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

Submitter’s comments: Right away from the pointless start page with music that takes ages to load, I knew I was being transported back in time…to maybe before 2004, when the trend was to unrelentingly do everything in Flash, for no good reason. (Maybe designers gave up trying to make sites work in a variety of different broken browsers and Flash was seen as a quick way out of browser hell… only to inflict us with another kind of hell.)

Enter the site and the first thing I see is a lot of badly formatted, nonsense text to read, which tells me nothing.

I Almost failed to spot the very dark navigation on the left that only appears when the mouse is over each one.

The annoying noisy headings that take ages to appear… weird navigation…
some pages have that horrible “make you read everything through a tiny letterbox with awkward scroll thingy” that was so popular back in the day.

This site needs to be put out of its misery.. Sadly I’m not a web designer, otherwise I’d quote them to redo it.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Nicely reviewed.

Flash for websites is as dead as Steve Jobs. To make a Flash website even “deader” than it is requires a Splash Page. This site has one. After that, I’m taken to a page I can’t read, with symbols I didn’t even notice without the help of the submitter’s comments and such a confusing mish-mash of I-don’t-know-what that I don’t have the slightest idea what the site is about except that it’s not about weddings. I don’t care about the site so I leave. After taking a cursory examination, I suggest you do the same.

The Wedding Collective

Submitter’s comments: Ever heard of site navigation?

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Another Over-the-top Website dedicated to whatever is running around someone’s head. Unfortunately, the stuff running around the site’s designer isn’t good web design. Keeping the site current isn’t running around someone’s head either. I used the wonderful tool redbot to discover that the last time the home page was modified was February 21, 2010.

The navigation is consistent with other sites of this ilk—it’s all over the place.

If you’re into over-the-top belief systems, at least make your website look good. I can’t imagine anyone looking at the Corruption on the Border website and saying, “Oh, I trust what this guy is saying.” On the other hand, an over-the-top site like BOND looks great—for someone outside the mainstream. You’re initial reaction is very positive. You initially feel like you can trust the content. That’s what it’s all about.

Corruption on the Border

Submitter’s comments: I would like to nominate the Jamet website as an example of poor navigation.

The company is a well established tent manufacturer, so I visited the site to get some details of a particular model, but 10 minutes later, I was still wrestling with graphics that rotated as they wandered about the screen, when all I wanted was the size and weight. Total fail!!  I shopped elsewhere.

By the way, the entry screen invites the user to navigate using the left/right arrows and the spacebar.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Google Chrome was nice enough to automatically translate this page’s text for me. I can’t remember when I’ve seen sillier navigation. Oh. This site was built using HTML 5, which proves you can create sucky websites using the latest technology and shows why this site will never run out of examples.

Jamet

Submitter’s comments: This website sucks.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Just another example of an Over-the-top Website. I’m really upset at myself because I had found some Over-the-top sites that looked like normal websites, but I didn’t write the URLs down. If you know of any, email me. There are a lot of left- and right-wing political websites that qualify, but they’re not crazy enough.

Futuro-House

Submitter’s comments: Needs more cowbell!

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I thought the person submitting this site was joking about the cowbells. No. The site uses the late, not-so-great Flash as a design tool. They have a bare-bones —and I mean bare-bones —mobile version which is more effective because it just gives you the room rates and a reservation page. However, if you click on the hotel image, it takes you to the German language page.

The animated cow that follows your cursor on the Flash site is annoying —and amateurish. The "follow the arrows" navigation is a poor choice. Mousing over some of the links activates the cowbell sound. Seriously.

On the other hand, I really like the pastel coloring and the impressionistic look of the pages.

Leoneck Hotel