Examples of Bad Websites
There are countless examples of embarrassing website designs and development out there. These are the latest examples we have discovered. For each site below we provide a brief analysis to assist you in avoiding the same pitfalls.
After looking at the websites and critiques below, please visit our free advice area.
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Brackin Wholesale
Another brilliant example of a bad Flash introduction that is implemented poorly. They force you to suffer through it with no way to skip to the content and we are hoping that this was done as a part of a 3rd grade project because that is about the only way they could have gotten a passing grade for this garbage.
We finally made it to the index page and immediately wanted to go back to the Flash intro. We realize that this is an old site but this was bad a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. There is no style or design in any shape or form. The logo floats in space and doesn't fit with anything on the page and most of the links result in 404 errors.
Kitchen Accessories one of the few pages that actually exists, looks like someone started a page but never finished. There are beginnings of a header and product title but nothing on the page looks finished. The secondary links merely list products and give users no real information other than part numbers.
Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis Historical and Technical Society, Inc.
Image and brand defines all businesses and organizations, but typically smaller groups like historical societies use the lack of funds and resources as an excuse to create horrible websites.
With a little time and some research, anyone can create a decent website. However, not only has the TRAA not created a decent website, the image they are projecting only serves to drive people away from their organization.
The TRAA website has no structure, color scheme or anything else that would remind someone of a real website. Sometimes creating a bad website can do more damage than having no website at all.
Joby Saad Village Idiot Comedian
This site just plain sucks! It's no wonder that so many people hate Flash and looking at this guy's ugly mug (no offense) makes us want to puke. The interface elements are poorly done and there is no visual interest to the pages at all. Normally when designers use Flash it is well ...flashy.
If you do manage to make your way to one of the secondary pages (3 levels deep), you will find something that at least looks like a website. The light teal text is completely unreadable throughout the site and there is no cohesive color scheme. The entire thing feels rather schizophrenic.
The ticket area introduces yet another interface design and color scheme. Perhaps in keeping with his comedian roots Joby is trying to be wacky and funny. We are not laughing, Joby, and your visitors won't either!
Exhorder (band)
Musicians and bands rely heavily on sites like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter because they are cheap and easy like the tramps that hang out after every show. We make fun of bands for the lack of creativity, using the same cookie cutter design as every other band. We realize that some bands use this approach for one reason, they are boneheads!
Exhorder, which were a fairly popular metal band in the early '90s, decided to announce their triumphant return to music by using a Word doc that has been converted to html. The centered red text on a black background is a dead giveaway for bands that have spent all of their money on weed and can't afford a decent designer. Just a thought, if you want to sell more shirts try showing more cleavage.
Trendy Princess
Generally speaking, government regulation is not a good thing, but we are beginning to believe that that there should be a license for web design. This site is just terrible and to think that they expect people to give them money through their website!
The first page that you encounter is a splash page with a pathetic color scheme (if you can even call it that) and no branding whatsoever. Even if you only have a bad logo that was drawn on a napkin, it is better than your visitors wondering if they are on the right site. At the top of the page we find lots of little thumbnails which are supposed to be product links. They must be proud of these images since they took the trouble to google a script that protects their precious images, now if they could only find a way to keep us from disabling JavaScript. If it is really important to protect your product images, research better solutions.
The main site does not fit in any of the normal browser sizes and uses flashy, tacky animated gifs that we are sure that they paid for since they are so concerned about image theft.