Mystery Meat Navigation: Recent Examples

Here are some recent examples of Mystery Mean Navigation (MMN) pulled from the pages of Web Pages That Suck:

Their e-mail concerning FlatPak

Check this one out because it uses lots of Mystery Meat Navigation.

Vincent Flanders’ comments:

And it's Flash-based MMN. I shake my head every time I see a site like this. It appears — and it's important to stress the word "appears" — that this is a company with a really cool product who've ruined their site by trying to be...really cool.

I suspect they've looked at too many architectural firms for influence. We don't need the Flash and we don't need the MMN. It's that simple.

Their e-mail concerning Everson Museum of Art

As always, you are the best. LOVE the new giant image blast at the top of your site! Here's my latest nomination. I'm stuck in existential hell!! :)

Sure, the Everson Museum is SO pretty, with the requisite Flash that right-brainers get so excited about. The sucking part is very simple — No Menu Visible unless you happen to mouse over the top of the screen, giving you Mystery Meat Navigation. Grade: F+. You can almost hear them saying:

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Like I've recently said:

Of course, with artsy sites we're bound to have contrast issues. I checked out the contrast of the home page using AccessColor, and I received the following report:

The W3C recommends a standard of 500 or greater for the color difference and a standard of 125 or greater for color brightness.

Based on these considerations, the results for this page are:

1. Both color difference and color brightness do not meet the recommended standard for 0% of the total text.
2. Either color difference or color brightness does not meet the recommended standard for 20.74% of the total the text. A Warning message is displayed next to the HTML source line.

Text on background with images is for 51.63% of the total text.

Yes, I know it's an art site, but hiding the navigation for a museum is inexcusable.

Their e-mail concerning The CSI Companies

I went to this temp agency's site and was confronted with some serious Mystery Meat Navigation...

Vincent Flanders’ comments:

And it's the worst kind of MMN -- Flash-based. We've also have some other staples of Flash -- lack of contrast and small text. I'm not sure how -- of if you can -- get from one section to the other. Very bad navigation.

Their e-mail concerning Fry Steel (Video - they fixed the site)

My nominee is a site that abounds in fancy graphics, but offers little help in the way of finding out what products the company offers, has in stock, and how to actually place an order. It is a tour de force of flash graphics, but the navigation is nearly impossible to figure out. After finally locating their "terms and conditions" page, one finds that it protects the web site content, but says nothing about how to do business with the company behind it. After all this artsy-fartsy stuff, you still have to use a telephone or fax machine to contact the company itself. How ironic.

Vincent Flanders’ Comments:

They've fixed the site, but I have the video catching them in the act.

I've said it's OK for music, art, movie, and public relation sites to use "Mystery Meat Navigation" (MMN) because nobody really cares about them and they are legally obligated to look cool. I've also said that the problem with MMN is it influences companies who aren't smart enough to realize they're not in the music, art, movie, and public relations business. When a manufacturing company starts using MMN you know that we've reached a new low.

Next — Big Corporations or Classic Examples of Mystery Meat Navigation

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Recent Examples of Mystery Meat Navigation
Big Corporations or Classic Examples of Mystery Meat
Music, Movie and Art Mystery Meat
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