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July 28, 2011 6:02 AM

The World's Worst Website Every web 1.0 mistake you can make when designing a website, including loud autolaunched bugles. Also the template for the Gruaniad's recent revamp of Comment is Free. Tweet this!
posted by joannemullen (81 comments total)

Still not as bad as Gawker.
posted by empath at 6:06 AM on July 28, 2011 [18 favorites]

Still not as bad as Gawker.

Yeah, "as bad as you can be on purpose" isn't nearly as hard on the soul as aiming for competence and missing by an area code.

Still, like the fact that they had the courage of their convictions and didn't splatter it with "Under Construction" gifs. "This is the best we could make this page. We're good."
posted by mhoye at 6:12 AM on July 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

On the heels of the dial-up modem sound post below on the FP, I'm starting to slide into a seriously nostalgic funk.
posted by jquinby at 6:14 AM on July 28, 2011 [2 favorites]

That looks *exactly* like the first website that I ever made.

And I was DAMN proud of myself, too. I worked hard to get ALL of my crazy aunts to sign my electronic guestbook...and most of them said they liked my page, too, before they asked me to have my mom call them.
posted by jefficator at 6:16 AM on July 28, 2011 [3 favorites]

Not enough "/#!/" back-button-breaking nonsense.
posted by DU at 6:17 AM on July 28, 2011 [3 favorites]

I'm currently avoiding like the plague doing the redesign for a section of a client's website.

The client designed it themselves. Using Apple's Pages app. Using every decorative font available in rainbows of colors. With dozens of giant-sized photos. Spaced irregularly around the page.

To quote the client..."Don't tell me what I can't have. Stop standing in the way of my vision."

I've developed a nervous tick. I hit myself across the head until I'm dizzy and have to lie down.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:18 AM on July 28, 2011 [6 favorites]

Reminds me of my ancient Angelfire page. By the way, I thought Angelfire was dead and gone?
posted by Renoroc at 6:24 AM on July 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yeah, here's the real adopt-a-kitty page for a nearby animal shelter. God I wish some competent good samaritan would donate a redesign.
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:26 AM on July 28, 2011 [3 favorites]

Most web pages still have frames - they are called headers. In fact if anything has been solidified as popular it's the header. Gasp! Metafilter even has one.
posted by AndrewKemendo at 6:29 AM on July 28, 2011

frames != headers.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 6:31 AM on July 28, 2011 [11 favorites]

Oh, it also needs a bunch of social networking icons to pop up and get in the way every time you move the mouse. And ideally it should capture keyboard events so it can rebind them to what it thinks you want rather than what you actually want.
posted by DU at 6:32 AM on July 28, 2011

@FelliniBlank: Couldn't resist quoting the following text from your link to the kitty animal adoption site. Layer upon layer of fail...

WE NEED YOU TO PROVIDE US THE HAPPY ENDINGS!
posted by RolandOfEld at 6:32 AM on July 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

One of my pet peeves is when something is supposed to be an example of everything done wrong, but then the designer throws in examples of how to do it right, like the white box with the simple background explaining about keeping the background simple. Thematic consistency, people!
posted by albrecht at 6:34 AM on July 28, 2011

Yeah, here's the real adopt-a-kitty page for a nearby animal shelter. God I wish some competent good samaritan would donate a redesign.

Wow, I clicked. I was like, ah this is bad, and all those pictures are really blurred, and everyone knows that is against the bible for cats and dogs to marry... and then I scrolled down...
posted by Elmore at 6:39 AM on July 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

There was a version of this back in the late '90s, only it was called The World's Worst World Wide Web Site. It was pretty much the same, only even worse; leopard-print background, a lot more animated GIFs and a large, improperly formatted drawing of Spider-Man.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:41 AM on July 28, 2011

I'm confused. What exactly the problem with the "Comment is Free" design? Looks like pretty much every other webpage for a media website and deals with the consistent problem of a huge amount of information that needs to be crammed into a single page.

Sure it's busy, in the sense of there being a ton of content on the page. It's also very legible, has decent spacing between elements, clear navigation and iconography.

