Worst Web Sites 2007

Vincent Flanders' comments: There are some things you just don't do if you want to be politically correct, but I've always been a rebel without a clue. You just don't critique usability experts if you're involved in the same field AND your web site sucks.

One of my favorite singer/songwriters is Chris Knight. He has a song called "It Ain't Easy Being Me" and these four lines explain why I chose this site:

There ought to a bridge somewhere they could dedicate to me
I'd probably come to the ceremony with a can of gasoline
Walk on over to the other side where I'd light a match
Sit and stare through the smoke and flames and wonder how I'm gonna get back

Let's make UsabilityNet, which bills itself as "A European Union project that provides usability and user centred design resources to practitioners, managers and EU projects," one of the worst sites of 2007. Gee. Where's the match? It's time to blow up the bridge.

I chose them because I simply cannot believe they use Flash navigation. Here are some BrowserCam screen captures of what you get when you visit without the Flash plugin. Actually, it was worse when I visited because I was using Firefox with the Flash Block plugin and basically got a blank screen.

I realize UsabilityNet discusses their reasons for using Flash, and they claim they're working on an HTML version, but it looks like they've been working on it since 2003. I can't think of a reason they would use Flash. Can you? I think it sucks like a bilge pump. Maybe it sucks like a black hole. Hmm. It sucks like a lousy hair band from the 80's playing at an Indian casino.

UsabilityNet