Psh. Who needs an expert?

Nov 12, 2012 Begin the Rant    Bad website filed under: Pipe Bombs

A case for the importance of usability: so you hear about UX (user experience) and UI (user interface) in web design circles all the time. The average person doesn’t really care, but that’s precisely the point. Let’s take a look at bluegrace.com to show you what it means. People don’t have enough respect for UX architects and this is the kind of garbage that we get. Sure, they’ll ask “what is it you DO anyway?” and “can’t anybody look at a website and figure out a button needs to be bigger?” and then they’ll make a website that looks like this one.

If someone goes to this awful site, they really have no idea where to start or what to do. For starters, it looks like a 50′s diner with that ugly pink and teal getup, and the bright blue links, plus green/red text just muddy up the waters. No pun intended. There is a massive navigation bar on the left (with centered text, natch… Web Bombs Red Flag!) and it extends down so far most people will have to scroll down to see it. The eyes are drawn all over the page with no focus. Little boxes of videos, pics, links and whatever are scattered like dog poop around the page. I feel like I need to check the bottom of my shoes after navigating around the site.

As you scroll down, the three columns of content are very confusing. I would hazard a guess that most people who visit the site either A) have NO IDEA how much stuff is on here or/and/because they B) just stop trying to look for stuff. Good design would make this site work. It’s also a great example of how NOT to use ads on your page. They are just tossed in at the end of the page, which means fewer clicks because people will stop reading. This is all basic stuff guys…

http://bluegrace.com

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