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

Submitter’s comments:What could be worse than having 350+ primary links on your home page?
Putting up a graphic of the president that covers up twenty of them!

Pay particular attention to the date of the Texas Schoolbook Depository photos: the one hundred eleventh month of 1963!

Vincent Flanders’ comments: As I’ve said recently, with the recent information leaked by Edward Snowden, it’s even more important than ever for conspiracy sites to not look like…well…not look like conspiracy theory websites. Why would anyone trust a website that looks like this one? Why would anyone trust a website made using Microsoft FrontPage?

BTW, the site is a disaster according to Google’s PageSpeed – only scoring 36 for mobile systems and 47 for the desktop. Is that good? No. It’s very bad.

Who Killed JFK?

Submitter’s comments: Mystery Meat Navigation (MMN) gone mad.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: If any business or organization uses this technique on their website, you will be anointed The Daily Sucker. If the purpose is to teach something new about CSS and/or JavaScript, then the page is marginally OK. However, the comments give me the impression people think this is a good web design technique. It’s not.

If you’re going to teach web design techniques, teach good web design techniques.

Navicon Transformicons

Submitter’s comments: Mystery Meat Navigation (MMN) gone mad. Took me about 5 minutes to find where this newly named financial service is located. Turns out it is in Toronto. You would think that, with all their money, they could do better. Less Flash and more information please.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: It seems like a bad idea for a financial company to use hidden navigation. I might ask myself, “What else are they hiding?” Probably nothing. Still, you don’t want any design element that gets in the way of the user. This gets in the way. What also gets in the way is all the cutesy HTML5+CSS3+JS crap. It’s not helping. In fact, it’s giving you insanely low scores on Google’s PageSpeed: 54 for mobile and 51 for desktop. Even this POS website scores 84 for mobile and 95 for desktop.

HollisWealth

Well, they didn’t exactly say “suck.” They don’t have to.

Why Japanese Web Design Is So…Different

Submitter’s comments: WhatDoesItMean.com — it means it sucks.

They do let you know at the bottom of the cover page that “WhatDoesItMean.Com Is One Of The Top Ranked Websites In The World For New World Order, Conspiracy Theories And Alternative News.” Just a mildly OTT (over the top) site, mostly due to content. Nothing spectacular, no Bolen Report or Geral Sosbee. The wild stuff (or is it the “real” news, hidden from us by . . . oops, sorry) comes first, followed by about eight screens of three columns linking to more mainstream sites.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I think having links to mainstream sites is a really clever idea. On this site it would be an even more clever idea to mix mainstream links in the with loon…I mean “wild stuff” links above.

Some of you might be wondering about the Geral Sosbee reference above. His website, Geral W. Sosbee vs FBI, was #3 on The Worst Over-The-Top Websites of 2011. That’s means it’s the third worst of the worst. It has all these conspiracy articles about the FBI. Why this is interesting is Edward Snowden’s revelations. If the NSA is doing “evil,” then it’s not too-far fetched that the FBI is following in their footsteps. Why this is interesting is Sosbee’s website will be dismissed as mere rantings—not because of what he says—but because of what his website looks like. It doesn’t look credible. With Snowden’s revelations and a decent looking website, Sosbee would look like a prophet.

Your website is who you are.

WhatDoesItMean.com