Worst Websites of the Year
Worst Websites of the Year: 2011-2005
Worst WebsitesDaily Dose of Bad Design (Daily Sucker)
Current Examples of Bad Web Design Presented Daily (direct link)
Bad Web Design
Overview (direct link)
The Worst Websites
of 2011
It has been another scary year for web design. Scary because web design has been around 17 years and yet people are still acting as if it's this shiny new toy. It's like they take a beautiful and delicate baby doll and then yank out its heart, stomp on it and paint it Tangerine Tango (Pantone's sucky color of the year for 2012).
I'm on my 16th year of critiquing bad design and, frankly, I still am amazed that people—including major corporations (Xerox, Pine-Sol, Staples and Symantec come to mind)—haven't learned much.
The minor corporations learned even less. Check out my list of Worst Over-The-Top Websites. The site listed as #1 will make you bury your head in embarrassment. Heck, all of them are frightening.
The 20 Worst Websites of 2011
The Worst Website Navigation of 2011
Worst Over-The-Top Websites of 2011
The Also-Rans: The 2011 Contenders
The "winners" for worst site came from a large pool—actually, it was a cesspool—of contenders. Here are the sites who didn't make it:
The Ten Worst Websites of 2011—First Quarter
The 20 Worst Websites of 2011: Second Quarter Contenders
The Worst Websites of 2011: Third Quarter Contenders
Does Your Website Look Like The Worst Websites of 2010?
We all hope our sites look like the "30 Most Beautiful Websites," but we know they won't. The nagging question is, "Do our websites look like those on Web Pages That Suck?."
The Worst Websites of 2010
The year started off slowly. In fact, by the time I picked the finalists for the Worst Websites of 2010, I said, "It's hard for me to believe, but it looks as if bad web design wasn't as bad in 2010 as it has been during the last 14 years." Still, there are a lot of bad design elements on these sites you might be using.
Well, you can't keep bad web designers down for very long. As the year progressed, uglier and uglier sites started appearing and by the end of the year, our Numero Uno showed up.
Worst Websites of 2010 - Overview
Worst Websites of 2010
Worst Websites of 2010 - User Interface / Navigation
The Also-Rans: The 2010 Contenders
The Daily Sucker — An Example of Bad Web Design for May 8, 2012
Submitter’s comments: Three days ago our local New Orleans newspaper, The Times-Picayune, decided to launch a “new and improved” website. There was nothing wrong with the previous design. While it was not flashy, it was very readable, easy to navigate and worked with all browsers, operating systems and platforms. It’s replacement is nothing short of horrendous!
The Worst Websites of 2011-2005
It's amazing how much garbage passes for web design.
I started "awarding" the uncoveted "Worst Website of the Year" back in 2005. There have been way too many winners.
Some of the more notable organizations that have been featured through the years include:
|
|
|
Worst Websites of 2011
Worst Websites of 2010
Worst Websites of 2009
Worst Websites of 2008
Worst Websites of 2007
Worst Websites of 2006
Worst Websites of 2005
More Examples of Bad Web Design
The site is, after all, called Web Pages That Suck <grin>. While I don't keep an archive (I'd spend my life trying to keep it up-to-date), I have plenty of articles that show what not to do on your websites. These articles are well worth reading.
1. The Worst Web Pages of the Decade
I've been writing about bad web design since July 1996 — and nobody knows more about what sucks up a site.
