Army-issued veterans site

Founded by Chuck Reickoff, author of the fantastic "Chasing Ghosts, based on his experience as an American occupier of Iraq just after the fall of Baghdad, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America organization aims to help soldiers adjust to life back in the world, educating them on their benefits and lobbying Congress on their behalf on issues like the GI Bill.

Upon first impression, one may think this site is Army-commissioned, but it's an independent organization. The color palette - green, tan and gold - is appropriate for the site, but it risks the aforementioned confusion.

The site does well on the CRAP test.

Contrast: The site uses its color palette effectively to clearly indicate different elements and sections. The layout is designed to look somewhat like an open folder, as if the viewer was privy to a military brief. The green main nav bar and links are easy to find and recognize. 

Repetition: The site is consistent with its navigation and content, and from page to page, viewers should have no problem finding elements.

Alignment: The page tends to skew to the right, with a secondary nav bar in the right division. The site uses multimedia elements well, and nearly every page has a dominant video or photo image. 

Proximity: Great padding throughout. Clean design.

Bad website...well, sort of

How ironic. My family moved to Clinton Township last summer and this is my first time visiting the city's website because of a class assignment. If I were a newcomer to the website with no knowledge of web design, I would think the page was fine.

However, that's not the case now.

There are some positives about it. The site is well organized, no crazy color scheme (the blue, white and gray fits the mood of the site), no ridiculous icons and navigation is there for everyone to see.

Now on to the negatives.

The first thing I noticed was the homepage failed to provide a blurb, telling you what website's purpose. I guess they assumed the banner info was enough. You figure it out. Another noticeable thing was the primary navigation bar. It irked me because when I went over any of the links, a list of other links would appear. There's just too much information for that and it makes everything looks cluttered.

For example, when you drag the mouse over the "Welcome" bar, only one link appears. It's just not necessary. A small, yet significant observation were the divs, particularly on the right side were longer than others. In regards to the navigation again, it can become confusing because if you click on a link, you have no way of getting back to the homepage and the primary navigation completely changes. The website also has important information below the scroll and when I dragged my mouse over the links or tried to click on them, the color remained the same. One of my pet peeves are advertisements randomly on the side of websites and this one succeeded in doing this. There are ads on both sides of the site.

Overall, the website is not a horrific one. Yet, there is too much going on in terms of information all over the place and appearing to cluttered. It could use some multimedia elements to make the site more lively (maybe interviews with residents for example). They're off to a good start, but there's always room for improvement.

Sprint: Plug into Now.

The purpose of this Web site is to... Well, it's hard to say, right? That's the main reason I chose it. No doubt people who stumble upon the site will ooh and aah at the sleekness of the product. After all, it's from Sprint. However, despite the beauty of it, this site was listed as one of the worst Web sites of 2008 on WebPagesThatSuck.com, and here are some reasons why, provided by myself and Vincent Flanders. (Click to see what he had to say about it via YouTube.)

For one thing, the navigation is unfriendly at best. The main site is cluttered with widgets that do not fit on smaller screens (definitely not 955 x 600 pixels). Worse is that in order to get to the widget on the bottom left, you have to use your mouse and shimmy yourself over there. Why not make life easy for people and allow them to scroll? If you go to another window or tab, the site automatically scrolls to the bottom right for you (so when you go back, you have to manually shimmy yourself back to the top left for the semi-relevant information). I don't really care about how useless the widgets are because that decision was clearly intentional, but the most important (if not only) important element on the page is practically invisible in the mess of pointless information.

Once you finally realize the only effective link is the "Take it to go with Mobile Broadband" button, our big question ("What is this?"), is finally answered on the new page, which features the sky view of a city. Little speech bubbles pop up randomly with equally random messages. When you roll over certain locations, bubbles follow you around, but still some popups are random, and the first time I was on the site I spent a bit too much time trying to figure out whether I was having a Beautiful-Mind moment or not. Again, it takes a lot of concentration to not focus on the city and actually read the blurb on the left, which vaguely defines the product and finally gives you a link to a purchasing page (which is a clear and concise subpage of Sprint - thank goodness!)