I think it does well compared to other UK papers.
posted by Deathalicious at 6:41 AM on July 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

I feel so sorry for them -- as a county facility they have zero money and battle fatigue, of course, but every time I look at their site, my eyes bleed. I have rudimentary web design skills, but even if I were fit for the job, how do you go up to these nice, overworked people and say, "Your website is from hell. Let me hope you"?
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:42 AM on July 28, 2011

It also looks like they update it by hand. And possibly by using Microsoft Word's "save-as-html" feature. You'd have to teach them how to update it, or do it pro bono.
posted by codacorolla at 6:43 AM on July 28, 2011

Meh. It's no Bud Uglly.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:44 AM on July 28, 2011

The 'World's Worst Website' example page contained an actual, non-example pop-up that my security system flagged and blocked.
posted by likeso at 6:45 AM on July 28, 2011

CLICK HERE TO ENLARGE
posted by oneironaut at 6:45 AM on July 28, 2011

Where is the trail of sparkles that follows the mouse, dammit? Their claim of world's worst is false!
posted by elizardbits at 6:46 AM on July 28, 2011 [3 favorites]

Yeah, here's the real adopt-a-kitty page for a nearby animal shelter. God I wish some competent good samaritan would donate a redesign.

Or at the very least delete every copy of FrontPage from their computers. The hardest part for me over the years has been trying to come to terms with the fact that most people sincerely don't see a difference between good and bad web design (see also Thorzdad's comment above). It's a kind of aesthetic blindness and it can't be argued or taught away; often you can only hope they don't care enough to fight against your competent-looking design.
posted by aught at 6:46 AM on July 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

CLICK HERE TO ENLARGE

I like how they have teeny tiny thumbnails inside a giant box that has plenty of room for a decent-sized photo.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:50 AM on July 28, 2011 [2 favorites]

Serious question: has there ever been a good use of frames?
posted by m@f at 6:52 AM on July 28, 2011 [3 favorites]

how do you go up to these nice, overworked people and say, "Your website is from hell. Let me hope you"?

Been there, made the mistake of doing that. The heartbreaking part would be that some unsophisticated -- yet eager and decent -- person, who took it upon him- or herself to learn the basics of an old version of FrontPage that'd been sitting on one of the office computers for a decade, almost certainly is proud of the page and thinks they are doing a wonderful job (and are probably getting all kinds of praise from their computer illiterate co-workers) -- so doing this website intervention would mainly serve to make you look like a know-it-all jerk to the people in the office, and bruise the eager person's feelings & crush their enthusiasm for "doing stuff on the computer."
posted by aught at 6:55 AM on July 28, 2011 [2 favorites]

Considering all the new upsets, offenses and insults that technology is capable of heaping upon us since the heady days of the first web boom, it fails to impress these days.

Garish colors and streaming midi are rarely even opted for by clients these days. Not when they can have page-flip site navigation, talking-spokesperson videos overlaying the text, pop-up sales support chatboxes overlaying the text, "Like" buttons, real-time updating Twitter feeds, multiple slideshow animations and self-selecting tabbed sidebars, drop-down menus designed to look like they're not menus at all, and on and on and on.

The World's Worst Website is barely a contender, since you can read it end-to-end and turn the sound off on your computer for the duration.
posted by ardgedee at 6:56 AM on July 28, 2011 [3 favorites]

"Additional plugins are required to display all the media on this page." Heh.
posted by JanetLand at 7:04 AM on July 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm sort of sad to see that Jaxx has updated their website, which used to be exactly this except more metal.
posted by Wolfdog at 7:05 AM on July 28, 2011

I'm terrified of auto-launched budgies.
posted by Ella Fynoe at 7:10 AM on July 28, 2011

One of the few good uses of frames I've come across was Olia Lialina's 1996 website-as-art piece My Boyfriend Came Back From The War.

Which is now fifteen years old. Woah

Also doesn't Kingdom of Loathing use frames in a non-annoying way? (Warning: timesink. Google at your own risk.)
posted by motty at 7:14 AM on July 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

VERY PRETTY MARKINGS SHE ALMOST LOOKS RACCOON! ONLY $5.00!!
posted by dismas at 7:25 AM on July 28, 2011 [2 favorites]

Where's the Comet Cursor? I miss that.



