’)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.
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. Accept Jesus, Forever Forgiven
Ok, so this one isn’t real, or at least not unintentionally ugly. After the first four websites, we figured you’d need a break and a healthy dose of self-awareness. From the fake security warning to the rainbow background, this bizarre cocktail of web design and parody includes almost every 1990s web design feature that designers hate. Next time you’re bored on a Saturday night, score some serious drugs and stare at the background.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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 <blink> tags, the strange blue and black color scheme, off-center layout, and broken title tags make this mess of a website a real masterpiece. Feel like sampling their intuitive interface? Try asking for an insurance quote.
9. Bee Bee’s Psychotic Kid’s Designs
This website contains everything there is to hate about the internet. First, visitors are greeted with a Flash intro, complete with annoying Twilight Zone music and sound effects that were probably ripped from Sonic the Hedgehog. Click through to the main site and you’re greeted with one nice thing – an end to the music – and hundreds of blinding page elements. From annoying animated GIFs to clashing page colors (purple and turquoise, anyone?), Bee Bee Designs packs everything bad into one convenient location.
10. The Norwegian Gadget/Epilepsy Supercenter
The old saying “less is more” has never been more true than for this bizarre Norwegian gadget and electronics website. When it comes to going overboard, this company has done it twice – once with its website design, and once again with its bizarre and mix-match product selection. Let’s think this through – who in their right mind would go shopping for a Porsche at the same store that stocks remote control helicopters? When it comes to design and business it’s best to eliminate unnecessary extras, not pile them on until you can’t fit any more.
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Heryien
March 28, 2010 at 12:45 pm
Hahaha.. This very funny. Espesially the first one and fifth..
really gonna need to be burn out.
Matty Craig
March 28, 2010 at 1:05 pm
The first one is my absolute fav. Brings back memories of the Geocities days.
Jack Rugile
March 28, 2010 at 3:50 pm
Entertaining! Definitely makes me feel bad though for some of them.
How some of these designs got so convoluted, I will never know.
Andrew Bleakley
March 28, 2010 at 5:18 pm
Number 10 is a ripper. I love the “mint condition” graphic (bottom right) pretty much sums up the crew that put this site together – boobs
Matty Craig
March 28, 2010 at 6:23 pm
@Andrew LOL! I Didn’t even see that! Bwahahaha
serrebi
March 28, 2010 at 7:33 pm
Love the title. Both makes fun of bad design, and the blind! I’m blind, so I’m aloud to have this opinion :D
abner
March 29, 2010 at 1:53 am
tampax and dinghy seem to have gotten the hint and hired pros to design their sites
Hvati
March 29, 2010 at 4:02 am
Wow! This is a great way to start the morning!
starr
March 29, 2010 at 4:04 am
LOL great list. No. 5 nearlly gave me a fit. Love the clock on No. 7. Without that I would have never have known what time it was!
Conor (InspirationOverload)
March 29, 2010 at 6:16 am
Great post! Love 1, 9 and 10. Really makes you wonder what went through these people’s minds when making these sites..
Scott
March 29, 2010 at 7:08 am
Good for a laugh. Not sure about the Tampax site. I’m assuming the Tampax web site has been redesigned since this was posted, as I didn’t think it was that bad and actually like the menu system.
Just thought it might be good to point out this site though. I think it fits into your design list here, however this girl is raking it in. Partly because her business model is a no nonsense delivery of a product and she actually plays on the disorganised design of the site. It kind of fits with her persona.
She’s been on a few Business programs here in the UK I guess showing a good example of successful unconventional business.
Tina dos Santos
March 29, 2010 at 7:47 am
Oh my god! A lot of rainbows!
Kevin
March 29, 2010 at 8:00 am
Numbers 7 and 8 actually look great. I don’t understand your description on 8. It was not blue and black but rather shades of blue, and it was centered…
Are you looking at the sites in a broken browser like Internet Explorer?
Number 7 was nice and clean looking, emulating a computer desktop in an organized fashion.
The rest of them were, quite, horrible.
Kristoffer Lawson
March 29, 2010 at 9:46 am
Nice, it seems the web hasn’t developed that much since the good old days. However, I honestly don’t think the Russian site should be there. Compared to a lot of other crap out there, it’s quick, informative and clear. It doesn’t play music, it doesn’t crash your browser with Flash. Plus it’s got picture of serious-looking military guys!
yK
March 29, 2010 at 10:47 am
Wow, my eyes are still hurting from the first one!
Matt
March 29, 2010 at 1:13 pm
The bridal store website makes to front page of Digg regularly. So could argue that it’s brilliant.
Craig
March 29, 2010 at 2:18 pm
One of the worst that should be an honorable mention is HavenWorks, http://www.havenworks.com. It is truly horrendous.
Rick
March 29, 2010 at 3:37 pm
Aarghh, I can’t seeee! I’ve lost my eyesight!
mike
March 29, 2010 at 5:29 pm
still my favorite: http://havenworks.com/
Medisoft
March 29, 2010 at 6:41 pm
I’m just glad my site wasn’t on the list!
