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

Submitter’s comments: Having attended the texass state fair, I came away with some things to look up… ride manufacturers!

I think that without a question Andernoch/Bruch/Düsseldorf comes in first. I visited their site and found an amazing number of things to be disgustingly scary.

The content area is about 90px.
On pretty much every page you view, there is sort of band of grayed out pictures. One would expect this to be a visual relief; however, it is actually MORE navigation. So, in addition to the existing navigation, there is also entire separate unlabeled navigation bar. And under this navigation bar on select pages there is another navigation bar. Holy shit! These guys just can’t get enough navigation.

On top of the poor usability, this site is like Photoshop-land! Every single page is a veritable carpet bomb of poorly airbrushed images, and badly designed logos; this site is the gift that keeps on taking. I’m sure you’ll continue accidentally locating new pages in this heap of crap.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: The grayed out pictures are actually Mystery Meat Navigation, a term I’m proud to have coined.

As far as I can tell, the only way to find their content is to go to the sitemap and click either “Bilder” or “Technik” under the different rides.

This German site sucks. Or as Google Translate says, “Diese Website saugt.”

Oscar Bruch

Submitter’s comments: Let’s have a game of “spot the bad design mistakes”

• Music on every page (different on each page too – I’m pretty sure that most of them break copyright laws)
• Broken links from menu
• Too much on the main page
• Comic sans as a font
• Fonts in several colours in the same paragraph
• GIFs all over
• No consistency on opening in new window/parent

I’ve probably missed some points

Vincent Flanders’ comments: You might be confused because the title says this site “Isn’t the Daily Sucker.” The submitter is absolutely correct about the design mistakes; however, I’m letting this one slide because of the intended audience. Yes, parents are going to be the ones to use the site, but they’re going to look at it as their kids would look at it and it won’t bother them. I’d like the address and phone number to be a little more prominent.

Actually, there’s a possibility the music on the site is legit. Skating rinks have to license music (just like bars). Then again, maybe they haven’t. I’m sure somebody will report them to BMI, ASCAP and SESAC.

I realize that this contradicts what I said about a skating site I included in one of my worst websites of the year lists, but I’m not a politician so it’s OK to have a change of heart.

United Skates of America RI

Submitter’s comments: The sad thing is, these are most likely very nice people who just don’t have a clue about how to organize their information and present it in an appealing way.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: It’s interesting. I can go from months without suggestions for two similar businesses and then…bam! A couple of days ago the Daily Sucker was Colorado Ranger Horse Association and today Cloud 9 Walkers shows up. What’s interesting about horse owners / lovers is their love of beautiful horses and ugly websites. Here are a few more I’ve posted about: : Horse Rentals, Lightning Bar Equine Services, All-Star Horse Farm, Lake Glendale Stables Equestrian Center and Castlewood Stables.

I realize the simplest unit of a website is a web page, but you don’t have to put everything on one page.

Cloud 9 Walkers

Submitter’s comments: This must be the worst website in history.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I’m happy to report that this is not the worst website in history. I suspect you’ll find the worst website in history somewhere among the Worst Websites of 2012: April to August Contenders.

I first ventured onto the Internet in January 1995 and this site would fit right in. Unfortunately, this is 2012 and all this site does it make it look like this business is amateurish. That’s a shame because the quality of the artwork looks very professional. Still, would you want to do business with a site that looks like this? Especially since there are millions of templates and thousands of professional web designers available to fix this site.

The Woodturners Kauri Gallery and Working Studio

Submitter’s comments: This website is truly terrible. The only redeeming quality is the flashing stars in the background (not).

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Horses are beautiful animals. Websites about horses often look and smell like horse droppings. I’ve featured other massively sucky horse websites: Horse Rentals, Lightning Bar Equine Services, All-Star Horse Farm, Lake Glendale Stables Equestrian Center and Castlewood Stables. It looks like people who love beautiful horses love ugly web design.

Today’s sucker is horrible. I love the History page. Can we make the text smaller in size and leading? Jeez.

Colorado Ranger Horse Association