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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?

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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).

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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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