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

Submitter’s comments: New World Stages, great company, great venue, some great shows, but the website… Click on the events link? A completely separate page which is actually more functional. If you click on The Green Room, you’ll go straight to a Facebook page. What? Click on any of the shows’ icons? Pop-out windows. Gallery? Straight to the artist’s web-page—no information about the gallery itself. Click on the Stage Entertainment Logo at the top—which doesn’t match anything else—and you’re taken to another website.

On the Tickets page, see the buttons which say “TICKETS” next to each of the shows? They’re unclickable (you have to click on the picture of the show, instead). Finally, just for fun, look at the handy-dandy map on the Location page.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I fully agree with what the submitter said. I’m using the site because the links take you to unexpected places and going unexpected places is not where your visitors want to go. Also the Gallery link takes you to a Flash-based website—which is fine unless you’re using an iOS device. The Stage Enterprises logo should not be at the top left. Normally, the top-left logo should take you to the home page unless it’s on the home page. They have a home link at the bottom of the menu on the left side, but that’s not where it should be.

Well, at least you can read the text (except on mobile).

New World Stages

Submitter’s comments: This used to have more information on it. I’m pretty sure he just didn’t find it necessary to him after a while, but that doesn’t help new users who want to know what the software is and does.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Semi-hemi-demi-coherent Mystery Meat Navigation. The top three items are easy to figure out, but the symbols on the bottom aren’t. The RSS symbol on the bottom left actually takes you to what should be the home page. The image at the bottom right takes you to GitHub, the code repository.

SpeedCrunch

Submitter’s comments: I’ve been reading your site occasionally the past years. It’s always good for a laugh. This website that I encountered today contains Mystery Meat Navigation and ultra slow fade-ins and fade-outs. Very “fancy”. It makes me not want to eat there, even though it’s supposed to be a really good restaurant!

Vincent Flanders’ comments: The only good thing about the site is that it’s NOT Flash-based. The centered, itsy-bitsy type should drive visitors crazy. What are they thinking?

The Clove Club

Submitter’s comments: Useless animation-like scrolls? Sure. But you’ll have readers that may not have been born yet when this design was popular.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: S/he’s right. This design was popular in 1996, as was the Marquee Tag (first used in Internet Exploder 3 on August 13, 1996). Interestingly, Archive.org’s earliest example of Dispensa-Matic’s website is February 2003. I guess they were trying for a retro look.

Not to offend my Japanese readers, but this website should be nuked and redesigned.

Dispensa-Matic

Submitter’s comments: OK, this is a bad, BAD idea. I love their food – but the fact that music plays when you visit their website, not so much.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Music? What Music? <grin> I have Flash disabled in my browser. When I used another browser I got to hear the music as the page loaded. Don’t autoplay music on your website. Actually, don’t have music on your site unless you’re in the music business.

Taco Mayo makes an even worse mistake. If you go to a page like “Nutrition” and then click the home link, the music starts all over again.

Taco Mayo