It's not that I don't think the two pages and their ideas are cool - I can picture plenty of people having fun "in the moment". But, as Flanders notes, the "metaphor navigation" is distressing. The creator obviously knows Flash, but as we have discussed in class, "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should." Actually, all the important elements are there, but they are overpowered by the widgets on the first page, and the popups on the second. Never at any moment in time do I get a concrete sense of what the product is, so never do I want to purchase the product - which I still don't fully understand. Maybe a Sprint user would know better?

The site definitely has redeeming qualities. It's a mess, but at least it doesn't give you seizures. And the idea of always knowing what's going on at any second of the day? That's always been a hot topic. I'm sure males respond positively to the sexual voiceover. I definitely got a good laugh out of it when she said, "Feel free to touch it." Yep, that's what she said!

If the purpose is only to entertain, then thank you Sprint, you have succeeded. It is a very pretty site, and you let me play pong on a 50 x 50 sized widget. However, I think Sprint's goal is to sell me something, and based on the Web site alone, I am not buying.

Sarasota-Tampa Express

This website hits pretty much all of the high points of a bad website in my opinion.

First there is the music that starts as soon as the page loads, and doesn't have an off button. Its different on every page and I can't think of a single reason that it would be necessary.

Second, as soon as you move your mouse  the words start following you. In order to ensure that you can read the text you must remember place the mouse at the header when you've finished clicking. Randomly, you loose the mouse trail on some pages while it continues on others.

The rainbow flashing "New" indicators are especially distracting as you try and figure out what service this site is offering.

There are two types of navigation, the buttons that run down the left side, and another set of buttons the run across the bottom. They have the same links except for the addition of "Photos" at the bottom.

The look of the buttons and page layout are consistent for some of the site. However, when you look at "Tampa Airport" and "Contact Us" pages its entirely different.

Also on the "Tampa Airport" page, it seems they have taken the graphic of the airport straight off the airport's page.  Sure they credit it, but clicking on it automatically takes you to the airport page in the same window. 

The "Maps" link also doesn't take you to a page with maps. I can't tell if that is  on purpose or if their maps just don't load. 

In their defense however, it is easy to navigate and prices, schedules and contact info is easy to find.

Bad Site -- New York Film Academy

As bland as our own school website might be, at least it doesn't look like a cheap hooker on a street corner. Fortunately, this look was achieved by the website of the New York Film Academy, School of Film & Acting.

Lets just start with the obvious: the color palette is HORRIBLE. It does nothing but improve the cheapness that is emanated from the fonts, blinking words, and the low quality pictures found in certain places on the site. Um, did you know that Miss Universe 2008 went to school here? Um, did you know that NYFA couldn't get a high quality picture of their own student?

The prestige of this school is lost on me. I use the word prestige with reserve because the website seems like something more reserved for a rip-off, fake school, than some college that produced..well, no one all that important. Especially for a school claiming to be "one of the most prominent fixtures of film education in the world." Diane Neal who played Case Novak on Law & Order: SVU is about the most popular alumni they have on their webste. Oh, and Lonelygirl15, Jessica Rose. Classy. On the plus side, it's pretty easy to find most of the information you may look for on a school website, such as tuition, or available programs.

Bad color scheme, some videos that start automatically, cheap looks, and bad photoes equal bad website.

Bad Site--Restaurant Guide Atlanta

The Restaurant Guide Atlanta site is impressive with its 12,000 restaurant listings, but it's overwhelming use of every space and bright colors make you think you're looking at a spam advertisement.

Within the home page, the problems are massive. There are two animated objects moving at the same time at different places on the screen, the links and nav bars are buried within the text and the page is overloaded with info.

Some other major problems include the banner going to different home pages, each additional page has a different layout and a tacky, inconsistent color palette.

