There are websites that are just so broken that anyone can see what’s wrong. From truly heinous bridal clothing stores to bizarre and incompetent internet marketers, we’ve tracked down the ten ugliest, least functional, and most utterly bizarre websites we could find. [via addtodesign]
When you design websites for a living, even the smallest error on an otherwise great site can bring its credibility down. From broken RSS feeds to annoying image borders, small errors that go unnoticed by almost everyone can become a burning annoyance to an experienced designer. Designers, please take some sedatives before you read this list, or at least try to stay calm as you’re reading.
1. The Internet’s Worst Bridal Store
What better way to kick off a ‘worst websites’ list than with what is quite possibly the worst website in existence. Yvette’s Boutique is supposed to be a bridal clothing and accessories store, but by looking at the website you’d expect it to be a blind kid’s art project. There are hundreds of different colors, all used for completely stupid page elements like blinking text and blinding text boxes.
Of course, that’s nothing without the soundtrack. In a move reminiscent of everyone’s 1990s Geocities page, Yvette’s Boutique have opted to sell their bridal gowns with some weird pop punk song. Click through to the supporting pages to be greeted with equally annoying ambient music, classical themes, and 80s keyboard tunes.
2. Russia’s Ultra-Bland Government Website
Featuring about as much color as a Siberian winter, Russia’s official government website looks as if it was designed in 1998. Oh wait, take a look at the footer and you’ll see that it was. While this incredibly dull website looks as if it was designed inside a beige concrete USSR administrative building, at least it’s not as blindingly colorful or frustratingly animated as almost every other website on the list.
3. Internet Marketing Just Got Incompetent
As fun as it can be to name and shame poor designers, it’s even better to highlight the bizarre incompetent goons that make up the online marketing world. While many of them bring in thousands of dollars per day from their marketing efforts, the vast majority are, well, not quite so skilled.
Steve Wagenheim definitely falls into the latter category. As charming as purple page headers and courier body text might have been in 1996, the internet has grown up and most people have moved on. This would have been funny from a thirteen year old that’s just starting to learn web design, but when it comes from a “professional”internet marketer who makes his money by telling other people how to make money, you know there’s a level of competence missing.
4. Hypnosis Products that Give You a Seizure
Hypnosis has been around for a long time, which might explain why this hypnotherapist’s website looks like a 1980s Atari game. Offering a range of most likely ineffective hypnotherapy products, this gem of a website features everything that everyone hates about poor design. First, there’s the grainy and pixelated GIF in the header. Then, there’s the annoying clash of bright red and dark blue all over the place. Oh, and how could we forget, the blinding Starfox-style background.
Here’s a hint for designers: if you want to gain respect (and clients), don’t make your websites look like a Nintendo Entertainment System game. This website might have slipped through the cracks in 1996, but for a website made in 2006 it’s just beyond incompetent.
5. Tampax: The Only Corporation with an MS Paint Website
Most of the ugliest websites on the internet aren’t owned by major corporations, or even commercial properties for the most part. They’re largely just the result of kids playing around on Geocities, or now defunct companies starting websites in 1996 and forgetting to update them.
However, Tampax is a major company, yet their website still looks like it was designed in MS Paint. We’re not even talking about the flashy new Windows 7 version either, but the horrific abortion of drawing and design that shipped with Windows XP. For a company that brings in over ten billion dollars in revenue every year, you’d think they’d be able to afford a website that doesn’t make your brain hurt.
6. The Least Self-Aware Web Design Firm in Europe
Truth be told, there’s almost definitely a worse web design company than this one in Europe, probably located in a bunker in a ex-Eastern Bloc country. This German web design company just doesn’t quite know what they’re doing, do they? While purporting to be able to design websites from scratch and create convincing corporate web presences, their own looks like it was outsourced to a five-year-old.
From the annoying Flash animations to the blinking GIFs, there’s not much worse than this web design company site. Bad design for your personal website or bridal clothing store is excusable – but for a web design company it’s beyond stupid.
7. Premier Dinghy Insurance
Insurance websites aren’t meant to be attractive as much as they’re meant to be informative. Unfortunately, this bizarre dinghy and sailboat insurance website is neither. While there are no annoying flash animations or blinding
