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Bad Boys Bad Boys Watcha Gonna Do? Award for Worst Navigation Metaphor at an English Police Site

Dorset Police Crime & Safety (they fixed it, but the link take you to a video of how it was when it was selected)

My original comments: Oooh. You have to love Mystery Meat Navigation that leads to PDF files. I'm using Firefox a lot and there's this extension called "PDF Download" that will warn you that the link you've just clicked will open a PDF file and ask you what you want to do. Very, very nice.

Overall, this is a nice looking site, but the page is question is a disaster. You wouldn't eat Mystery Meat for dinner, why would you use it as a navigation scheme? Yes, there's a menu, but it isn't related to the MMN. To top it off, the page is 131Kb in size.

Reader comments: I think the site usability sucks. It's a police web site, not Fox kids. If I want information about home security I don't want a treasure hunt or 'unmarked' pdf documents. And what gives with the 'loading' anim that (for me at least) never finishes?


The idea's kinda cute, but what really kills it for me is that there's no clue which buildings are clickable until you mouseover them. It means I have to sweep the image with my mouse to find the links (some of which are tiny - anyone else click on the red car?). They should at least provide a text alternative, with all the links prominently shown below the image (yeah, I know most of them are in the menu).


Cute is a sort of "Noddy goes to Toy Town" kind of a way. Hardly what I would expect from a Police site not aimed at kids. Given the more traditional menu I will forgive them their (or the designers) MMN indulgence. What I really dislike are unmarked PDF links. I hate unmarked PDF links!!! They could at least warn their users.

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