worst web sites of 2008

The Worst Web Sites Of 2008

Like every year since 1996, I hoped that the current year would be the year when we'd only have 10-15 sites that were truly awful. Dream on. I suspect I had 130+ candidates for the top ten. I haven't seen so much crap since the guys at Evergreen Plumbing opened my septic tank and let me look inside.

Here are the categories:

  1. Worst Web Sites of 2008
  2. Worst Web Sites of 2008: Navigation
  3. Worst Web Sites of 2008: Old School Design
  4. Worst Web Sites of 2008: Cops and Chiropractors

these web sites are candidates for worst web site of 2009

The Worst Web Sites of 2009:
January — March

It's going to be a good year for bad web design. Out of the first 68 Daily Suckers, 24 are bad enough to be in contention for The Worst Web Site of 2009. Theoretically, we could have over 100 contenders by December 31!

you shouldn't use tacky animated images to say it's a new articleWorst Web Sites of 2009: January - March Part 1

you shouldn't use tacky animated images to say it's a new articleWorst Web Sites of 2009: January - March Part 2


checklist of bad design

Does Your Web Site Suck?
Two checklists about bad web design
will help you find out.

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 if your site sucks.

Does Your Web Site Suck? — Introduction

Does Your Web Site Suck? Checklist 1 — 148 ways you're killing your site.
Does Your Web Site Suck? Checklist 2 — 82 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 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.

The Biggest Mistakes in Web Design 1995-2015

  1. We've designed our site to meet our organization's needs (more sales/ contributions) rather than meeting the needs of our visitors.
  2. A man from Mars can’t figure out what your web site is about in less than four seconds.
  3. Focus, dammit.
  4. Using design elements that get in the way of your visitors.
  5. Thinking your web site is your marketing strategy.
  6. Have you ever seen another web site? Really? Doesn't look like it.
  7. Navigational failure.
  8. Using Mystery Meat Navigation.
  9. Site lacks Heroin Content.
  10. Forgetting the purpose of text.
  11. Too much material on one page.
  12. Confusing web design with a magic trick.
  13. Misusing Flash.
  14. Misunderstanding the use of graphics.
  15. Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability, and tableless CSS.
  16. Javascript

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


bad web design at Fred Frap60 Sites That Suck From 2007

Unfortunately, 2007 was among the worst ever for great web design, but the year was wonderful (figuratively) for bad design.

Most of the sites featured here also committed one or more of the Biggest Mistakes in Web Design 1995-2015 including the following:

  1. We've designed our site to meet our organization's needs (more sales/ contributions) rather than meeting the needs of our visitors.
  2. It takes longer than four seconds for the man from Mars to understand what our site is about.
  3. Our site looks like we've never seen another web site.
  4. We use design elements that get in the way of our visitors.
  5. Our site doesn't make us look like credible professionals.

Worst of 2007 #1-10
Worst of 2007 #11-20
Worst of 2007 #21-30
Worst Web Navigation
Non-Profits #1-10
Non-Profits #11-20


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    About Web Pages That Suck

    Learn how bad web design kills your site

    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.

    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.

    The New Home Page

    I'm testing out a new home page design.