The other day, actor and magical genius, @andynyman asked people to recommend a good web designer. However, a few people took it upon themselves to link to terrible, terrible, websites….. here are the top three
1) Oh my God.
3) Nope, this is actually worse.
Which do you hate the most? Any other suggestions?
UPDATE: I think the folks in charge of the second site have pulled it 😦
UPDATE: At 1pm today (GMT) I will be doing a live webchat about New Year’s Resolutions and the Change4life initiative here.
Richard Wiseman 
Useful contenders at http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/
My eyes!
This one is pretty bad: http://www.georgehutchins.com/
Just about the only thing that can top siphawaii.com is the section at http://www.siphawaii.com/PARADISE-FOUND-HAWAII-Honolulu-Waikiki-Local-Weather-Forecast-Time-Information.htm#ABOUT_OUR_WEB_DESIGN: where they spend thousands of words whining about their site design being criticised by “internet policing vulchers”.
All those words! In the time it took them to write that (and check all of those other websites for coding errors) they could have made theirs so much better!
Ok perhaps a bit – however some, sadly, will never learn!
Yeah, saw that. Seems they assume that because they don’t have any WC3 validation errors, their website design is fine. They have no idea what makes a site useable let alone good looking, so what more could you expect. Also, they should consider using a spell check more often.
The arguments about SEO is all fine and good, but you can get SEO value and still have a really nice looking site, as the content is important but so is the metatags and browser title. Those are the places that should be concentrated on.
The info on the contact page is actually very educational for those who own an online business and that totally rely on designers. We ran a few tests with the validators and came to the conclusion that our trusted designer has failed us miserably.
We appreciate the time and afford that this shop has taken to warn other small business against the incompetence that is going on.
We did not experience the information as ‘whining’ at all but it must have hurt and exposed a few designers, especially those that are whining about it on this blog. Some will never learn indeed.
Yes, that is a point. Some of their criticisms are quite valid. There are two problems, though – first, W3C validation is very nice to have, but there isn’t that much overlap between that and genuinely good web design. Google, for example, has 35 validation errors, Facebook has 12 errors, and Amazon has 429 errors, but that’s not the same as bad design. Secondly, it’s quite hard to unearth good points, in any critique or analysis, when any good points that exist are buried under a thick layer of immaturity and pettiness. Whoever wrote these things has a lot to learn about good communication.
well the first one look like a gay church with all those colors, got me sick not just for having god on it but it was like going round and round….
but number 3 its the worst!!!! music why music??? then the worts design and bad, I mean BAD pictures!
http://www.timecube.com/
Had to be said.
Wow. I’m not really sure it did have to be said. But that was a brain destroyer of a site, all right.
http://www.thymecube.com/
I think that thymecube is a send-up of the timecube site (itself a contender)
http://www.timecube.com/
I found this one by mistake when the movie with the same name came out.
http://amightywind.com/
Very…uh…colorful.
I like how the cat in the corner of the first one is moonwalking. xD
What, no Havenworks?
http://www.havenworks.com/
Semi-proudly lists its accolades at the bottom. If you can find the bottom…
Not very original Mr. Wiseman.
You copied this from webpagesthatsuck.com.
Next time do your own research Richard.
Correction: *I* found the last one on webpagesthatsuck.com years ago, then tweeted Richard about it, so it’s my fault.
@THE GEOFF. That was a very fast reply from THE GEOFF. Looks like Richard Wiseman is The Geoff – covering his ass.
The more you drag over the glass, the worse this website gets…
http://j.mp/gINHpl
😉
Sooo coool ! Pröööööööhhl !!!
There seem to be two videos that can play on the higher settings, randomly selected. I spent a little time writing English lyrics for the one that isn’t captioned.
Translated from the Russian (and if you believe that, you’ll believe anything):
Just a glass is a-going to sleep, chin,
‘Cos the money, it goes up all clear
At a pre-show, prize niche near reaching
Who’s the only sea view that he beat in
The dozen? I need to buy some, yeah.
