August 7, 2008

Today's worst website with the best images

This website is an absolute monstrosity. At first it looks like it might be a little neat with it's drag and drop/double-click style of navigation, but upon further exploration it becomes a charlie foxtrot of mystery meat navigation. You're given no hint as to what each click might reveal, where you could find what you actually want, or that your double-click will result in another window popping up (something I'll admit that my blog and site are both guilty of).

Sure, you could claim that the initially neat but horrifically user unfriendly design is a result of the guy's background in art/design. Right, it's pretty but ultimately unuseful. Sounds like the worst of the art school stereotype.

But then you get to this, his radical, attractive, and surprisingly useful design for directions within a parking garage. From most directions, the instructions look like long, random lines of paint used to decorate the place, but as you start to head into the right direction, the words coalesce into clear and unambiguous driving directions.

It's amazing to me how some people can have such clear understanding of the concept in one milieu and be utterly clueless in another.

Make
your
website
work
for
me.

Simple, easy to understand.

Keep usability above all else.

You wouldn't take your new book - the one you hope will be your introduction to the world of best sellers - and arrange its pages at utter random the first time it was printed, would you?

C'mon, dude...

4 comments:

ReJEcht said...

Word of caution: I looked around this website and found some pictures that you might not want to have your blog linked to. Double click on the black skull at the beginning, read the word, and groan.

PHSChemGuy said...

I'm not up on my German, but when I click the black skulls, the only thing I get is the magazine Feld...I don't see anything that's a problem to me...

achilles3 said...

hey change your header and then start talking about ugly websites HAHA! ;-)

PHSChemGuy said...

Lakes...I'm talking now, ya pansy