NOT.
posted by pjern at 7:30 AM on July 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'd take a quaint Web 1.0 mess (full of real content) over a placeholder content farm SEO-bait piece of garbage with a reflective logo and a zillion buttons on the bottom for Facebook, Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon. And where the text has one of those things that does Javascript highlighting, so when the words ham sandwich appear, it decides you want to go to an ad-covered page with Search Results for Best Ham Sandwich Recipes in Your Town!
posted by overeducated_alligator at 7:39 AM on July 28, 2011 [5 favorites]

Or, Best Deals on Polytopes Hamiltonian Cycle - Buy Now!
posted by Wolfdog at 7:51 AM on July 28, 2011

I'd take a quaint Web 1.0 mess (full of real content) over a placeholder content farm SEO-bait piece of garbage with a reflective logo and a zillion buttons on the bottom for Facebook, Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon.

Abso-bloody-lutely!

Serious question: has there ever been a good use of frames?

The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot as hypertext is a great example of frame-heavy old-school web design.

Sure, you could do a prettier version of the same thing now with a veneer of tasteful Web 2.0isms, but it wouldn't massively enhance the usability and utility of the site.
posted by jack_mo at 7:59 AM on July 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'd take a quaint Web 1.0 mess (full of real content) over a placeholder content farm SEO-bait piece of garbage with a reflective logo and a zillion buttons on the bottom for Facebook, Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon. And where the text has one of those things that does Javascript highlighting, so when the words ham sandwich appear, it decides you want to go to an ad-covered page with Search Results for Best Ham Sandwich Recipes in Your Town!

I agree. Web 1.0 cruft was at least benign.
posted by codacorolla at 8:01 AM on July 28, 2011

Readability was unable to parse the Content for This Article
posted by cgk at 8:11 AM on July 28, 2011

WELCOME TO MY NETSIGHT. WELCOME!
posted by rollick at 8:20 AM on July 28, 2011 [2 favorites]

Sheesh, I thought EVERYONE knew that THIS is the worst website.
posted by emjaybee at 8:27 AM on July 28, 2011 [4 favorites]

Sheesh, I thought EVERYONE knew that THIS is the worst website.


That web site has everything.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 8:33 AM on July 28, 2011

I think that website just gave me a nosebleed.
posted by elizardbits at 8:38 AM on July 28, 2011

Can someone explain to me what's so awful about the new Comment is Free homepage?
posted by Kattullus at 8:39 AM on July 28, 2011

ardgedee: "talking-spokesperson videos overlaying the text"

What was that thing where you could put then-RNC chair Michael Steele walking around on the bottom of your web page?
posted by Chrysostom at 8:41 AM on July 28, 2011

WE NEED YOU TO PROVIDE US THE HAPPY ENDINGS!

That'll be twenty dollars, same as in town.
posted by entropicamericana at 8:49 AM on July 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

The examples page is great. Some of these are on Tripod so please, no more than ten separate visits at a time, guys.

Listen, this is an older version of the site that was purposely made to look obnoxious. It's a matter of page design, not HTML. The colors and layout were meant to be of a moderately rebellious nature. If you don't like it, go somewhere else. No one's forcing you to read this page and I'm not being paid a single cent to make it match your expectations.

No, sorry. The Iraqi insurgency was of a "moderately rebellious nature" by comparison. But that's still nothing compared to the psychedelic Christian. This, I could look at all day.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 8:50 AM on July 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I don't see what the new Comment is Free site has to do with the other link, especially since the link leads not to the site itself, but the comments section of an announcement of the launch.
posted by tavegyl at 9:16 AM on July 28, 2011

"Tweet this?"
posted by crunchland at 9:21 AM on July 28, 2011 [2 favorites]

The worst? It doesn't even have a <blink> tag.
posted by tastyhat at 9:33 AM on July 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

Also, for what it's worth, Mike's Free Gifs is still rocking the proverbial bowling t-shirt, koRn undershirt, circular yellow glasses, and baggy cargo pants look.
posted by codacorolla at 9:44 AM on July 28, 2011

There are so many cringeworthy nonprofit sites that I'd really like to redesign. However, I'm forever scarred by the Sisyphean process in designing what should have been a simple five page site for a worthy cause. The director was a complete tyrant and had no concept of design but tried to impose her ideas anyway. I was fired from the volunteer position and some time later got a series of nasty phone calls implying that I'd "stolen" her passwords (which she'd picked herself, and I'd never changed). I'm totally gunshy about this now.
posted by desjardins at 9:49 AM on July 28, 2011

I thought Angelfire was dead and gone?

