Worst Web Sites 2007
Contender for Worst Web Site of 2008Worst Web Sites 2006
More Bad Web Design
Does Your Web Site Suck?
Does Your Web Site Suck?
Introduction
Checklist 1
149 Ways to Kill Your Web Site
Checklist 2
82 Ways to Ruin Your Web Site
Miscellaneous
The Worst Web Design Techniques Featured on Web Pages That Suck in 2005
I started this site back in 1996 and every year I've planned to hold my version of the "Razzies for the Web." I wanted to honor those web sites that made us feel good about our skills — "Hey, my site isn't THAT bad."
In 2005, Web Pages That Suck featured 293 Daily Suckers. Of that total, I considered 117 bad enough to be possible candidates for the "Worst Web Design Techniques Featured on Web Pages That Suck in 2005." The short list consisted of 57 sites.
After viewing the "winners" you'll probably say to yourself, "I've seen worse web site car wrecks than what's here." Contrary to public perception, Web Pages That Suck (WPTS) does not just feature web design car-wrecks. If I just wanted car wrecks, I'd put up only sites created with Microsoft FrontPage. These sites have at least one major problem that's seen over and over again. Now that you've seen them, don't make the same mistakes.
Here are the "winners" in my completely arbitrary categories:
The "Worst Web Design Techniques Featured on Web Pages That Suck in 2005" Award Goes to :
Brown University Graduate School — courtesy of the Wayback Machine. You can run but you can't hide. The folks at Brown fixed the site — and made it the way it should have been in the first place. Archive.org has the ugly truth.
Brown University Graduate School — after they fixed it because they won the award. Mouse over the boxes at the top and you'll some of the worst Mystery Meat Navigation ever created.
The person who suggested this site to me wrote:
"Here's a page with the worst Mystery Meat Navigation I have ever seen. I was thinking of applying to Brown for graduate school, and their website is pissing me off so much that I will probably just forget about it." Site review.
UPDATE 08/21/06
After fixing the grad school, Brown was not content to rest on their laurels. They decided to muck up the university's front page. This led to Brown becoming the Daily Sucker for August 21. The commentary starts at "Update" in the site review.
The "Should Be a Shoo-In For Next Year's Worst Web Design Techniques Featured on Web Pages That Suck in 2006" Award Goes to:
Association of International Glaucoma Societies
I know only too well that when you think you've been to the edge and seen the worst, something else comes along that sends you over the edge. I wanted to give you a look at the leading candidate for next year's top award.
There are times when you look at a web page and your jaw just drops in amazement. This is one of those times.
Not only do they have their very own "Glaucoma Hymn"as background music, you can choose "Suspicious Minds" by Elvis Presley if you're feeling less operatic.
After being nominated, the organization's attempt to improve the page consisted of removing the hymn — from playing. To try to preserve the feeling of the site, here's an excerpt from a speech I gave that I've posted to Google video.
Here's a bigger version of one of the worst web pages in the world
The "Pope May Be Infallible When He Talks About Religion, But Not When He Talks About Web Design" Award Goes to:
It's not every day that a dead pope is fodder for criticism, but today's the day. Site review.
The "Proof That San Francisco Courts Are Going to Hell" Award Goes to:
Superior Court of California County of San Francisco
I have no words to describe this creation. One of my readers works in the legal industry and she has to visit this site occasionally to access information about San Francisco courts. She wasn't happy. Site review.
The "A Cave Can be a Black Hole of Death for More Than One Reason Award for Creepy Navigation" Goes to:
The National Showcaves Centre for Wales (they fixed it, but the link take you to a video of how it was when it won)
Leave it to the Brits to come up with a Black Hole of Death. Navigational metaphors just don't work. Please stop using them. Thank you. Site review.
"The Herpes Simplex 10 Sick Navigation" Award Goes to:
All real web designers know Mystery Meat Navigation is the web design equivalent of Herpes Simplex Ten (check out the third quote) and, I'm afraid, like the real thing, it's here to stay. Their "clever" design got them a Google Page Rank of 0. Site review
The "Germans Can't Dance When They've Eaten Too Much Wiener Schnitzel Mystery Meat" Award Goes to:
Most of the Daily Suckers involving Flash have one redeeming feature: They are pretty to look at. This one, for a dance school in Hamburg, Germany, doesn't even look good. The splash page is the first time I've ever seen Flash used to emulate FrontPage. Site review.
The "People's Choice Award For Overall Bad Web Design" Award Goes to:
Hayden Video Weddings (It's been fixed, see below for video)
Originally, I wrote:
The readers of this site have spoken. Well, 1,000+ people have spoken through a poll I ran.