The site has lots of information, but the clutter makes it impossible to read. It is a horrible site to serve as a guide and would easily confuse any tourist.

Event Site -- Common Ground Festival

I don't know how many of you have been, but the Common Ground Festival is a big deal in Lansing during the hot summer month of July.

The festival is usually a combination of local bands and a couple of high profile acts that come annually. The festival isn't scheduled until July 6th - 12th this year, so some of the information on the website is lacking, but the design is nice.

To reference acts that have been at Common Ground, there is a built in playlist of music from past performers. The color palatte is simple primary red and blue on a mostly white page. There is a background picture that is mostly covered by the center scroll, and a line of ads down the left side of the scroll also. The ads on the left also serve as a secondary navigation of sorts, pointing visitors to social networking pages for the festival on places such as Myspace and Facebook.

The main navigation bar is forefront and apparent, in red and white, with very easy to read text and no drop down menus. The utility navigation is in the footer, but there is also a link home and to a contact page at the very top above the main navigation bar. The header "Common Ground" is also a link home.

From what I can tell, it would be very easy to find information for who may be performing, when, even though that information is not currently available. Ticket prices on the other hand, can be seen and easily deiphered.

Overall, I think the site does it's job of giving out information for the next festival, being easy to navigate and inform, and it keeps a visitor's attention.

No Joy in Toy Joy

ToyJoy.com shows that no matter how pretty the package is, an empty website is still an empty website.

Surprisingly, toyjoy.com is a decently designed website. The colors are fun yet slightly controlled and they are all pulled from the overbearing background. Navigation is simple and it's easy to understand. This site is obviously designed for a younger audience, or at least the young at heart.

The title page needs a little work. All the images are interactive, once you move over the icon, it interacts in a entertaining motion. But only one of the buttons are actually active. The rest react to clicking without performing any action, leaving customers wondering why they can't move to the next website. Some of the motions on the website causes the main page to move slightly, which is annoying.

Once you enter the shop page, the navigation is clear and the page is well organized. The color changes, but the obnoxios background and the colors stay consistent. There are even options to recieve RSS Feeds and change font sizes.

Then you realize that the toy store is practically empty.

Each product section has less than ten items, seven having no products at all. The top ten products list only contains two products.

I realized after browsing through that this website isn't complete, but is it worth it to make an incomplete website live? Would you give a child a brightly colored present with nothing inside?

I hope not.

Event Site--Rothbury

The site for the music festival in Rothbury, Mich. over Fourth of July weekend is a professional site with entertaining elements that make visitors eager to attend the event.

The site has an overall calming feeling with bursts of excitement from its interactive features.

The color palette is made up of subtle earth tones, which stem from the background picture of a forest with a stage made out of trees.

In the the woodland stage there is a scrolling menu listing the several musicians scheduled to perform so far. It is the first glimpse of the site's interactive features. The most impressive feature is under the gallery tab where there are amazing photos and videos from the first-ever festival in 2008.

The site also has an easily accessible navigation bar. The bar is informative and helpful with its extended ways to learn about the festival and how to plan your festival experience.

Traveling through the different tabs on the navigation bar, the color palette remains the same, but each border picture is a different moment from the previous festival. Visually, it provides both continuity and surprise. The subtle change makes the transition easy to understand while still keeping your attention.

I think the site clearly explains the event and how to participate while exciting and entertaining the viewer. I think this combination achieves the goal of an event site.

Brill Publications

At first I thought Brill Publications had a fun interactive website, but it turned out to be confusing and difficult to navigate. First of all it is not immediately obvious what Brill Publications sells or offers. It seems to be for writers of some kind, but it was not until I explored for quite a few minutes did I realize that they sell products that people would actually buy such as merchandise with fun quotes or sayings on them.

