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

Submitter’s comments: Awesome grills. Not so awesome site.

First of all, there is a splash page with annoying music and flash. When I visit a page, I want in right away. I shouldn’t have to click “Enter.”

The colors are horrible for contrast, as in too much contrast. The background throughout the site is all black and the text is white. It hurts to look at it.

The navigation is not that great. Some links load PDF files without warning. It’s like the black hole of grill sites.

Grilling should be about outdoors and family fun, not ultimate blackness with somber music and text that burns your eyes.

I’m reminded of the movie “Spinal Tap” when I think about how much more black the site can be. The answer is NONE. NONE MORE BLACK.

If you go back to January of 2010, the site was actually somewhat appealing to the eye.

Let’s just say they made a change for the worse. Good grill, though.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: The real home page scrolls horizontally forever on my system. I couldn’t get the newly released Snagit 11 to record the screen correctly, so you’ll just have to take my word for it. Or you can try this link to an MP4 file that shows the scrolling (your browser will need the QuickTime plugin).

TEC Infrared Grills

Vincent Flanders’ comments: My British readers are, as you might suspect, dignified, reserved and a bunch of other nice terms. They’re even polite when discussing the newly redesigned BBC Sport page. If you read between the lines, there seems to be a sense of anger and disappointment <grin>.

Submitter’s comments #1: Until the end of January 2012 the BBC Sport site was far the best UK site for general sports information, with clear, easily findable information about sports news, results and fixtures, but take a look round the site now.

Basic things that were previously available one or two clicks away from the home page, such as a list all of today’s football (that’s what you probably know as “soccer”) fixtures involving British professional teams, now take an age to find, and then you can never be sure that you have found everything because you have to check each individual English, Scottish or European league or cup competition to see if there are any matches.

And all this while having your eyes assaulted by seas of yellow in the name of branding. Other obvious failings are images with text obscuring important features, text not being left-aligned and “headlines” squeezed into a ridiculously narrow column down the centre of the page.

There are many more things wrong with this site detailed in the thousands of complaints listed at:

Live page issues
Changes to the BBC Sport website
More on our new website
Our new website – next steps

This is a worthy candidate for the Daily Sucker, and I would be amazed if doesn’t come near the top of the list of Worst Websites of 2012.

Submitter’s comments #2: The redone BBC Sports website is in my opinion one of the worst wastes of public money ever and as soon as you head on in there it reminds me of a hazard warning jacket with its profusion of YELLOW! But the most galling of  its glaring problems is how it is set out.

To
Read
Some
Of
Its
Editorial
Content
You
Have
To
Read
Like
This
All
The
Way
Down
The
Column.

The photos are alarming in that they have massive headlines blocking you from viewing the subject. An appalling waste of time, effort and licence payers money.

Submitter’s comments #3: I had to send this as the old site was easy to use, now it is just confusion :(

I used to be able to navigate everywhere by the sidebar in a standard fashion and it was easy to use. Now if I got to find a league from the top menu I get a box appear, however if I look for a team I’m taken to a new web page, it seems to be so cluttered.

Submitter’s comments #4: BBC’s new sports website has GOT to be a candidate for one of the worst designs of the year.  Just came into effect this past week.  What on earth were they thinking of?

Submitter’s comments #5: I am guessing that you have already been told about the “new & improved” BBC Sports website (who ever wrote new and improved obviously doesn’t know the meaning of improved) It is total crap, full of errors, badly designed, impossible to navigate or understand!

It’s the worst website of 2012, no matter what else comes along!

BBC Sports

Submitter’s comments: Even on a higher-resolution display, there are still two scroll bars.  Some text is graphic while other text is text.  Large graphics make for a slow download. How did they get people to pay for ads on a site as bad as this?

Vincent Flanders’ comments: On my portrait monitor system (width is 1200 pixels), there’s just one horizontal scrollbar which, of course, sucks. I looked at it on my landscape monitor and the page is approximately 1419 pixels wide. This certainly isn’t responsive web design.

The text is that marvelous gray known as #666. However, because the text is large you can actually read it. Kudos, I guess. On the other hand, the “Attendee Comments” on the top right can’t be read.

Primary Care Education

Submitter’s comments: I’m afraid I have Daily Sucker nomination.  While checking the hours on a (really good) local restaurant, I couldn’t help but notice their web page is absolutely terrible.  Just awful.  I can only assume the owner puts all his talent into the food (which is excellent).

Vincent Flanders’ comments: It figures that the food is excellent—the site isn’t. Sigh. Look. Hire someone, buy a template, do anything but don’t do it yourself. It’s like that commercial for a product or service that I can’t remember (great ad, huh?). It has a doctor playing violin in a string quartet. Obviously, it isn’t going to work. You’re not a designer so stay in the kitchen where you belong.

Bavarian Brathouse