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

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Today’s Lesson: It’s important to make sure the ads that run on your website are appropriate. I was relaxing with my iPad and decided to search for “dead marine pictures.” An important fact: I was signed in to my Google account and I was using the Chrome browser. It wasn’t the results that disturbed me (and the pictures are disturbing) so much as the ad that appeared above the pictures. Google knows me better and more intimately than my wife. Google knows that I’m not the target (sorry) demographic. They know my age, height, weight, skin tone, whatever else. This is the wrong ad. Now, of course, the clincher is “You Don’t Show Dead Bodies of Past Employees to Future Employees.”

Submitter’s comments: There was a targeted ad on a site I was visiting (I think BBC). The image looked cool, so I figured I’d check out the site.

You can’t even browse the site unless you create an account.

Let me repeat that:

This is a site that sells stuff. You can’t even look at what they have to sell, unless you give up your email or Facebook account first. Needless to say, I just navigated away, and have no plans to return.

Oh, I’m also exactly the kind of customer they want; with one exception. I don’t feel like giving some hipster my private info on the off chance they might have something I want to buy (which, I imagine, requires a DNA sample). PLONK

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Fab—remember the jerkoff Fab website? They also made you register before you could see anything but even hipster-douchebag Fab stopped using this stupid technique. What kind of idiot do The Touch of Modern folks think I am? Do they think I’m going to register just to see fucking furniture?

Hitler hated the Jews. The KKK hates blacks (and a lot of other types). I hate STOOPID people. Not people who are born with low intelligence; I hate really smart people who do stupid shit like make you register to see your website.

As I’ve said since 1996, people will only wait for a website to load or will register if they can see pictures of naked and/or dead bodies.

It’s entirely possible I’ve used this site before. I think I’ve used three other sites who make you register before you can see the website.

Touch of Modern

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I hope to God Google slaps the Ferti*lome people in the face. Yes, their site fails to be mobile-friendly and it fails Google’s PageSpeed Insights test, but what’s worse is the navigation doesn’t work on an iPad. The iPad is bigger than any phone and many websites’ navigation looks fine on it, but Ferti*lome’s doesn’t.

Instead of giving you text commentary, I’m giving you a video. Haven’t done one in a while and I’m going to start doing them. I did this one on a Mac and I spent zero time on the video – didn’t use an external mike, didn’t try to make the wipe motions sync up with the screen, etc. One take. Because why spend more time making a video about crappy web design than the designers spent thinking about their navigation?

Oh, as the picture below demonstrates, the menu looks fine on my desktop machine; however, using side navigation is wrong. Who wants to strain their neck looking at a menu?

My YouTube video discussing the problems

Ferti*lome home page

Submitter’s comments: Today in Federal Indian Law, we were having a short discussion on Indian Boarding schools and it turns out they still exist. The professor then brought this gem to the projector and we all shuddered in horror at this atrocious attempt at web design—pictures protruding into other segments, over-use of gradients, a random white bar, etc.. I can’t even describe how horrid this site is.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I don’t know, I think you’ve done a nice job of describing the horrors.

On the Programs page, among other pages, you can see how difficult it is to read the black text on the purple background. Speaking of pages why, in the name of all that’s holy, is the Programs page called “Page758.htm”? That’s not going to help the search engines determine how to handle the page. Speaking of handling the page, the page doesn’t handle mobile at all. At least according to Google’s Mobile Friendly Test. Oh, it’s not just the pages that are named incorrectly, the graphics are too. I’m sure we can all figure out what “image621.jpg” looks like.

Sherman Indian High School

Submitter’s comments: This is a truly terrible website. Every thing is wrong. There are buttons that look like they might be links, but don’t do anything, a difficult to read color scheme, pop out windows and a sort of trail thing you are supposed to follow. The navigation is so bad that they have included instructions on how to use the site. Even worse on a mobile phone.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Holy Mother of God! There is crap and there is horrible, stinking crap. There’s bad web design and there’s web design that makes you want to take foot-long knitting needles and poke out your eyes in an Oedipal fit so you don’t have to ever – and I mean ever – see such disturbing web design again.

WTF were these people thinking? Oh, we should take Mystery Meat Navigation and put it on a black background with silver text (so it’s difficult to read) and we need pop-ups – but we shouldn’t mark them so people can figure out what we’re doing.

For a website that’s not some loon ranting about government or religion or whatever else loons rant about, this website is AWFUL. The first sign something is seriously wrong is they try to explain the navigation. If you have to explain how your website works, it doesn’t.

Strategic Plan – Bournemouth University