How To Make A Bad Web Site

by Bob Nunn

I know that many of the Headgap web sites are not that fancy and I am not a top ranked web designer and I haven't won any awards and I really don't expect to. That is not what I attempt to accomplish with my sites.

I just loaded an old customers web site, well almost loaded. Some of the images were over 200k. I remember they changed after hosting with us for over a year so they could take advantage of technologies we didn't offer. I am glad we don't offer graphics over 200k and I really don't think this was a step up, but perhaps someone's relative is getting the business. They certainly are giving them the business. Maybe they offered a free gratuity to the purchasing manager. I do hope someone got something out of a deal like that.

Having the best looking web site in the world isn't worth a dime if nobody waits for the page to load. Having a web site is a waste of time if nobody can find it or use it when they do.

I would have listed this web site as an example of what not to do on a web site, but you all have seen sites like this. What amazes me is that people actually pay to have this done for them. It may be an all time winner of the worst all time web site if it only had more flashing animations and bad clip art. I guess their web designer hasn't found the cache of clip art in his Microsoft products. Perhaps he or she might make the list in the next year or so if he happens to get around to updating the site.

 

Headgap's List Of Things To Do To Make A Bad Web Site:

• Make no plan in advance of your site design, subject or theme (let it grow like a fungus).
• Design your site with Frontpage using the "professionally" prepared templates or design it using Word.
• Design your site with a 17"-21" Monitor taking full advantage of the screen width
• Never check the site in any other platform or browser. Heck, if they aren't using the one you do they don't need to see your page.
• Use the gif format for all photographs and jpg for all line art, save all images out in high quality at 300 dpi (or more), Use BMP graphics whenever possible.
• If your images are too large on the page just size them down in the html editor.
• Use many animations insuring that none have anything to add to the site.
• Use clip art that came with your word processor, better yet animate it.
• Use a splash entry page with large full screen graphics.
• Add plenty of under construction graphics and animations.
• Make sure you add the little "looks best when viewed by" this browser.
• Make a flash only site or at least your front page flash with no option out.
• Add shockwave or other plug ins and require it for the user.
• Add music files to your pages with play on loop. Try to find the most irritating one you can like the hamsterdance <http://www.hampsterdance2.com> or the StarWars cantina song <http://www.cowdance.com>. I especially like the "you can't milk this" <http://www.cowdance.com/hammer/index.html> which may be the all time most irritating web song.
• Center all text on the screen using no returns to break the text to encourage as many orphaned words as possible, use headline for body copy.
• Include as much all upper case text as you can, italicize frequently and use plenty of exclamation points. Abbreviate and use lots of jargon. Never spellcheck or proofread.
• Black backgrounds are a must, with red text preferably. Frames should also be used.
• Include as much Java as you can adding as many "features" as possible.
• Make sure your page and graphics total over 100k. If you have less go back and add more java and animations.
• Use large buttons for navigation with cool java rollovers, heck make everything rollover. Never have text alternative links. Use symbols when possible.
• Include as many links as you can, even if they have nothing to do with your topics. Add links that are frequently offline since the guy running the web server also uses it for online gaming.
• Use AOL to host it (please) and provide free MP3 downloads on your page.
• Pick as long a domain name as possible. Make sure none of the words in the domain have anything to do with the topic (do this for branding). Go for the .net name or .org name and make sure you sign up and give your credit card to everyone who is preregistering the other dot names.
• Never have any contact information on your site or if you do, make sure it is well nested down several layers. This keeps those annoying emails and calls down from customers.
• Use no metatags or include no robots.txt file in your site, or add unrelated tags to your page content. Never list your site with search engines.
• Never update your site.

This is all I can think of in 15 minutes. I know I left some choice ones out. Why not list your favorites up.

Hopefully you learned something from this. I know the people that need to read this will not. They haven't read anything about web designing but now they are one.

Want to learn more about the right things to do? Try this link: <http://www.wpdfd.com/> It goes to a site called Web Page Design For Designers. Want to see actual bad examples? Go to: <http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/>. Of course you can always check my <http://headgap.com/addurl/> page for tips and tricks so you don't end up with features from this list.

 

Bob Nunn - Owner, Operator Headgap Systems, Inc.
E-mail: headgap@headgap.com
http://headgap.com http://tfbbs.com
http://mac-batteries.com - affordable clock batteries for your Mac!
http://drivejumper.com - jumpers or shunts are sometime hard to find but necessary when changing drive configurations. Order online!
http://MemphisApplecore.com - Apple User Group
http://PortalMemphis.com - Memphis Best Web Sites
Call 901-759-1543 for more information