I was surprised to see that it was an Angelfire site, too. I mean, it looks like an old Angelfire site, but I assumed that Angelfire had died long before Geocities did.
posted by asnider at 10:16 AM on July 28, 2011

Needs more hamster dance.
posted by smirkette at 10:16 AM on July 28, 2011

Sheesh, I thought EVERYONE knew that THIS is the worst website.

Wow, the site is even more tasteless than those dresses, and that's saying a lot.
posted by FelliniBlank at 10:49 AM on July 28, 2011

Thorzdad, I remember that AskMe. Sorry to hear it's still going badly.
posted by epersonae at 11:05 AM on July 28, 2011

m@f "Serious question: has there ever been a good use of frames?"

The frames version of the manual for the Csound programming language is the best - one frame to jump to a letter in the index, another for the index, and a third to display the individual pages. Frames work very well for reference documents where you want to jump between hundreds of entries.
posted by idiopath at 11:52 AM on July 28, 2011

1990's bad design has nothing on modern Flash web design.
posted by JJ86 at 12:09 PM on July 28, 2011

1990's bad design has nothing on modern Flash web design.

God yes. Where bad HTML is usually just eye-stabbing at worst, bad Flash will make my browser seize up and/or crash. No swaying palm tree .gif ever did that to me.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 12:13 PM on July 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

This website makes me miss my undergrad years in college. At that time I would have killed for that website.
posted by BuffaloChickenWing at 12:33 PM on July 28, 2011

1990's bad design has nothing on modern Flash web design.

Pfft. Feast your eyes...
posted by Thorzdad at 12:37 PM on July 28, 2011 [2 favorites]

Pfft. Feast your eyes...

Web design by Tim and Eric?
posted by codacorolla at 12:42 PM on July 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

You guys forgot the trigger warning. I've worked with tens of non-profits over the years and generally have had good experiences, even if the budgets are wanting; small business owners are by far the worst.
posted by maxwelton at 12:50 PM on July 28, 2011

Holy shit.. That Yvette's Bridal website is awesome.
I'm not being sarcastic. I REALLY like the style of that webpage.
posted by TheKM at 12:58 PM on July 28, 2011

Bad websites are routinely designed by no doubt highly paid, aesthetically sophisticated people who think that website design should be conceptual art. These people deserve harsher criticism than the designers of sites for underfunded nonprofits. The former are deliberately trying to fuck with your mind, assuming that irritation is good viral advertising.

High-end street fashion sites are often the worst (you have to click all their unlabeled buttons and watch their video "lookbooks" till you find that their clothes are not actually for sale anywhere on their site)
posted by bad grammar at 1:14 PM on July 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

Serious question: has there ever been a good use of frames?

Yes, before Kottke got (more) tiresome.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 1:21 PM on July 28, 2011

This isn't all that bad. I can understand the layout, and I managed to find some useful content within one or two clicks. Besides the first paragraph, it's all pretty high contrast and readable. I think this is the web equivalent of a good singer trying to sing badly. Talent will out.
posted by doublehappy at 1:30 PM on July 28, 2011

Pfft. Feast your eyes...