I've gone through my hell-hole of bad web sites and picked out the 30 that I think typify the worst in web design over the last decade plus. There are not a lot of subtleties here. Ugliest / Worst Web Pages of the Decade
2. Over-The-Top Websites:
The most horrible looking web sites use what I call "Over-The-Top" web design techniques. Web sites that use Over-The-Top design discuss topics like philosophy, religion, politics, end times, etc. — but they're generally not mainstream. The Catholic Church won't use Over-The-Top design, but "Accept Jesus, Forever Forgiven!" will. Over-The-Top Websites
3. Gorgeous Web Sites From The Late 90's To Inspire You — If You Have No Taste
Recently there was an article about how popular web sites looked in the late 1990's. While it's interesting to see what Adobe or Apple looked liked back then, there isn't much you can learn from these sites. On the other hand, you can really learn from and be inspired by web sites that are featured on Web Pages That Suck — especially those from the late 90's. Gorgeous Websites From The Late 90's To Inspire You — If You Have No Taste
4. Still Sucking After All These Years: 15 Years — 15 Websites Stuck In Suck
Since Web Pages That Suck is now well into its 15th year of sucking, I thought I'd look back over old selections that I thought sucked and find 15 that hadn't improved. Sadly, it wasn't that hard a task. Still Sucking After All These Years: 15 Years — 15 Websites Stuck In Suck
The Biggest Mistakes in Web Design 1995-2015
I've gathered what I think are the biggest web design mistakes committed during the period 1995 to 2015. Yes, it is a little facetious to say these mistakes will be made in the year 2015, but it's human nature to repeat your mistakes over and over. But it's human nature to repeat your mistakes over and over.
If you could take away one thought from the article, I would like it to be "Visitors to your web site don't care about your problems. They want you to solve their problems now.
The Biggest Mistakes in Web Design 1995-2015
The Biggest Mistakes in Web Design 1995-2015
- We've designed our site to meet our organization's needs (more sales/ contributions) rather than meeting the needs of our visitors.
- A man from Mars can’t figure out what your web site is about in less than four seconds.
- Focus, dammit.
- Using design elements that get in the way of your visitors.
- Thinking your web site is your marketing strategy.
- Have you ever seen another web site? Really? Doesn't look like it.
- Navigational failure.
- Using Mystery Meat Navigation.
- Site lacks Heroin Content.
- Forgetting the purpose of text.
- Too much material on one page.
- Confusing web design with a magic trick.
- Misusing Flash.
- Misunderstanding the use of graphics.
- Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability, and tableless CSS.
- JavaScript.
Web Design Checklists
Smashing Magazine put these lists under the category "Ultimate Web Design Checklists" and said:
This checklist from Web Pages That Suck is one of the most complete checklists out there.
My two web design checklists will help your website not suck.
You don't have to spend thousands of dollars on seminars or spend hundreds of dollars on books to find out what's wrong with your web site.
I'm giving you the tools to do the job yourself. Just compare your site against two easy-to-use checklists and find out what you need to fix.
Web Design Checklist 1 — 165 ways you're killing your site.
Web Design Checklist 2 — 83 ways you're maiming your site.
What do I do now? — Hopefully, fix what's wrong.
What we clicked on in Checklist 1 — See mistakes others have made.
Top 30 Web Design Mistakes — See the most "popular" mistakes.
The Concept Behind
Web Pages That Suck
In describing my first book, Amazon.com said, "Unless you're abnormally gifted, the best way to learn a craft thoroughly is to learn not only its central tenets but also its pitfalls."
Looking at bad web site design is valuable because it gives us the opportunity to learn from other people's mistakes without having to make them ourselves.
Winston Churchill once said, "All men make mistakes, but only wise men learn from their mistakes." If you go through this site and learn from all the mistakes you see, you will be a very, very wise web designer and be able to take a bad web site and change it into a good web site.
Of all the comments about WebPagesThatSuck, the one by "rocknbil" on one of the WebMasterWorld forums best describes the site's value:
If there is one thing I wish someone had banged into my head from the start, it is everything mentioned on this site (Web Pages That Suck). Read it, study it, beat your ego down into the box where he/she belongs and apply it to your own work. You will become stronger and better for it.
But alas, I probably wouldn't have listened. I have a BFA in Art and came from the print industry, so a large part of my directive was all about the design, all about "how it looks" and to heck with everything else. I'm just thankful I learned how wrong I was early on.
Great web design is an art and occurs when design and content are seamless and you don't notice its greatness. With great web design, it's easy to find the information you need. The content makes you want to return again and again and, most importantly, great design gives credibility to the company/organization.