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

Submitter’s comments: When I was a kid, these guys had tons of odd army surplus stuff in their mail order catalog. Somehow they didn’t make the transition to the Web.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Let me paraphrase the New York Times’ comments: “Kaufman’s Army & Navy website is a musty, chaotic place.”

The home page is a needless Flash-Splash page that doesn’t show up on mobile devices and leads to another Flash-Splash page which autoloads the page we’re discussing. There’s no navigation, just one long page. One long page that doesn’t have any kind of selling proposition.

Kaufman’s Army & Navy

Submitter’s comments: A gentleman filed a bug report with Mozilla stating that Mozilla 13.01 broke his legacy code, depending on CSS and legacy Javascript that are now becoming deprecated. Genuinely curious, I decide to check out the site that OP left in his post. It’s Jesus on Acid, playing the one man band, on steroids. His post mentions 16 more domains, and with a bit of digging I found them and more. They are ALL equally as bad.

Over the top winner for the year?  (some may be duplicates).  An epilepsy warning may be warranted here too.

Presented for your amusement.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I counted 9 sites that could easily be the Worst Web Site of 2012. Maybe this block of fetid crap deserves its own category.

Forget the design horrors for a moment. There’s actually some important lessons here.

1. Don’t use vendor specific CSS properties. If you do, expect them to eventually break.
2. Put your CSS in external files.
3. Put your Javascript in external files.

Good Web Design is BI Web Design

I have never understood how web design like Constellation 7 exists. As I’ve often said:

…(it’s) a classic example of Mistake #6 from Biggest Mistakes in Web Design 1995-2015 — “Have you ever seen another web site? Really? Doesn’t look like it.“ I call this type of design the “I haven’t taken my antipsychotics in a while school of web design.”

As I looked at the Worst Over-The-Top Websites of 2011 I saw the site for Geral W. Sosbee vs FBI. Then it hit me. If you’re an FBI agent who’s following someone, you’re supposed to Blend In (BI). It’s the same with a spy. You Blend In so that nobody really notices you. Today’s sucker and almost all the sites on WPTS are like the red man in the image above —they don’t blend in.

Good web design blends in. It’s not noticed.

NOTE: ALL THESE SITES MIGHT CAUSE SEIZURES. They “work” in IE9 and Firefox 14.01. Seems like there are some problems with Chrome.

Constellation 7

The rest of the sites that look like they came from the depths of hell (irony intended):

Galaxion – The Final Frontier
Zion Genesis
Treasureweb Public Start Page
The Seven Thunders of the Living God
The Word of God Is Jesus Christ and His Holy Gospel
The Perfect Poverty Eradication System
PSIlink: The Memory Game of the Millennia
The Mazzaroth Mission

Submitter’s comments: So I’m doing some research that, for some reason or another, induced me to look up the effects of organophosphates  on corrosion rates of metals. Pretty dry stuff, and typically pretty dry web pages.  No problem, that.  Until I came across this page.

Their main page isn’t any better, and the company’s home page is just about a tacky as can be, with the benefit (!?) of cheesy foreground music (It’s too annoying to be background music).

Presented for your amusement.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: The least problematic aspect of the site is its use of Flash. Flash for building websites is dead, dead, dead. Flash is for games and high end video. It will never come back to life, so don’t get your hopes up for Zombie-Flash.

Among the major flaws we have Mystery Meat Navigation, sound files that automatically play when you enter a page, and serious contrast issues. The site is a major contender for Worst Website of 2012 and I only a major redesign will keep it from the list. Just for grins, I searched "water services" on Google and came up with CleanWater Services. Even with the cartoon, it’s infinitely better than today’s sucker, which will end up on Over-the-top Websites.

I love the fact that turning the music off on one web page doesn’t turn it off on others.

I’ve spent the last 1o months taking care of my grandson for 8 hours a day for 4 days a week. I haven’t been able to devote as much time as I would have liked to the site—no new Daily Suckers for a month—and coming back to this monstrosity of a website is much worse than dealing with a 16-month old toddler. You should see what’s in store for tomorrow.

Water Services, Ltd.
The organophosphorus page

Submitter’s comments: Not only do they use a Flash header for navigation, the flash plays a different loud song on each page! Exactly HOW does that content relate to getting my car fixed?

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I suspect the music was part of a template —the music has that Flash template sound. Red, white and blue colors don’t inspire me, especially when they cause contrast problems like you see in the tag line. Flash is dead except in high-end games and video and this site is not one of those kinds of sites.

The music is annoying because there’s no way to turn it off and it repeats itself if you revisit a page. On the plus side, the site works on an iPhone—thanks to the text links at the bottom.

Shorewood Lube & Service

Submitter’s comments: I came across this site while searching for a bad website to write a paper on for a school project.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Well you certainly found one to write about. Great timing. On Saturday I took my grandson to the Puyallup (WA) Dog Show, which was his first dog show. Show dogs love children and the Bull Mastiffs seemed to love him the most. They’re a little bigger than your average cocker.

This site is a little worse than the American Spaniel Club website. OK, it’s a helluva lot worse. Just because your site features American Cocker Spaniels, doesn’t give you the right to stuff the American flag all over your website any more than a company with the word “Global” in its title has the right to use a globe on its logo. For God’s sake, even the U.S. Marines have enough respect not to plaster flags on their site like cheap handbills.

We have the usual problems, with the exception that there aren’t any animated GIFs and the photography is top notch. I’m sure the dogs are top notch, but it’s difficult to want to click any of the links to find out. I believe every page has a different “design.” A new page does not get a new look.

High Calling Cockers