Here’s what you thought, prize niche near reaching
No we no we no we no we don’t
See me speak his pony
No we no we no we no we don’t
We mark goats upon ye
No we no we no we no we don’t
Measure litres leechy
No we no we no we no we don’t
Mama got me mere chin
No we don’t, no we don’t, no we don’t
(That’s enough. More than enough. Not going to do remaining verses.)
coolozzie – Come on, that’s not entirely fair – if Richard had just copied the same websites and presented the list as original work, then sure, but the general idea of listing excruciatingly bad websites is quite a broad one.
Richard Wiseman. Just another ‘internet policing vulcher’. Some people must realy have a dark side to trash some one elses work and business. What a weird guy you are Mr. Wiseman. Go and see a shrink!
1) It’s spelled vulture, not vulcher.
2) He IS a shrink.
2a) He is a psychologist. A “shrink” is a psychiatrist – a medical doctor who specialized in mental disorders.
At least, that’s my understanding. 😉
Ah, okay. I’ve always interpreted it as anyone specialising in the psychology/psychiatry fields (wasn’t it first applied to psychoanalists?).
Vulcher or Vulture?
Google for ‘vulcher’ in images. You get the picture?
That search results in pictures of vultures. I get the fact that it’s often misspelled, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s spelled vulture.
Also, as long as we’re using Google Image as reference material, ‘vulcher’ results in 3.820 images, while ‘vulture’ results in 3.460.000. Of the same bird.
…or, when I don’t use the Dutch notation out of habit, 3,820 versus 3,460,000.
That first one is very effective. Just one glimpse had this atheist on his knees begging God for mercy.
I am a Christian, but even I think that first website should be illegal. The third too actually. The second is just pathetic.
I actually quite like 2 and 3. Please don’t h hate me! I think they’ve got a unique charm to them. Can’t stand number 1 though – its got the yuck-factor.
I actually like #2 as well since it gives you something to explore/discover. (Usually I am also bored out of my mind by modern architecture and design with their simple shapes, clear lines and no extra bits an pieces. Since everybody else seems to love this I am worried that my preference indicates some kind mental problem – and you have the same problem, too, Alex 😉 ! Maybe this preference for ‘clutter, flourishes etc. ‘ is just a sign that the want to actually use our brain, the most powerful computational engine known, to actually do something rather than to just save energy by readily identifying a box made out of steel and glass as “an office building”.
http://www.useit.com/ – tee hee.
the best ever worst site..
http://www.hurr-durr.com
check it and you will know how worst it is really…
Be prepared. That was truly awful and tedious to leave
My antivirus (bitdefender) blocked access to that site due to it’s “no close” “virus”. I’d recommend that people just trust you that it’s bad.
That was a cruel, cruel thing to do! You should warn people that this site drives you insane while you are trying to close the damn thing.
Had to CTRL-ALT-DLT to end it… Not nice, not nice at all.
Number one is the worst – animated background AND “music” – yikes!
Holy hells, how does that EVEN HAPPEN? Surely, at some point, *someone* has to come along and say, “here, don’t you think perhaps this one last link is just a tad too much?”
Ugh. HTML is turning in its .
Oh. my. word.
And have you seen the defensive stance the second website has taken?! Lol! I would be amazed if anyone manages to buy anything by navigating around that site. Amazed. But they must do, mustn’t they?!
And the third one, well, frankly, it turns my stomach and i haven’t had breakfast yet so I’m off for some potatoe cakes and to re-adjust my eyes.
Number one has the worst graphics. I spewed on my monitor just before I went into an epileptic fit. Numbers two and three have the worst layout, but I can’t decide which is the worst of the two. Actually, I have been in real stores arranged much like number two.
Wow! Number one is just…wow. I think there should have been some sort of warning not to open this at work… I had my speakers on ha ha.
All horrible, but 1 is most irritating.
BTW, have you noticed how ‘believers’ are very fond of quoting their preferred holy text at you, but never bother to justify why you should believe it? If you asked them they would probably insist is was the Word of God, but again fail to justify the statement.
In the words of Tim Minchin: “I know the good book’s good because the good book says it’s good”. 😉
I encourage you to try to talk to more “believers” out there…you may find otherwise!
I was brought as a “believer” and Tim Minchin is right. The argument always boils down to that empirical justification.
It reminds me of an Emo Phillips quote, “I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this.”
wtf????!!!
http://www.yvettesbridalformal.com/vettemap1.html
Best map ever!
Nice Music…….if you click on the “Tuxedo” tab !
