1. Everyday once a day we (any member of the forums) will post ONE URL to a website that has some "visitor friendly design flaws". I'm talking the designer/developer pulled a Homer Simpson and should smack themselves on the head for that one.

2. Upon your URL submission you must provide a description of what you think is NOT visitor friendly about the site. What makes it suck? You must also include some alternative solutions in your description.

3. Once the post has been made I encourage others to take a look at that site and add any insult and injury I mean "info" they see fit. After stating your opinion you must again provide an alternative solution.

4. Only THREE nominees are accepted per day. So if you see three for that day than save yours for tomorrow!

At the end of the day based on the cases presented we will vote for who should win the DOH! award.

The goal here to learn from other peoples goof ups and to see different solutions for everyday problems.

[This message has been edited by xelA (edited 07-02-2001).]

Company Name: Goosehead, Inc.

Company URL: www.goosehead.com

Design Issues: Worthless Navigation Syndrome (WNV)

The designers decided to use the uP aNd DoWn text to be "creative" they also made the links as graphics without any rollovers or hover effects. In some of the hardest fonts and colors to read. This way you don't quite know where to click or where it will take you.
The best link is "WHATEVER" ...I think it speaks for itself.

Solution: We realize this site is supposto have "teen appeal" but I think standardizing the text and making consistent links with relevant link keywords should help people know where they are going after clicking on the obscure link.

Agree or Disagree?

quote:

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Design Issues: Worthless Navigation Syndrome (WNV)

...you don't quite know where to click or where it will take you.

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Not sure what you mean Alex, I clicked on "homework help" and was taken to a page about homework, I clicked on "movies" and was taken to a page about movies, I clicked on "mp3" and was taken to a page about mp3 files.

Your assertion about 'blind navigation' isn't true about this particular site.

I do agree that the graphics are a little 'busy', but they also look 'creative' and 'professional' and I think those graphics would appeal to their teen audience. The graphics look pretty good to me for a site catering to teens.

The "Whatever" link seems rather interesting to me, it will compel people to click on it, and one 'blind' link doesn't make the entire site navigation bad (maybe if every link said "whatever" then the site would have problems).

Anybody else?

I myself being a teen find no interest in this site at all. Seems kind of gothic and sadistic. I might visit this site again if I'm looking for creative ways to kill myself.

Design Issues:
Worthless Navigation Syndrome (WNV)
Poor text & font choices (PTFC)
"Blah" factor (BF)

I sort of expected a more professional site since it is part of the UCLA department. I suppose that not everyone is a webmaster.. could it possibly be true? There are quite a few issues with this site, but the most important are a lack of a clear navigation system throughout other pages of the site and the text itself. The text is too large to be read comfortably (especially the titles) and centered (in the top half of the page). Since eye pattern generally moves from left to right it can be difficult. Beyond the top half, the text once again changes size and justification. The other problem with this site is that it is very plain. There is very little to attract my attention and retain me as a visitor.

Solution: I think this site could be vastly improved by a clearcut navigation system. Consistency of text sizes, bolding and justification would help to pull this page together. A little colour here or there to "jazz" it up a little would also help to add visitor interest.

Solution: Start over without the whizbang, geewhiz, wow! stuff.

As an aside, you can do a search for "Tudor watches" on any engine, and never find this site. There might be another award for "Most time and money spent for a user unfriendly site".

Webmasters like that pervert the use of Flash with bandwidth heavy animations that turn off the whole world.

If people like that would get rid of the bitmaps in their Flash object and use only optimized vector based images then the animation could begin playing in less than 5 seconds and run smoothly throughout.

This site all but begs people to not buy anything, heck, I left the site before I could even get to see the picture of a specific watch and its order information.

YOUR SYSTEM IS UNIDENTIFIED
We cannot correctly detect the presence of 'Flash Player' in your system !
Try to enter the site, or go to the download page.
In order to fully benefit from the 'www.tudorwatch.com' features,
please download the 'Flash Player'.

My isp was a close runner up for my nomination- http://www.ihug.co.nz

I have to agree with hazmat!
I would have to use a Ctrl+F and search for "download" in order to find something.

The color is peppered throughout the page. There is no clear direction to where the eye needs to be lead.

I would suggest that they break their content up over a few pages instead of trying to fit it all in one place.

[This message has been edited by xelA (edited 07-15-2001).]

Nitewing