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

Submitter’s comments: Here’s a music repository with a monumentally counter intuitive UI. Watch and be amazed. At least it doesn’t use Flash

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Another WTF website. Just because you’re a site about retro game music or something, doesn’t mean you have to keep the motif in your design. Sites with the word “global” in them don’t (usually) use a globe on their site.

Chiptunes

Submitter’s comments: I would love to see Sony castigated on your site. If you look at the EX Series Earbuds page, you’ll see they’re using gray on white text.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I don’t think I’ll castigate them, I’ll just severely criticize them or inflict severe punishment on them <grin>.

WTF is going on? It’s bad enough sites are using #666 (Satan’s CSS) for their text, but Sony is using #999 — which is 50% more of Satan’s CSS. If they don’t want us to read something, don’t use words. In Sony’s case, they’re hiding marketing BS, which is redundant.

They use #666 in their description of the product — ” Destined to become your favorite accessory…” Let me tell you something from many years of experience. If a pair of earphones is your favorite accessory, you lead a very, very sad life.

Heck, by comparison, their footer is easy to read. Normally, that’s where you can legitimately use #666 or 999.

Sony

I’ve been trying to figure out who is influencing architects to make their sites unreadable. I think I might have the answer. Architect Magazine and World Architecture News both use light gray text. Then again, it’s a chicken/egg situation. Which came first? The architects’ design or the magazines’? See my posts on architectural firms Kieran-Timberlake and Perkins-Will.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: This is an architect quoted in the article about Steve Jobs that I mentioned in the previous Daily Sucker. The site uses Mystery Meat Navigation that fades in and out. Think about it. How stupid is this? Do you want your road signs to fade in and out? If you don’t want to waste your time visiting the site, here’s a screenshot.

Kieran-Timberlake

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I was reading an article about the Apple Store’s design and ran across links to…guess what?…architects. Since architects produce wild websites or beautiful websites that suck, I had to go and visit some of their sites.

What’s the biggest mistake these high-end architects make? Well, they seem to love Satan’s CSS, which is the use of the color “gray” or #666 for text (666 is allegedly the sign of the beast). Why is this wrong? Because it’s difficult to freaking read. The W3C says it’s difficult to read and if architects don’t follow standards, their buildings fall down. Now, their websites fall down. I realize that pictures are what it’s all about for architects, but if you don’t want me to read the text, don’t write any text.

If you’re interested in having a solid foundation, AccessColor describes the intricacies of contrast really well, as does Wikipedia. A new website has taken up my cause about contrast and it’s called, logically enough, Contrast Rebellion. Since artists and architects think graphically, maybe if they look at Contrast Rebellion they’ll understand the importance of contrast and change their ways.

Perkins-Will