Bad Website Design 101

Today's topic is introduction to bad website design. I'll be your host. What you are about to witness is real. Frighteningly real. I don't know who ever thought that any of these websites were good ideas, but someone must have because they're out there and they currently exist today. Granted, I realize that people got all gung-ho with things that you could do to websites when the Internet first started becoming accessible to folks who really probably shouldn't have ever had access in the first place. But even still, wouldn't you know from looking at some of these that they are just not a good idea.

Let's start with Bobdul Johnson, Attorney at Law. (You're going to have to click and then come back. Sorry about that.) You're really missing out if you don't at least skim through his FAQs. It probably doesn't bode well for this guy that when you click on the link that says "List of cases won/settled out of court" that the link is broken. Not surprising or anything like that. Mostly just amusing.


Now we're going to take a look at what appears to be the personal website of a chap named Govind Tiwari. Mr. Tiwari seems to really enjoy Photoshopping his image into and onto just about everything. He also is a very proficient blinker. The most pressing question that I have is why his cell phone number only works on Sundays. I'm contemplating calling on Sunday and asking him.



Here we have a website by a one Michael Blount. His site was created during the dawn of the Internet. Michael obviously realized that the Internet had a huge potential when it came to meeting chicks and forming relationships with them, so his eleven year old self set up a page where his "future girlfriend" could hear what he sounded like and see what he looked like and then she could send him a message and their lives of bliss together could begin. (Yeah, that never happened. And not because his site wasn't a success, but because Mike turned out to be gay.) You'll want to have your speakers on so you can hear his soft, creepy little voice.


Yvette wanted to sell bridal dresses. I guess she must have gone insane in the process because her website, Yvette's Bridal Formal is, well, insane. Oh, and if you still have your speakers turned up from the last one, you might want to turn them down just a bit, lest you be bombarded with the ragtime piano music that constantly plays in the background of this disaster.Over here, we have Mahir. Mahir seems to want to meet a woman. I guess that's why he opened with "I KISS YOU!!!!! It's kind of forward. Maybe he might want to consider toning it down just a bit. Or removing the website altogether. Whichever.



And finally, we have this weird Peter Pan guy. And as weird as that is, somehow, the guy manages to make some money off of it. I guess he sells his "music" and various other items like mouse pads and what not. The whole thing frightens me, really. And it's weird. But really, to each their own, right? Right. But could they at least do "their own" with better web design? Please?

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The Ruler We Fear

I hope that the site that I'm going to be referencing hasn't been fixed by the time that this posts. Apparently, a woman named Jane Corwin is running for Congress. Judging from the current appearance of her website, I'd say that she needs to hire better IT staff. If it hasn't been fixed, I'm sure that you'll find it as hilarious as I do. If it has been fixed, I only wish that the power supply on my main computer hadn't blown up and that I wasn't on a different computer. If I had my regular computer, I'd cut and paste and do all sorts of little Photoshop things here. You know, like I tend to do. But for now, I'm just going to have to part with words of wisdom: Get your domain names locked down. Especially if you're running for Congress. Especially if you're running for Congress.

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Guess Their Age

I discovered a new website. (OK, fine. I read about it over yonder at Lemondrop.) And I'm not quite sure why it's so interesting, but it seems to be. The site is Guess My Age and it is exactly what it sounds like it is. You're shown a picture of an individual and your job is to type in how old you think said individual is. Now, unless you've made a living as one of those traveling carnivals guys who does this sort of thing for a very odd living, you might find that it's harder that it sounds like it would be. I have yet to guess someone's age absolutely correctly. I can usually keep it within about ten years either direction, but I'm sure that's not overly comforting to those whom I am guessing are 40 when they're really 30. Yeah. Awkward.

