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

Submitter’s comments: Probably a ghastly waste of bandwidth; certainly a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. I found this site by accident when I clicked in some blank space at the left of a TechRepublic article to put focus on that window again. TechRepublic’s “hidden” ad link probably qualifies as its own hurl inducing experience.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: What you don’t see on the above screenshot is the dizzying TV footage that is, at the very least, distracting. I’m not sure who is the target audience. The ad appears on a well-respected tech site (I certainly respect it). Perhaps the ad appears on an education website and a health care website, etc.

If you click one of the categories and go to one of the boxes, you’ll see that Dell uses light blue for their links. Dell also uses the same color on text in the box. Not a good idea.

As the submitter stated, he clicked the blue area to the left of the article to get focus on the window. Surprise! He didn’t know—and why would he—that this area is a link. I’m not fond of this technique. I can’t imagine many potential customers are snared this way. Maybe this is an old technique, but I’ve never seen it before. I hope I don’t see it again.

You need to see the ad in action so I made a video. I apologize for the audio. I think I set the quality too high.

Dell
Video of the sneaky ad technique