#3 literally made me jump slightly back from my laptop with an exclamation along the lines of “daaah!”
I dunno, #2 is actually quite usable, and not even all that ugly, even if it breaks every rule in somebody’s website-design book. It actually has an advantage over most standard shopping sites, in that it packs an awful lot of information into a small space (so little scrolling or paging required), while still being usable. In addition to the busy “content”, they keep the more standard navigation controls in easy to find and standard places.
Click on the “Coffee” link at the head of the page, and notice that while they pack stuff in, finding what you want, what it costs, and how to order it are still very simple and obvious. They’re taking advantage of images being both very easy to identify at smaller sizes, and amenable to 2d layouts in regular form. Contrast this with (e.g.) Amazon’s standard layouts, which are a hodge-podge of text and images in seemingly random order, that can be quite hard to navigate unless you’ve done it many times before, with lots of scrolling and lots of paging usually required.
That sort of “super packed in” design is pretty much standard for Japanese shopping websites (and this site is better than most of them); Hawaii being basically a Japanese colony, I suppose there might even be a connection here…
at first, I kind of liked the Yvettes Bridal Formal site as kind of free-form, stream-of-consciousness, in a graphic form…
then the music started… and I scrolled down… then I started to feel physically ill — seriously…
Wow, my EYES. They were at streaming point for that last one. The “Wow, it has music.” moment was one of a kind.
Gah! They survived the ’90s?! D:
I’ve seen the Yvette’s site a few times. Go to this page: http://yvettesbridalformal.com/index.htm
(If you can manage to NOT have a seizure)
About 7/8ths down the page there’s a heavy dude in a red vest with two thumbs up that looks like he MIGHT have started a seventies band that never played anywhere.
Actually, this is the world famous artist who convinced Yvette she had what it takes to be a world famous web designer. Now thanks to Richard’s blog all her dreams have come true
Aloha and thank you for the link to our Hawaiian One Stop Online Shop.
Usually January is a slow month but thanks to the link from this blog we have received more orders than expected and it is only the 7th of January.
Thank you for supporting Hawaiian coffee farmers.
Buy 100% USA Hawaiian coffee and help to fix the trade balance, the root of all financial evil.
Mahalo
Content and visuals are utterly dreadful here: http://www.goldenmean.info/
#3 is pure visual cacophony. You have to work really hard to ignore the left side of your brain to assemble something like that. That is, if the left side is even active.
Who knows, maybe the left side had a stroke and the right side felt this was a good time to become the web designer it always wanted to be.
Funny about the second one… they didn’t pull it due to this did they?
I saw the first and thought it was the worst. Then I saw then second, and could imagine nothing worse. The third goes without saying.
1 is so amusing – some religious folks get a bad name for in your face evangelising and this is so in your face – just like the folks that get the bad name…
2 is appalling. If I hadn’t been told it was a shop I wouldn’t know.
3 is not worse than 2 – you can actually tell what they sell and there are some nice shots of prospective purchasers wearing the dresses. But it is very badly done and you do have to let it load before you get to see one of the customers (and I guess some of you never stuck around that long!)
All are pretty bad.
Big thanks for the first link though (dokimos.org), as it will save me a lot of money for drugs 😉
My head is still spinning … COLORS !!!
reminds me of the geocities days
Trying to get property info downunder and came across this disaster :
http://www.residex.com.au/
Took hours before my sight returned
Those are some very seriously bad websites. Animated gifs should be illegal by now. That’s my vote.
Just in case you haven’t scratched your eyes out yet, here’s another one that’s quite fun to poke around. Each time you mouse over or click in a new area out pops a new gif! It’s like a never ending easter egg hunt!
http://ingenfeld.de/
Omg…..I dont even know how to even begin. The teddybear got to me o.o
http://theorderoftheironphoenix.com makes me cry rivers of tears, just hideous!
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Would you be interested in trading links or maybe guest writing a blog article or vice-versa?
My blog covers a lot of the same topics as yours and I think we could greatly benefit
from each other. If you are interested feel free to shoot
me an email. I look forward to hearing from you!
Fantastic blog by the way!
Worst spam ever? ><
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When I originally commented I clicked the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and already whenever a comment is added I am four emails with the exact same comment. Will there be by any means you may eliminate me from that service? Thanks!