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

1. Paratom Investigative Unit

Submitter’s comments: Spooky, psychic awfulness. Every site has its day, and I think Paratom.com has earned it.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: To say the home page photo is inappropriate is to insult the definition of inappropriate.

Paratom Investigative Unit

2. The New Gmail interface

Submitter’s comments: Some of the offenses:

• Mystery Meat Navigation (MMN)
• Two identical MMN gears that point to separate menus.
• Redesign that requires (even in the most compact view) 4x’s the amount of scrolling and 2x’s the amount of clicks.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I’ve gotten lots of complaints about the new Gmail look. Even my wife complained about it. I don’t see two identical MMN gears, I just see two different types of MMN.

3. Black Hills Youth Football League

Submitter’s comments: This site causes the blind spot in my vision to expand to cover the screen.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: It’s sites like these that amaze me. I’ve been trying to find "the average-looking website." You know, the website that’s "just good enough" so I can point to it when I run across sites like this sucker and say, "Does your site look as good as this one? No? Fix it!" This site not only is over-the-top, it’s under the bar.

Black Hills Youth Football League

Submitter’s comments: I count:

• Sparkling
• Long, incoherent “splash” (?) page
• Big “SALE” GIFs and a credit card logo stripe, but no indication of what they’re selling
• Sparkling
• Four items on the “sitemap” don’t link to anything (Our Show Pictures Our Champions, About Us, Visit Our Chapel Room)
• For no apparent reason, the “family photo” at the top of the sitemap page looks startlingly like a Photoshop construction
• The “Home” page linked to on the sitemap has no text on it whatsoever
• The Home page also has a “Home” link, except this one points back to the sitemap
• Sparkling
• Largely unidirectional navigation (nothing links back up the tree)
• Inconsistent page designs
• The “Designs by Bev” image prominently displayed at the bottom of each page sometimes isn’t actually a valid mailto: href (SiteMap), and sometimes causes a popup window
• One confused man from Mars
• Did I mention the sparkling?

The music is catchy, though! And it’s in the WAV format – how considerate of them

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Those of you who thought my initial reaction to this site was “Jesus Christ!” were right. If the flamboyant Liberace were alive today and he looked at this website, he’d scream, “Stop it right now. There’s too much sparkling going on.”

For the life of me, I don’t get the use of the Standard White Jesus everywhere. The Jesus Of This Site is not 5’3″ tall and doesn’t weigh 110 pounds, which is what the archaeological evidence suggests for the real Jesus. I have an iPhone app I call My Personal Black Jesus and he dispenses wisdom each morning, but it’s OK to have Jesus on an iPhone app—and he’s on lots of them—but he doesn’t belong on a site for dogs. Hell, the Mormons don’t have a sparkly Jesus on their home page and they’re a religion. The Baptists don’t have him either. There’s a point here.

For the life of me, I don’t get how these people can look at their site and think, “This design is wonderful.” Go to your favorite search engine and key in “inspirational websites.” I don’t agree with a lot of their choices, but guess what? There isn’t a single inspirational website that looks like this. None.

Oh. I suspect the site is illegally using sound files. I guess they didn’t read my article Why You Can’t Use Music On Your Website.

My favorite page is the Toy Pomeranian Breeder page. If you somehow accidentally ended up on this page, the “Welcome Pombreden’s Adults for Sale” logo might make you think you stumbled upon a human trafficking website.

Pombreden’s Pomeranians

William Glenn & Son – Example of Bad Web Design for December 12, 2011

Submitter’s comments: This is Scottish, yet crap.

I came across this turkey when seeking out a Scottish gift shop in San Francisco that I remembered visiting previously, before my fiancée and I head out there tomorrow. I found the site for the store – unfortunately, first on my iPhone, which wouldn’t render this Flash-only monstrosity. (And, if not too obscure, my Subject reference is to the “All Things Scottish” series of “Saturday Night Live” skits Mike Meyers starred in in the late 1980’s / early 1990’s.)

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I love the tiles-on-amphetamine look the page has. Uh…aren’t liquor sites supposed to verify your age before you can see the content? Not that it works. It’s a joke, but at least they pay lip service.

William Glenn & Son