How not to design a website?

Marc | 15:11 UK time, Thursday, 8 November 2007

In the course of preparing iPM, the members of the team look at hundreds, possibly thousands, of webpages in all the corners of cyberspace as we strive to find the very best to put on the programme.

Many blogs and websites are really well designed.

But some aren't.

Here's a screenshot of one site I've been made aware of called Havenworks.com.

You can have a closer look at it here but I'd recommend putting on sunglasses first. It claims to be a news website - and there are news stories on the page - but the phrase "less is more" comes to mind.

We'd love to know if you've ever come across anything to rival this website. Tell us in the comments section, or send us an email, about websites or blogs that have caught your eye for the WRONG reasons.

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Comments

At 04:21 PM on 08 Nov 2007, iCharlie wrote:

Not to rival the one you show but I came across this site...

Now, how can I put this..?

Well, I was...

No. Least said, soonest...

http://rentmychest.com/

Anyway, this one I found when...

http://inmatesforyou.com/
At 05:55 PM on 08 Nov 2007, Helal Ahmed wrote:
One consideration that web designers/developers rarely take into account is the availability of bandwith and the use of additional plugins to view content.

I usually like to travel to less developed countries and having access to the net for communication is great to communicate with folks back at home.

As bandwith is usually less than the UK, sites can be cumbersome to load and not many sites have 'lo-fi' versions. This is problematic if you use services such as email providers (free) that are contain advertising.
At 06:08 PM on 08 Nov 2007, Peet McKimmie wrote:
Many years ago, when I was "signing on", I had "web design" listed as one of my skills. I was sent for a job interview to a small corner shop who had a website.

This was in the mid-1990s. The woman who ran the website was convinced they would make their fortune, if they could only put in a link banner to every affiliate site on the whole internet.

The site was called, I kid you not, "www.cornershoptardis.co.uk". Thankfully, no trace of it remains. (Yes, I know it infringed on the BBC's IP. I tried to explain that to her, but was met with blank stares - to her, "Tardis" was just "a word that everybody had heard of"...)

When I saw it, the structure of the site was a front page with an animated GIF of the TARDIS that took about five minutes to load by modem (I'm not kidding; she only ever looked at it on her local machine) linked to twenty or more sub-pages filled with standard banner links - no actual content of her own.

I was in a bad position. If I turned the job down, I would lose my benefit. If I took the job, I would have to gouge my own eyes out. In the end, I came up with a compromise...

I asked her if I could think about it over the weekend. On the Monday I returned with a twenty-page "deconstruction" of the site and all its problems. She read the first page and a half before telling me I wasn't "suited" to her pet project. :-)
At 06:25 PM on 08 Nov 2007, Andrew Denny wrote:
Have a look at www.purple.com

'More is more' comes to mind!
At 07:21 PM on 08 Nov 2007, broke wrote:
Erm, how about the whole of Myspace? The horror of it is that there's some decent content there (music)... so I have to steel myself to visit from time to time. I mean.... Why does it have to look like THAT?!
At 06:24 AM on 09 Nov 2007, matty wrote:
to be honest i'm really impressed with most sites thesedays. i started building sites in about 1999 and since then we've come along so much. just a note on political parties: i am no tory but their site is great; the labout one is AWFUL
At 11:19 AM on 09 Nov 2007, i-Piper wrote:

Marc

Not what you were necessarily seeking I think

BUT, the £'s soaring against the $

So, those who want to pamper their most important "companion" for less this coming festive season might like this site

http://www.barkerandmeowsky.com/
At 11:19 AM on 09 Nov 2007, Marc Settle wrote:
Andrew @ 4

Purple does exactly what it says on the tin! What a strange site. It's left me rather bemused...
At 12:24 PM on 09 Nov 2007, iCharlie wrote:
Not so much caught my eye as caused watering Marc

Wonder if this would help raise my self-esteem...

(No pun. I'm merely quoting from the site)

http://www.neuticles.com/index1.html
At 03:15 PM on 09 Nov 2007, Sean Williams wrote:
I see plenty of folks have looked at the havenworks site - it's over-used it's bandwidth allocation and is now suspended!
Could they sue? =:o/
At 07:20 PM on 09 Nov 2007, whisht wrote:
phew!

none of mine have been mentioned.....

(but its only time....)

[ahem]
At 07:41 PM on 09 Nov 2007, whisht wrote:
mind you - (and this to what is probably a sensitive readership of webby people) can we ask to kill the animated advertising of the "fifth column"?

please??

how many of you (us) reduce the browser to exclude that juddering juggernaut of revolving bling?

what - just me?!?
At 01:23 AM on 10 Nov 2007, Marcus Smith wrote:
I just wonder if Havenworks were trying to make the site look like a broadsheet newspaper? And if you consider how much paper you get in a US newspaper like the NY Times, then I think the site makes sense.
At 03:31 PM on 12 Nov 2007, Design manager wrote:
In general, it is not a site, it's just a set of symbols. I wonder if Havenwork owners at least understand what is this site about?
A good example of tastelessness in web design.

http://www.ecommerce-land.com

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