A tab labeled "Untitled Document" is always a plus when marketing your web design skillz.
posted by Babblesort at 1:34 PM on July 28, 2011 [3 favorites]

Most web pages still have frames - they are called headers. In fact if anything has been solidified as popular it's the header. Gasp! Metafilter even has one.
I think you might be ill-informed.
posted by ghastlyfop at 2:00 PM on July 28, 2011

I second that its not the worst because there is no blinking text.
posted by SpaceWarp13 at 3:03 PM on July 28, 2011

This reminds me of a book I own...
posted by May Kasahara at 3:04 PM on July 28, 2011

Damn, I miss Geocities.
posted by essexjan at 3:18 PM on July 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

Comment is Free used to have a clear, simple page with all the recent stories on it. It now has a whole page of crap with big photos, meaningless icons and links to bits nobody ever uses with all the actual articles pushed into a little column on the left half way down the page. It embodies the bling over substance approach of the World's Worst Web 1.0 site in a Web 2.0 way. The technology has improved since Angelfire, but the 'more is more' approach is as strong as ever, even on major media sites. The link to the 600 comment discussion is there because about 400 of those comments are from disgruntled Gruaniad readers pointing this out.
posted by joannemullen at 3:46 PM on July 28, 2011

The hardest part for me over the years has been trying to come to terms with the fact that most people sincerely don't see a difference between good and bad web design

This is true of anything you care about. A lot of people can't hear speakers distort from being overdriven or having something in the signal path being clipped. Drives me batty (and led me to start running a sound system in college JUST SO I COULD HAVE UNDISTORTED MUSIC)
posted by flaterik at 6:19 PM on July 28, 2011

Ah, okay, I see what you mean, joannemullen, at least when it comes to the ridiculous orange icons and the All Posts column (I wish it was bigger). That said, it seems fairly straightforward to me. Maybe I've just developed web design Stockholm Syndrome over the years, but it was perfectly readable to me. This may come down to different website reading styles as well.
posted by Kattullus at 6:50 PM on July 28, 2011

I don't get what's wrong with the comment is free thing. Looks pretty unremarkable. And frankly, I'm sick of all the complainers. People bitch about every interface change. Things change, get over it.

And where the text has one of those things that does Javascript highlighting, so when the words ham sandwich appear, it decides you want to go to an ad-covered page with Search Results for Best Ham Sandwich Recipes in Your Town!

Install adblock. Do it now.

Most web pages still have frames - they are called headers. In fact if anything has been solidified as popular it's the header. Gasp! Metafilter even has one.

No.
posted by delmoi at 11:08 PM on July 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

Having just checked this out through my Hong Kong VPN I'm almost grateful to the Vietnam government for blocking the whole angelfire.com domain.
posted by grubby at 3:41 AM on July 29, 2011

I just realized something. Since Natalie Hanman became the editor of Comment is Free she doesn't write for the site much anymore, at least that I've noticed. That's a shame. She was one of The Guardian's most incisive voices. Hopefully now that the redesign is done she can write more.
posted by Kattullus at 6:43 PM on July 29, 2011

Please someone explain the functional difference between a frame and a header.

They both are fixed formatting and change the contents of the rest of the page. One runs along the top, the other along the side. Their function is IDENTICAL.
posted by AndrewKemendo at 8:07 PM on July 29, 2011

Please someone explain the functional difference between a frame and a header.

A frame uses the <frame> tag.

One runs along the top, the other along the side.

.... you are very confused.
posted by delmoi at 8:58 PM on July 29, 2011

When you say header, do you mean the top section that usually has a logo and the main navigation? Because that's not fixed while the rest of the page changes - it's repeated at the top of every new page. A frame (which can be made to go along the side, top, bottom, or anywhere else) is like a window that looks onto a different page. When used as a navigation method, you have a page with maybe two frames (say, frame.html), one which looks onto a page that stays the same (nav.html) but changes the page shown in the other area (content.html) when it's links are clicked. They're constructed very differently and have different maintenance needs. A frame breaks the back button in your browser and makes it difficult to bookmark properly because the bookmarker picks up the empty frame.html page and not what the content.html that the user wanted.
posted by harriet vane at 2:09 AM on July 30, 2011

Enjoying the music? Your website visitors probably won't enjoy it either. Usually, it is best to skip the tunes, but if you must add music, be sure you provide a way for them to turn it off!

Enjoying being beaten with hammers? Your friends probably won't enjoy it either. Usually, it is best to skip the hammering, but if you must be violent, be sure you provide a way for them to ask you to stop!
posted by Grangousier at 2:42 AM on July 30, 2011