Web Pages That Suck - learn good web design by looking at bad web design

Submitter’s comments: My friend sent this to me when she was looking into the college. You would think with all the money they get from tuition they would be able to afford a web page that wasn’t made by an 11-year old boy.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I could excuse the page if it were designed by an 11-year old. I should excuse it because it’s for an art school but, because some irresponsible dickhead doesn’t understand that flashing colors could cause seizures, I have to make it a Daily Sucker. Oh. The word “irresponsible” in the phrase “irresponsible dickhead” is an unnecessary modifier.

What in the hell was s/he thinking? Hopefully, outing them might cause the page to be changed.

Yale School of Art (WARNING. Could cause seizures)

Vincent Flanders’ comments: For some reason, I decided to look at the White House’s home page. The top part of the page looks fine but, as I went down the page, the old bugaboo about contrast popped up. It’s especially problematic because the White House has a link at the bottom of the page that discusses accessibility . Ironically, the link is hard to read because of the lack of contrast.

I ran the page through AccessColor and was told:

Both color difference and color brightness do not meet the recommended standard for 2.88% of the total text.

Either color difference or color brightness does not meet the recommended standard for 20.77% of the total the text.

Text on background with images is for 47.93% of the total text. (Which makes it impossible for them to figure out the contrast levels.)

Here’s a screen capture of the results for those who don’t want to rerun the test.

As far as how well the site performs, I ran the home page through Zoompf and here were the results:

Here’s a screenshot of Zoompf’s analysis.

On a more positive note: Whitehouse.gov scored 72 (C) on Yslow and scored an 81 on Page Speed.

Whitehouse.gov