This site beat some very strong competition — heck, it beat a lot of the other sites that won in their category, including the site I picked as the worst of the lot (Brown University Grad School). Site review
Well, of course, they fixed the site and it looks like this. To say that it looks better is like saying Tom Cruise looks better than I look.
To appreciate how far they come, here's what the site that my readers voted the worst looked like:
The "Worst Design on a Site That Discusses Web Design" Goes to:
You don't have to click the link, you're here.
I've always taken a perverse pride in the design of WPTS — it is, after all, called Web Pages That Suck — but a lot of people don't get it.
A longer explanation of why the site looks the way it does can be found here.
Why don't I change the design? I have changed the look over the years, (and most of them are ugly) but there are more important things in my life.
The "You Say 'To-may-to' and I Say 'To-mah-to' and
You Say 'Pretty Weak' and I Say 'Even The Great Tom Peters Can Suck'" Award Goes to:
56 Ideas/Suggestions for Presentation Excellence (Note: this is a PowerPoint — .ppt — file, not a web page).
This isn't a web site, it's a PowerPoint presentation I pulled down from Tom's web site. I find it hard to believe, but it turns out even the great Tom Peters can produce material that could suck a golf ball through a garden hose. Site review
The "At Least He Got to Marry Tawny Kitaen Award for a Has-Been Rock Star's Web Site" Goes to:
I had forgotten about this band. In fact, I can't remember the last time I thought about them — although I remember what I thought about them which was how much they sucked. Their web site is no improvement. Site review.
The "Dopiest Drug Site for Obvious Reasons" Award Goes to:
Dude. Did you think this site wouldn't make the list? Site review.
The "No Spelling Checker Software Will Help You Pubic Service" Award Goes to:
Haran, Watson & Company (Since they fixed it, here's a screen shot)
It always pays to check, double check, and triple check your spelling. After that, get somebody else to check it as well. ESPECIALLY if the error is going to be reproduced on every page of the site :-) Site review
The "Proof That Money Can't Buy You Taste Award for Tacky Web Design" Goes to:
This may be the archetype example that money can't buy you taste. Site review.
The "Ars Brevis, Vita Longa Bad Use of FrontPage" Award Goes to:
Sites like this one and many other of my award winners make me glad Microsoft killed off their FrontPage (or as I like to call it "AffrontPage") HTML editor. Actually, "Bad Use" is an unnecessary modifier. It's a rare site that was built with FrontPage that isn't ugly. Site review.
"The Bad Boys Bad Boys Watcha Gonna Do? Award for Worst Navigation Metaphor at an English Police Site" Goes to:
Dorset Police Crime & Safety (they fixed it, but the link take you to a video of how it was when it won)
If I just wanted to give an award for "Worst Navigation Metaphor," it would probably go to Casiology. I told you these categories were arbitrary.
This site isn't as bad as many of the ones I've featured on WPTS, but this metaphor was stupid back in 1998 when Southwest Airlines used the technique. Site review.
The "Only Stupid People Think You Can Protect Your Content By Disabling the Right Mouse Click" Award Goes to:
Originally, I wrote:
I thought you had to be smart to attend Harvard. Not only is the right click disabled in Internet Explorer, but the copy and paste buttons are deactivated.
Of course, this is an easy design item to fix and I recently received the following e-mail:
I’m the new editor of Harvard Business Review online, and I wanted to let you know I just instated a change to our Website that should—hopefully—alter your view of HBR.org.
We were (rightfully) featured as a “Web page that sucks” in 2005 because we had disallowed, at the browser level, the ability for visitors to highlight, copy, and paste text. I’ve finally changed the code so that now highlighting is allowed throughout the site. To assuage some concerns, I also created a new online Terms of Service that spells out our dedication to the dissemination of ideas as well as our commitment to protect our IP rights. The new Terms of Service can be found here.
I don’t know if you update your reviews to alert readers when changes have been made for the better, but if you do, please consider our site for re-review. We still have a ways to go towards improving usability and user-experience, but we just took a step in the right direction, and your site was a part of the decision to do so.
Yes, I update reviews, so consider this one updated. Site review.
The "When You Absolutely, Positively Don't Want People to See It" Award Goes to:
FedEx (117Kb screenshot)
Smart people use ad-blocking software. Dumb designers forget that fact. Here's what the site looks like when ad-blocking is turned off at FedEx (screen shot).
Just received an interesting email which needs to be mentioned: