Worst Websites of 2008: Overview

These links will take you to the worst websites of 2008

2008 was another good year for bad web design.

Like every year since 1996, I hoped that this year would be the year when we'd only have 10-15 sites that were truly awful. Dream on. I suspect I had 130+ candidates for the top ten. I haven't seen so much crap since the guys at Evergreen Plumbing opened my septic tank and let me look inside.

Once again, I had to create multiple lists to cover all the suckiness. Unlike previous years, we're starting in ascending order.

These sites are bombsWorst Websites #1-5: These are some of the most horrible websites of all time. Dozens of other websites act like they discovered 2008's #4 site, Yvette's. They didn't. We had it first. Speaking of first, I should really have made Yvette's the #1 worst site, but there was some amazing competition.

These sites are bombsWorst Websites #6 to 10: Some more examples of bad web design and I've included, as a bonus, the best commentary to appear on the site during 2008. I bow down before this person's genius.

These sites are bombsWorst Navigation #1-5: There is only one navigational goal: Let visitors quickly and easily find whatever it is they’re looking for on your site. Unfortunately, these sites failed and failed badly.

These sites are bombsWorst Navigation #6 to 10: A web page's navigational system has to answer four questions—1. Where am I? 2. Where have I been? 3. Where can I go next? 4. How do I get back to the Home page? These sites didn't answer the questions correctly.

These sites are bombsWorst Old School #1 to 5: If you go to a web site and it looks like a web site you saw back in 1995 through 1997, then you're looking at Old School web design. Professional web design companies do not create Old School web sites.

These sites are bombsWorst Old School #6 to 10: Sites that use Old School web design make a variant of Mistake #6 from Biggest Mistakes in Web Design 1995-2015—Have you looked at a web site since 1997? Really? Doesn't look like it."

These sites are bombsWorst Cops & Chiropractors Cops and Chiropractors are classified as YAITS — Yet Another Industry That Sucks. I don't understand why these two industries seem to have a high proportion of web sites that suck. Cop web design, in particular, is troubling because there are many police web sites that are well-designed. Have you looked at any of them?