You can tell they really wanted an interactive and unique experience, but you can't appreciate their creativity if you can't actually navigate the site. The user has to take "elevator" rides to different floors with different activities. The gift shoppe and My story floors seem to be selling the products. It isn't obvious what is clickable, and there is annoying background noise like you are in a crowded room. Also, you can't just quickly get to a floor, you have to ride the elevators. Even the quick start lift option seems to take you to different floors. Many of the floors are also "under construction" and non functional. The top floor just plays music, like the user is sitting on a roof top garden. I wasn't sure what the point of this floor was.

It also seems to offer writing contests and an online publication...but they would probably get a lot more business with a website that showed the products up front.

It would be fine to have such an interactive site as an option along with a more straightforward one. But the website really doesn't match the products they are selling...there seems to be no reason for "flash happy site".

Small-Town Website

The Village of Chagrin Falls, Ohio, leaves nothing to be desired when it comes to aesthetics. Quaint little shops, a picturesque waterfall, and historical homes are all part of the town. The town's website, however, is another story.

The organization of the site is OK: links on the side, navigation at the top, other information dispersed throughout. But by exploring just the home page a little further, a few quirks are revealed. First, the navigation at the top uses those pesky drop down boxes. But for some reason, not all of the categories have them. The cursor also does not turn into the little helpful hand when on a link, so the only way you know you can click is because the words move slightly to the side.

The typography changes throughout the site, with some of the links bold and sans-serif, and others regular font and serif. The home page also has important information below the scroll, where most people will probably never discover it.

There are several other problems that I find on the site, but one glaring mistake takes the cake: The random, growing and shrinking snowflake on the right side of the home page. Perhaps they wanted to make it clear that all pages are indeed "special" in their own way.

I expected more from Microsoft

While browsing webpagesthatsuck.com to find a bad Web site to discuss, I was surprised to see that Microsoft was listed as having the second worst site of 2007. Of course, that list is pretty dated and when I went to the site it was clear that they fixed the issues of horrible color contrast that landed them at the number two spot back then. However, considering that they are a multi-billion-dollar computer technology corporation, their Web site is still nowhere near where it should be.

First of all, the navigation is incredibly annoying. The Web site is huge, and every page of it is listed on the boxes that drop down when you hover over the links at the top of the homepage. Not only is this really visually unappealing, but it’s inconvenient to have to avoid hovering over the links if you don’t want the entire page taken over by those boxes. Also, it doesn’t seem very well organized to me. Too much information is dropping down in these boxes to make it easy to navigate.

The next gripe I have about Microsoft’s Web site is that every single section of it is designed completely differently. It looks like a different person designed each page. This makes the navigation really inconsistent and every time you visit another page you have to try to figure it out again. Also, many of the pages don’t include links back to the homepage. Web sites like Apple, on the other hand, keep the style consistent of every section of the site, and they keep the exact same navigation bar at the top of the page to avoid confusion.

Overall, although Microsoft’s Web site by no means completely jumps out as a horrible Web site, it does fall victim to some subtle yet annoying navigational and style issues. While I feel that some smaller businesses are allowed a little leniency when it comes to Web design, Microsoft really has no excuse.

[The text didn't show up for some reason in the post below so this is my second attempt]

Good Venue, Crappy Web Site

Mac's Bar is one of the best places in Lansing to watch a band, especially if you're into smoky, divey watering holes with poor acoustics, stellar bathroom stall literature and cheap drinks. However none of that comes across from the bar's Web site.

While the site is serviceable in that it contains the critical elements a viewer would search for — directions, hours of operation, contact number, entertainment calendar — some of its elements are lacking and it is missing an opportunity to convey through its design what makes the bar unique.

The problems began for me on the home page, organized into three main columns, the third of which is blank. Why not highlight some significant, upcoming shows in this spot? 

This home page announces, above the navigation bar, "Shoot your own music videos at Macs," but doesn't offer a link to more instructions. Seems kind of random. Makes me wonder if they're open for Bar Mitzvahs as well.

Below the navigation bar is another non-link ordering the viewer to "stay tuned." For what? I don't know.

