Bad Web Pages

Web development is difficult and mocking those who make attempts isn't overly constructive, however learning from the mistakes of others is an extremely useful skill to learn in any profession, not just web design. So for our learning and enjoyment, I recommend the website www.webpagesthatsuck.com and their recent article "Worst Websites of 2012". While an enjoyable read, it also contains a lot of valid criticism amongst the jokes and banter. Personally they were correct with picking the first site as the worst one.

One of the most common complaints of the sites in the list seems to be the excessive amounts of animated gifs or flashing lights/objects. Obviously, this is poor design in general as it distracts from the content on the site and for many people can actually harm them, i.e. Seizures. Not only are they distracting, but they often bring nothing of value to a website, on animated gifs are great on images boards and occasionally on Wikipedia to show something interesting without needing a video, i.e. This gif showing the borders of Australia change over time. In general, however they are a waste of space.

Another of the classic errors seems to be poor navigation, whether it's because of hard to find navigation links or broken scrolling. A lot of the webpages seem to force horizontal scrolling which is a massive pain in comparison to purely vertical scrolling. A lot of the sites seem to have horrendous navigation links as well, they should be easy to find, but as some of these websites seem to demonstrate they are hidden from the average user.

Ironically, the Feng Shui website is the most poorly designed, for those who don't get why it's ironic, a quick google search will tell you all you need to know. On that note, a lot of these websites look like they are from 90's with poor contrast, i.e. red text on black backgrounds or rainbow coloured backgrounds. In the end, the sites on the list are a good reminder to web developers and designers to avoid certain pitfalls, of course web development is difficult and nobody likes to be told that their work sucks, but a certain level of self-awareness is important in life and work.