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

Submitter’s comments: This is a regional store that has been in business for at least 30 years. Every incarnation of their web page is the absolute worst. Their stores are great and their service is good too, but you can’t find anything on their web pages.

I’ve tried different browsers and written to them – nothing seems to work. You used to be able to see some of what is in their stores with pictures and prices to match, but now I can’t figure out anything. I’ve used other national vitamin sites and they work just fine; granted they have more money to spend, but this company just keeps expanding its stores and says it wants you to buy from its online store, but how can you? Is it just me or does it really suck?

Vincent Flanders’ comments: It really sucks. I spent 10 minutes looking for something organic. No luck. Finally, I found a link called “Online Store.” Online Store my fat, white ass. Access Denied? What?

Natural Grocers

Submitter’s comments: School children all over America get sent to this terrible, terrible website. Just wait for the awful cursor tracker…

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I have to ask myself, “Is this the kind of site school children expect to see?” Heck no. It’s an insult to the intelligence of children everywhere. It’s just another Over-the-top Website. To make matters worse, they have unmarked Microsoft Word Documents. Click a link and you start to download a document.

Massengale’s Biology Junction

Submitter’s comments: Not a web page that sucks, but a Twitter promotion thingy from American Express.

Just listen to these ‘simple’ instructions to tweet-and-spend your way to AMEX rewards. And they show the guy hand-typing in long hash tags.

Watched this and thought how much you’d hate it.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: You’re right. I hate it a lot, but not as much as I hate typing on an iPhone. This video glosses over how much trouble it is to type these hashtags. Take a look at the screenshot above. This screenshot makes three hashtags look easy to type. They’re not.

Amex Sync on Twitter

Submitter’s comments: In general, this website is an ugly 90’s-style website,
but the real kicker occurs here, where the coder forgot to close every header tag on the page.
This site just recently got a lot of attention from being featured in a Twitter tweet that was then reposted on several other sites.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: What’s most impressive is that somebody spent their valuable time trying to figure out what was wrong with the page. Seriously, this is one of the more screwed-up text pages I’ve seen, but it looks “fine” in Internet Explorer. If you’re using Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera, or Safari, then the text keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.

Sewing and Embroidery Warehouse

Submitter’s comments: Just how many featured articles can a home page have before none are featured? This one “features” a length of over 100 (!) pages/screens of articles going back to at least 2005. As with many really Over-the-top Websites (OTT), they love to pile it on.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: If a picture is worth a thousand words, we could use about 47 pictures. Somebody has taken the phrase “web page” way too seriously. On the other hand, it doesn’t take the word “synopsis” seriously enough or it doesn’t understand the definition. Let me help them out.

You know you’re in for a fun time when you see a link entitled, “How to USE this Website.” Jokes and navigation share one thing in common: if you have to explain either one, it isn’t working.

On the other hand, for an OTT website, it looks better than most. Probably because the site eliminated the usual strobe color effects and animated GIFs.

Bolen Report