all about expectations and your job, as a designer, is to meet those expectations. Logos are supposed to be unobtrusively “there” at the top-left of the page.
2. If you’re using horizontal navigation, it’s supposed to be at the top of the first screen — not down in the middle.
3. I realize it’s a golfing site, but the golf clubs are not a good idea to use for your navigation.
4. Fortunately, you can read most of the text — because it’s quite large and has to be large because it’s white on a black background.
5. The TITLE tag on the home page is “home page,” which isn’t very helpful for search engine optimization purposes. Speaking of SEO, I’m taking an ADHD detour here to mention Google’s own SEO Report Card. The description is at the Webmaster Central Blog. It talks about their failure to meet their own guidelines (which include the TITLE tag) and there’s a 49-page PDF file you should read.
6. There are pictures at the bottom of the page which seem to be centered, but they clash with the bottom navigation which tries to be centered.
7. The subpages are too long.

There’s lots more, but this list is a start.

Southern Crescent Tour

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Southern Crescent Tour – The Daily Sucker for Friday, March 5, 2010

Just tried to click some post called “Rethink. Redefine. Redesign.” Would be a great idea. When you’re at the utmost left or right position, which you cannot tell as there’s no horizontal scrollbar visible, you automatically jump to the next/previous article. And as you can see at the upper right corner, you can also press the letter ’s.’ No idea where that brings me, but at least it does something. You can even point with your mouse at the letter ’s’ and my browser says that I can click on it. I do not dare, as no url shows up on my status bar, so I don’t know what happens.

Oh wait! The ’s’ was the last letter of ‘Issues’. I just had to make my browser window a bit wider. Lucky me that I have a screen capable of 1280 pixels horizontally. But everybody has wide screens, nowadays, don’t they? (And lucky me I know how to turn off Javascript, which disables this crap and results in a normal, vertical page.)

Vincent Flanders’ comments: This site conveniently classifies itself as “experimental,” which disqualifies it from being a WPTS Daily Sucker — no matter how much the site sucks. And the site sucks much.

The site’s content consists of articles. Articles are composed of words. Words need to be presented in a linear fashion and that means top-to-bottom — not horizontally, which necessitates scrolling (or, in this case, clicking). The navigation goes batshit crazy on the feature pages. This is an information site and people expect to see content presented conventionally. Remember: it’s experimental; it sucks; and it isn’t the Daily Sucker.

There are a lot of contrast problems, as this screen capture by the Juicy Studio Contrast Analyzer demonstrates. Remember: it’s experimental; it sucks; and it isn’t the Daily Sucker.

I hate writing that looks like it came out of dack.com’s Web Economy Bullshit Generator. The modus operandi page of today’s not-the-Daily-Sucker has the following phrase:

We tried to think ahead and create a site that was a paradigm shift in interactivity and turn the traditional blog format on its head – or in this case, on its side.

Paradigm shift? Bullshit. If I want a paradigm shift, I’ll stand in front of the San Andreas Fault and wait for the big one. (Yes, I’ve used the phrase twice on WPTS, but it’s used sarcastically). Remember: it’s experimental; it sucks; and it isn’t the Daily Sucker.

Thinking for a Living

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Thinking for a Living – Not the Daily Sucker for Monday, March 1, 2010

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My Social Networking Links of Interest for February 28, 201

Vincent Flanders’ comments: It’s a variation of those talking people you see on Mr. Bottles or Connecting Point (video).

I was afraid that this site was going to degenerate into Guns Guns Guns (video). Thankfully, it didn’t. What gives with the large, black space in the middle of the page. Allegedly, it’s something called “Hacker Safe.”

It would be nice if the site used cookies so that you’d only hear the message once — on each page. Visited links don’t change color (hard to do on this blood-red background) so you don’t know what you’ve already looked at.

I love the “2 Day Shotgun Skill Builder” page. First, as soon as you go to the page, a video starts. Wrong. You’re never supposed to do that. Let people click if they want to see the video. Trust me. I’ve gone through the site and the videos and sound files really get on your nerves — especially when you return to a page you’ve visited. Second, the video shows a guy shooting a handgun instead of a shotgun.

Like so many sites, there’s so much information that’s poorly categorized. Oh, there’s too much text that’s too little.

Frontsight.com

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Frontsight.com – Daily Sucker for Tuesday, February 23, 2010

I am not certain there are any lessons to be learned here. This is simply stupid. On many pages the content simply starts half-way down the page due to a doubling of the side menu. Even if you are part of the slap-it-together-and-post-that-puppy crowd, it is hard to believe that no one noticed this on the damn homepage at least.

There are a couple of other problem (home page is named “Index”), but who cares?

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I always admire people’s inability to see the obvious. This isn’t one of the dreaded IE6 bugs that screw your site up but you won’t notice cause you don’t have IE6 on your machine situations. You can see it in about any browser you try.

Hobo.com

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Hobo.com – Daily Sucker for Friday, February 19, 2010

Vincent Flanders’ comments: As readers of this site know all too well, just when you think you’ve seen the worst the Internet has to offer, you discover something else. Yes, their suggested site is bad (actually, it’s been improved — you should see the screenshot in the article). However, the worst campaign site for this year (so far) is George Hutchins for U.S. Congress. It ended up as #2 on my “Ugliest / Worst Over The Top Web Sites of 2009.”

Kennedy for Colorado

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Kennedy for Colorado – Daily Sucker #2 for Thursday, February 18, 2010

I respectfully submit it for your ah… consideration.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. It’s an art site, but we need to stop promoting these techniques. The good news is the “bubbles” don’t make bubble sounds (I remember hearing them on some site from the past).

Stop it already.

Studio Jan Melis

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Studio Jan Melis – Daily Sucker #1 for Thursday, February 18, 2010

King 5 TV ran a news story about a new type of medicine cap that tells you how long it’s been since you’ve opened that particular medicine. They mentioned that local drug store chain (Bartell Drugs) would have the product available and that it was available from the manufacturer.

I looked at a lot of pages at Bartell’s site , but couldn’t find a search engine. Using the Google Toolbar, I searched the site, but only found one link and the link wasn’t helpful.

When I went to RX Timer Cap’s web site (the manufacturer of the product) and clicked the Buy button, I was greeted with the message “Page Under Development.”

Holy Mother of God. Do these morons realize how frustrating this is? I want your product but you won’t let me order it.

Obviously, there will come the day when they solve this problem (I hope). Here’s a video to memorialize the fact they’re Unclear on the Concept.

RX Timer Cap

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Rx Timer Cap – Daily Sucker for Wednesday, February 17, 2010