The navigation bar itself works pretty well in that its color turns from red (with a white drop shadow) on black, to white (with a red drop shadow) on black when activated. However the first would-be link, "History," is dead. Maybe viewers are supposed to stay tuned for the venue to create and document its history?

The link that is most relevant to me when I visit is "Calendar," which leads the viewer to a separate page featuring a list of shows. This is problematic in a few ways: First, I have a 12-inch screen, and have to scroll to the right to view the pictures of the bands who are playing; secondly, the font is too large, which allows only two shows to be displayed on my screen. I have to scroll down constantly; thirdly, many of the headlining band links either send the viewer back to the calendar page he or she is in, or send the viewer to Mac's Bar's MySpace page, which is no better than its Web site.

The "Booking" page opens the viewer's default e-mail software to send an email to the venue. This was annoying because my default email software is no longer current and I had to close out of a few windows. Why not just provide an email address within a separate page to either click on, or to copy and paste. Then they could provide some general guidelines for booking shows as well. For instance, how early do they book shows, who is in charge, what kinds of bands play there, etc.?

The "Directions" page sends viewers to a Google Maps page in a separate window. It would be better to import this map into the site.

The "Gallery" page has potential. The photo viewer seems to work pretty well, but the venue only has six photos up. One would think the venue just opened. Who knows. It has no history.

— Andrew Norman

 

Yet another .gov website

Each time I visit a .gov website, I experience déjà vu! This .gov website is no different. Created a little over two decades ago by the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), New Delhi, India for the Indian Railways, this website (http://www.indianrail.gov.in/) is basically ridden with fundamental organizational flaws.

The menu names on the main/home page like "Have a Look", "Services You Can Use", and "Vox Populi" are wordy and archaic. Also, elements like the header, navigation bar, two columns of links appear to be thrown in randomly. The colors do not seem to be in sync. There is lack of symmetry between the links in terms of font size and bullet usage. The navigation is quite awkward. If on the homepage, clicking on any other link keeps the user in the same url, but clicking on some link while on a different page (like Train Schedule) takes the user to a new window, which can become inconvenient and cumbersome at times. There is no uniformity in the typography (the font type, font color, and font size of the links and text on each page is different). The About Us section opens up a page with the header - Indian Railways Online Website (are there any Offline Websites too?!), and right below lies a half-eaten, weather-beaten, almost shy, bottomless (oops!) Indian Railways type (ouch!). The Vox Populi section (yes, Vox Populi?!!...are we still in the Anglo-Saxon era??) page has some amateurish graphics (read a flashing, blinking, happy-go-lucky "flower", and Suggestions type!).

Considering that the Indian Railways, which is completely owned by the government of India, is such a profit-making body, its website sure needs a facelift, and fast!

Anusuya Das

The Most Overwhelming Website EVER

This website may not have a lot of crazy moving and blinking graphics, but it contains more text than I have ever seen. I was overwhelmed by this website just from first glance. I would not even know where to begin exploring this website (assuming that there is any content to pursue). This is an "online newspaper" that focuses on political issues and news. This is just WAYYYY too much information to bunch on one page.

Here is the link: http://www.havenworks.com/

BEWARE: For those who suffer from anxiety, this website may cause panic attacks.

Crazy who-can-even-figure-out-what-this-is-for webpage

This "thing" hurts my eyes.  I can't imagine actually spending time on this site for something I wanted.  Is this a comic, show or just random images and links? 

Well, the lack of organization and numerous distractions make it near impossible to navigate. Once you're over the initial shock of the general appearance, leave.  

This site highlights pretty much everything you shouldn't do with a webpage.  There's bright, flashing colors, plenty of repetitive moving objects and absolutely no order. 

Don't do this.

Obnoxious Religious Website

So this is the website I brought in for dicussion its very obnoxious in its color and graphic choices. Enjoy! http://www.dokimos.org/ajff/