Atlanta Web Design by Kinedo
March 30, 2010 at 1:23 pm
Some of these are what clients say “pop”. lol
WebCreationUK
March 31, 2010 at 9:07 am
These websites are gorgeous to make fun of! Nice round-up! :D
m1t0s1s
March 31, 2010 at 9:42 am
the funny thing is that women would actually like yvette’s bridal store.
Milko Melian
March 31, 2010 at 2:31 pm
SPEECHLESS!!!!!
Mr. Morris
March 31, 2010 at 4:41 pm
You know what they say about glass houses… The next time you write an article about poor web design, how about making sure the links open in new windows so that your readers aren’t taken away from your site and wind up stuck in a hellish website with no fast way back to the list?
Matty Craig
March 31, 2010 at 5:06 pm
@Mr. Morris: If only there was some sort of back button on the browser or something.
Victoria
March 31, 2010 at 9:56 pm
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star anyone? And I beg to differ that “women would acturally like yvette’s briday store ” : ) Someone should present this post as “the best web designs ever” for April fools’ day. Thanks for the post!
Jorge Pedret
April 1, 2010 at 3:39 am
No way!!! hahahahaha, my favorite is number 3, what the fuck is wrong with this guy’s eyes!!!! HAHAHAHAHA, I can’t stop laughing!
Great compilation! Thanks for making me laugh!
Russian
April 1, 2010 at 5:12 am
Your’s goverment half sh*t, but yours is full :)
Tihiro
April 1, 2010 at 6:37 am
What you do not like the site at number 2? 1998 sites of the same yahoo and ebay looked no better.
Mathew Carpenter
April 1, 2010 at 8:11 am
Thanks for all the comments! To all the people arriving at the site from Russia: I have nothing against your country. ;)
Kevin Oh!
April 2, 2010 at 10:50 am
Wow, love that picture of Steve Wagenheim.
Might be my new gravatar…
Hesham @ FamousBloggers
April 2, 2010 at 9:25 pm
Mathew, this is an excellent post, I think those sites are so old and owners forgot them or pasted a way ;)
Also it reminds me when I first start design 5 years back lol
erikk
April 2, 2010 at 10:10 pm
i got one
http://www.naturalselectionbathandbody.com/
Mitch
April 4, 2010 at 2:37 am
Oh man, those were funny! I wish I could remember a couple that I found while doing some research that were horrid. As to #10 on your list, as weird as the site is, I kept trying to figure out what the deal was with the one near the bottom right with the cartoon girl pulling down her top and showing her breasts; I figure it has to be advertising something, but how goofy!
Clarke
April 8, 2010 at 11:55 am
Hey Mathew… A great way to give all of these sites alot of traffic! Great idea!
angie
April 8, 2010 at 9:01 pm
I was just thinking of putting a rainbow on my www LOL JK
Baloot
April 10, 2010 at 7:32 am
Damn, my eyes hurt. How did you find all those website mate? :)
Thailand Shop
April 10, 2010 at 11:50 pm
Beneficial points raised here. I am thankful to you for that, nonetheless you deserve more thanks than that. I suffer from color blindness. I mainly use Firefox browser and consider a number of web sites are difficult to perceive thanks to a incautious range of colours applied. Nevertheless, here, as the range of colours is great, the design is super tidy and pleasant to comprehend. I don’t know whether it was a premeditated and intended undertaking, or just the ‘luck of the draw’, but I still thank you.
cheat-master30
April 12, 2010 at 9:47 am
I’m a bit let down by some of the examples personally, I thought you’d have stuff like Havenworks and that Bell De Soto site with a 500 MB + home page. Some pretty good other examples though, including sites I never heard of.
Mathew Carpenter
April 12, 2010 at 10:00 am
Thanks for all the comments.
@Cheat-Master30, we were actually contemplating whether or not to include Havenworks but decided against it due to pretty much everyone knowing about it. We were mostly aiming for badly designed websites which users had yet to see.
Heriberto Brunetti
April 18, 2010 at 6:21 pm
Nice post! GA can also be my biggest earning. Nevertheless, it is not really a very much.
cheat-master30
April 24, 2010 at 5:53 pm
How about the other site then? It’s got to be bad enough to make the list in some way, and it’s worse than Havenworks:
http://www.belladesoto.us/
Although it’s currently down, some pages are cached in Google.
Orlando website design
May 8, 2010 at 4:52 am
The first one has been passed around as one of the worse designed web sites for quite some time and I’m not surprised it hasn’t changed.
Wesley Gilbert
June 23, 2010 at 10:30 am
Great examples on how not to build web sites.
Here’s one I’ve come across recently: http://www.upou.edu.ph. It seems to be an online school, but for someone in that business, it’s a terrible site. Different fonts, templates and an almost unfinished layout.
Arwen
July 24, 2010 at 12:33 pm
I think you should have included screen shots of what they looked like the moment you wrote the article because a few of them have since been redesigned.
Anyway, it is a nice list of what not to do. I think #1 really takes the cake but I kinda have the feeling that the site has become an anti-design ploy to attract attention and traffic.
Gyrel Dagooc
August 10, 2010 at 4:43 am
yes haven works is really ridiculous! It should be on this list!
Bret Juliano
August 19, 2010 at 3:30 pm
I love the fact that the internet marketer site, #3, was just redesigned about 3 months ago… sad to think it was WORSE before.