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

Submitter’s comments: This is George R. R. Martin’s official website. Sure this site looks like it comes from 1993, but call me crazy, I think it kind of works. I’d rather see something like this than say, J K Rowling’s mess of a website.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Two of the scariest words in the English language are “kind of.” I wouldn’t want to drive something that was kind of a car (well, I did own a Chevrolet Vega). Still you get my point. A website works or it doesn’t work. This one doesn’t. That’s why it’s the Daily Sucker.

Except for some Beat Generation writers, my reading tastes end with Euripides. I had no clue about George R. R. Martin’s writings so I looked him up in Wikipedia. Turns out he’s had a successful career, but you’d never know it by his website. It looks amateurish. The color choices are wrong for many reasons, but lack of contrast with the text is the major reason. AccessColor says that almost 67% of the home page fails its tests.

There doesn’t seem to be any navigation on the subpages except to click on his picture. The subpages are ugly, except for the blog page, which only has 20% of its text fail the contrast test. It’s not ugly because it’s on Livejournal and I suspect he used one of their pre-designed templates. I don’t understand what the animations are all about. Perhaps they mean something to his audience. To me, it means he has bad taste.

Maybe this site appeals to his audience. After all, he’s getting around 8,170 visitors a day.

George R. R. Martin