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

Submitter’s comments: I found this website from an ad in a website that is about genuine food. I trusted the ad, thinking the website must be good if it’s on this type of website.

However, upon seeing the site I see only: “click to read.” Then I see lots of buttons, making me feel that using the website is complicated.

Then I actually read the content. The content does not suck.

Apparently, the website is done is a format which is used in newspapers that you can read on the Internet and catalogs for websites that sell stuff.

The website is unusual in that it has no content except for the “click to read” part. Usually, you can read the content immediately.

Did I mention the website’s content uses words that I don’t know what they mean—even if Swedish is one of my two native languages?

The website uses a mechanism where the website can be scrolled up and down and to the sides, which I don’t know if that exists on other websites.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: What’s wrong with this site can be summed up in three words: “Flash. Flash. Flash.” Geez.

Chef in a box

Submitter’s comments: This is one of the worst active website designs I’ve ever seen.

It takes up literally less than a quarter of my screen, and all 8 (yup, just 8) pages are the same ridiculous size. Oh, except for the one that has the completely mismatched tiled gradient background image that was clearly made to fit that teeny viewport.

I don’t even remember having a screen small enough for that to make sense, especially by the time websites became a “thing.” Do yourself a favor and don’t be tempted to look at the page source; it’s guaranteed to make your brain start dribbling out of your
ears. And yes, they’re still a functional company.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I don’t believe the site is that “active.” As the photo below shows, the home page was last modified on March 24, 2005. It isn’t an active site if it’s been eight years without a redesign.

The header tells us the home page was last modified eight years ago and looks like it was designed back in the 640×480 days of the web.

This is another one of those “I hope they don’t depend on their website for business” websites. I suspect they don’t need the web. Still, the site sucks.

Gorwood Systems

Submitter’s comments: You might have come across this one already, but just in case…

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Wow. Just click and take a look at it. It’s a (pejorative term deleted) joke.

MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies

Submitter’s comments: Supposedly the largest piano retailer on the East Coast.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: It’s comments like the above that confuse me. Why? The site sucks. Is the company successful because nobody sees their website, but the company has great word-of-mouth? Is the company successful because the website is so poorly designed, but it matches the expectations of their customers? Do they have great TV and other media campaigns? Would they be the biggest piano retailer in the world if they had a better looking website?

The tables, the borders, the centered text, the long home page, and images are resized in HTML or CSS (PageSpeed says that “Serving scaled images could save 3.1Mb [98% reduction] on the Testimonial Page).

It’s 1995-ugly.

Rick Jones Pianos

Submitter’s comments: Here’s a great example of a low-contrast page.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: So true. The contrast on some of the sub-pages is so bad (“The Shop” is an example), you can’t believe anyone looked at the pages. I thought that the site was designed for one particular browser. If so, it’s not Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Internet Explorer.

I thought the “Colors” page has no navigation back to the home page, but it does. Unfortunately, the navigation is a hard-to-read button. Oh, yeah. We have beveled graphics used as text for the logo. This died in 1996. Speaking of dead, Adobe Flash is used in different parts of the site.

Spectrum Powderworks