Unless you're preparing for a career as a 7-11 cashier where you'll need to card people for alcohol and cigarette purchases, I really don't see anything useful coming out of this site, other than pure entertainment and efficient time wasting. (Combine the two and you've got yourself one heck of a day at work!) You can load your own photo on there and then check back to see how old people thought that you were. If you're the sort of person who is just fine with uploading photos of yourself to the all of the Internets and being perfectly comfortable with whatever age people guess for you (even if it's older than you really are by quite a few years!), then by all means, upload your photo. If you're the sort of person who is going to upload his or her (but most likely her in this scenario) and think that you're going to learn that everyone thinks that you look at least five to seven years younger than you really are, think again. That's not going to happen. All of the Internets are mean. If you go into something like this looking for an ego boost, you're going to make sure that you have an ample amount of rope with which to use to hang yourself after your little experiment is complete.

Let's take a look at some of the folks that I ran across whilst killing some time today, shall we?

I saw this chick and guessed 26. Her shirt (from what we can see of it) appears to be modest and that alone will rule out that she's still in her teens. She just doesn't appear to be over thirty (no reason for that assumption) and so I went a little higher up from the middle of the road.

This woman's age wasn't overly hard to determine for me. The haircut and the large print, somewhat frockish shirt put her in the over 40 category in my mind. I went with 41. See, now it's people like this chick whose age is difficult to ascertain. I think part of that is because she's probably a lot younger than I would be comfortable with her being and still looking/acting like that. I guessed 17.

Here's one that seemingly gives us a little bit of help. The spiky-haired chap below is drinking a beer. That immediately sets our low cut-off at 21. It's the spiky hair that is going to be a tough one to noodle through, however. Guys don't roll with the times as easily as women do (or want to). The thumbs up sign isn't a good sign and it doesn't seem like it's his first beer ever (due to the dorky grin that he thinks makes him look cool, even though it doesn't) and there is a leather jacket (though possibly pleather), so I'm going with 26.

This chick was fairly easy. That emo hairstyle that she has going on narrows it down to under eighteen. I went with the turbulent adolescent year of 15.

I'm surprised that this guy actually put his photo on there. The leathery skin and the confused look led me to guess 53. I also guessed that he's a two-and-a-half pack a day smoker who drinks Jack Daniels at 10am on weekdays. Sadly, that information is not available at Guess My Age.

I'm also surprised that this guy posted his photo on there as well, as he's awfully goofy looking. And that striped tank top isn't helping matters. I went with 32.

I'm going to wrap this little experiment up with this woman. I guessed 41. There were a variety of factors that led me to that very, very, very wrong conclusion. The hair. The white board with probably some sort of "To Do" list scrawled on it. The frumpy turtleneck. The phone with the cord in the wall. (At least, I'm hoping that it's connected to the wall and that it's not connecting the handset to the phone. It's sort of hard to tell.) This woman would not be happy with my guess.

So, have you been keeping track of your guesses? Let's take it from the top.

• Number One is 27. My guess was 26. A difference of -1. So far, so good. Nothing offensive there. Yet.
  
  
• Number Two is 43. My guess was 41. A difference of -2. Not too shabby.
  
  
• Number Three is 18. My guess was 17. A difference of -1. I'm not doing too badly at this point. Sadly, that will change.
  
  
• Thumbs Up Dude is 18. I guessed 26 because he was deceiving me with that beer in his hand. That's a difference of +8. If you're old enough to drink beer, you're too old to be doing the thumbs up sign because you're drinking beer. Got it?
  
  
• Number Emo Five is 16. I went with the Emo Rule and guessed 15 for a difference of -1. Hey, if you want to look older, drop the emo look. I'm just sayin'.

• Jack Daniels is 56. I was being generous in guessing 53. -3 for me with Jack. Now can we guess how long he's been on parole?
  
  
• Striped Shirt Nerd is, in fact, 32! Finally! Only took me seven tries before I guessed one correct!
  

But all of that doesn't matter. That's because on the last photo, I guessed 41 when in reality, that poor woman is 28. Ooohh! +13! Yeah, whoops. Oh, come on! Like you got that one right! I don't think so! While I can't ascertain whether or not the 18 year old would have been complimented that I thought that she was 26, I'm relatively certain that this 28 year old would eat me for lunch (possibly literally from the looks of it) if she knew I thought she was 41.

I don't know why this site draws one in so easily. Nor will I pretend to know why I spent about half an hour guessing people's ages. It's not like there's a prize or anything. But whatever it is, it does help pass the time.

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