The Daily Sucker

Submitter comments: (Just the URL)

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I never know what I’m going to find when the subject line of an email is “It sucks” and the only text is a URL. About half the time there really isn’t much wrong with the site. The other half of the time the site sucks the oxygen out of a room.

This site is a little different. The first sign that it’s going to suck is that it uses Metaphor Navigation — in this case, the metaphor is a desk. I don’t need to tell my audience that if there ever was a hackneyed metaphor it’s Desk Metaphor Navigation. I love all the Mystery Meat books in the bookshelf — itself, another cliche. On the other hand, the author is quite prolific.

I thought the navigation at the top would match the Metaphor Navigation, but it doesn’t and that’s why this site is a Daily Sucker. The author obviously is successful and has money to burn. This site could have been much more effective for far less money.

Julie Garwood

Submitter comments: Have I found a website for you.  The place is called Mahogany’s Coffeehouse & Bar.  Their website is www.mahoganyslive.com  This has got to be one of the worst websites that I have ever seen.

When you first click to visit the site, an image of the bar appears and you have to click to enter the site.  If you stay long enough on this page and scroll down a calendar of events page finally loads beneath the picture.

The menu page is absolutely unreadable.  They used a script font and then saved it as a picture and placed it on the site.  I have no idea what they serve.

They have not checked out their cross-browser compatibility.  For the site that it is, the placement looks okay in Internet Explorer, but check it out in Firefox.  Nothing is where is should be.  Everything is all screwed and nothing is where is should be.  I haven’t checked it out in Opera or Netscape, but I would bet it is screwed up there.

This should win a prize for the worst web site ever.  Someone should seriously redesign their site.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: It’s pretty easy to check what your site looks like in different browsers. I checked out this site’s home page using BrowserCam and here’s what the site looks like. I only checked it in Firefox, Safari, and Chrome on Windows because I didn’t want you to wade through over 125 different combinations of browsers and operating systems.

It’s even easier to fix the stupid Splash page. Delete it. You don’t need a splash page. I’m amazed that my system has the script font that’s used on the Menu page. It truly is unreadable.

What’s going to be impossible to fix is the code used to generate this site. It’s straight out of Microsoft Publisher 10. I think there’s a special place in hell reserved for the Microsoft employees who created the Publisher-to-HTML conversion feature. Take a look at what passes for code. If I were a programmer and I produced crap like this, I’d go start a coffee shop.

Another problem I discovered with Firefox is that the home page downloads about a billion CSS files that have something to do with the calendar. This is even worse programming than my Microsoft example. Yikes.

Mahogany’s Coffeehouse & Bar

Submitter comments: See below.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: The bad news: somehow, I “lost” the email. The good news: The content was easy to remember. Yale University didn’t read Does My Web Site Suck? Checklist 1 and has a “Welcome To” message on their home page.

No web site needs a “Welcome To” message, but Yale? Everybody knows they’re welcome to your web site. That’s why you have one. They’ve already made a commitment when they clicked on a link or typed in the URL. You don’t have to sell them. That’s one of the reasons splash pages (like Sucker #2, below) make no sense. You don’t need to seduce them into exploring your site further. They’ve taken the bait.

Before the folks over at Harvard start yelling, “We don’t need no stinking ‘Welcome To’ message,” I’d like to point out that it’s in your TITLE tag. Tsk Tsk. What Harvard really needs is someone who understands DNS. While http://www.harvard.edu gets you to their site, http://harvard.edu/doesn’t.

Yale University

Submitter comments: The amount of MMN on this page is amazing - not to mention the fact that they are using 36 links to point to approximately five different pages total (which they already have links for right at the top), and didn’t even bother to organize the links into any coherent order. I think one link is repeated about nine times, and another is used only once. Have fun finding it!

Just keep an eye on your CPU performance if you do (at least in Firefox).

Plus, I personally found that mouseover effect on the actual readable links at the top of the page to be obnoxious.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: After looking at this site it should be obvious why Mystery Meat Navigation is so obnoxious and why it should never be used.

The Connext Project

Submitter comments: Vincent, I don’t know how I keep stumbling across a bunch of sites that really suck — but I just did it again, when looking for the address of a restaurant where a live remote from the radio station we wake up to here in St. Louis is scheduled to be tomorrow morning (or this morning by the time you read this).

It’s for a restaurant called Reynolds Roadhouse, and their site sucks due to the following no-nos:

1) They’ve got out-of-date information on their homepage from almost five months ago (yes, the same morning radio crew mentioned there is scheduled to be there tomorrow morning, too).

2) The very same text on their homepage is on some other pages, too.
Again, the same crap that’s way the heck out of date.

3) Poor contrast.

4) I was looking all over for the address of this joint so that I could look it up on Mapquest (I’m thinking about going over there tomorrow morning), but their address is nowhere to be found.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: There’s a simple reason why you keep stumbling across sucky web sites — you’re surfing the web.

I don’t remember seeing a restaurant web site without an address. That’s a new, bad concept. On the other hand, I did find a phone number so I guess you could call for the address, but that defeats the purpose of having a website. It’s possible their menu had the address except that I don’t like to download Microsoft Word documents. Oh. Why are they forcing you to download an MS Word document?

The biggest problem is lack of contrast. As AccessColor points out:

Both color difference and color brightness do not meet the recommended standard for 17.97% of the total text.

Either color difference or color brightness does not meet the recommended standard for 75.78% of the total text.

Reynolds Roadhouse

Submitter comments: I especially like the violent blood red, scrolling conveyor built and animated Product Categories text.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: The biggest, most obvious, and fastest improvement they could make to the site is to get rid of the background color. You could improve the site’s appearance by 200%.

Cost Compass

Submitter comments: Hi, Here’s a secure winner for your “Worst Web Site of 2008″ contest. BTW, the “GAT” is the Counter-cybercrime department of the Italian law enforcement corp “Guardia di Finanza” (Finance Guard). See Wikipedia for more details.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: We have the obligatory, but unnecessary,Flash Splash page and if you click the Flash web link, you get one of the most horrible Flash introductions I’ve seen. Clicking on the building takes you to the “real” home page.

You’ve got to hand it to the Italians. The music on the “real” home page is much nicer than what you hear on American police sites. Still, it’s a bit over the top.

GAT