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

Submitter’s comments: This is the website of a Ceramics Workshop in Holland. It is JavaScript, with bizarre links and sub-menus that overlap the main links. It is Mystery Meat in the sense that “Here”, “Others”, “Now” and “Seek”, for instance, do not adequately explain the content within. Since there is a “Seek” box at the top, I don’t really see the need for a separate link.

The links also move, which doesn’t scream accessibility to me.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: The arrows on the illustration above show the menu items on the “job opportunities” page (located under “us”). If your window isn’t wide enough, the links disappear and you can’t access them. The sub-links are hard to read under normal conditions because they’re light blue.

Some of the JavaScript code is pretty wild and is based on Fortune’s algorithm. Yeah. Me too.

Did anybody look at this site before it went live?

Sunday Morning

Submitter’s comments: The web page has a sound file that required me to download a plugin, which I promptly ignored. Page is excessively long, font is multi-sized, multi-colored and even scrolls. There is so much text on this page I didn’t even bother reading most of it. Keep scrolling down to see several poorly Photoshopped images and a hit counter at the bottom of the page.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: A typical Over-the-top Website. I love the fact that the site disables the right-click functionality. Like anyone wants to steal any of the images. Of course, anyone with an IQ higher than an ice cube knows how to bypass the JavaScript protection. If your IQ is lower than an ice cube, you still probably figured out to go to Google and search for [how to bypass right click protection] (brackets not needed when searching). Google gave me 1.7 million suggestions.

There are few text issues as annoying as large quantities of centered text. This site annoys me. I’m also annoyed by the probably-unlicensed-hence-copyright-infringing use of the Twisted Sister classic song “We’re Not Gonna Take It.”

Also amusing are the pictures of “2 Anonymous Chicks” (how can they truly be anonymous when I can see their faces?) and the picture below the 2 anonymous chicks, which is just another proof of Godwin’s Law.

Disclaimer: Seems like I used Comcast in the early 2000’s. I don’t remember having issues with them, but their offerings weren’t as complex as they are today. Like everything, your mileage will vary.

Comcast Sucks

Submitter’s comments: Apparently, the Catholic Church has become heretical since Vatican II—UFOs, and . . . oh, what’s the use? Just pick a subject and they have something about how it has meant to ruin the Church. Not surprisingly, it is not run by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (more fondly remembered as the Inquisition). Here’s another for the OTT file, but they really need to try harder if they want to get in the top ten.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Just when I thought it was safe to go back to church, this site comes along. On the other hand, it’s nice to see some small part of the Catholic Church has a loon website—I mean Over-the-top Website. Maybe it’s because I’m a lapsed, Jesuit-educated Catholic, but I don’t know WTF this site is talking about. Not a clue. That doesn’t really matter. What matters is the site’s design sucks.

The links on the home page go on and on. There’s no organization. My favorite page is “The Invalid New Mass,” which weighs in at over 7Mb because large images are scaled down by HTML rather than being physically scaled down (a 1389×938-pixel image [612K] is forced to fit in a 175×150 container). There are lots of other problems, but why bother? Crap is crap.

If the people who spent the time to build this “website” had focused their efforts on curing breast cancer, the Susan G. Komen foundation would be shuttered by now.

Holy Family Monastery

Submitter’s comments: <meta name=”GENERATOR” content=”Microsoft FrontPage 6.0″>

Do I have to say anything else?

Vincent Flanders’ comments: It would make my job easier if you said a little more<grin>.

Part of me wants to give it a pass because it’s for kids and kids like shiny things. On the other hand, I don’t want to encourage bad taste. After all, our school system rarely teaches art and certainly doesn’t teach aesthetics.

For some strange reason, the box at the top left side of the page is not a link to the home page (on the subpages).

Coolmath.com

Submitter’s comments: This one’s a doozy and it comes from the British Film Institute (BFI), of all people:

In an extraordinary take on Mystery Meat Navigation (MMN), the BFI has managed to create a unique variant that I have given the provisional taxonomy of “Everlasting Mystery Meat Navigation.” Not only must the user mouse over the images to find out what’s underneath (touchscreen devices need not apply), but the page scrolls forever redrawing the same set of images over and over again and frequently in different places on the screen.

The effect is both mesmerising and infuriating, in a ratio of approximately 30-70%. Whilst probably not the most egregious example of the oeuvre extant, I put it to you that the sui generis nature of this specimen is worthy of mention on the august pages of your site, lest other people are inspired by this to create their own version. The prospect of the proliferation of similar sites is too horrible to contemplate.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Pinterest + Mystery Meat Navigation = Supremely Bad Web Design. The Pinterest website made #6 on my Worst Websites of 2012: They Should Know Better list. I know Pinterest is popular, but popularity doesn’t excuse bad web design. The article Why Pinterest-style infinite-scroll layouts are worthless for everyone except Pinterest explains the problems quite well. The bottom line? “The layout works for Pinterest purely because no one goes there looking for something particular, and because it’s not crucial to Pinterest’s success that the user see any one photo. ”

Unfortunately, visitors to this page are looking for information. While they want to explore film, they need a semblance of navigation to aim them in the right direction. There’s no logic to the order and no way to know where they’ll end up unless they mouse over a picture.

British Film Industry’s (BFI) Explore Film Page