Web Pages That Suck...

... learn usability and good Web design by looking at bad Web design.

This post is for 1/3 of the ATHEN tribe dedicated to accessible website design. Though there is no 'category' for accessibility here - it's not hard to imagine that poor access is inherent in each of these examples. Heck, my development skills are minimal at best and even I can tell where these fall short of being disability-friendly.

Perhaps most appalling is the number of these sites that should be accessible because of their affiliation. Harvard Business School and Brown University Graduate School as well as the Association of International Glaucoma Associations [redundant and horribly designed ... can this be for real?]

My favorite is the Superior Court of California County of San Francisco site that postpones any mention of access information till the bottom of the page and totally lacks even the most basic accessibility to begin with. Are there any Section 508 watchdogs out there?

I also got to add a new term to my personal glossary today - "Mystery Meat Navigation" [MMN] - "user interfaces (especially in websites) in which it is inordinately difficult for users to discern the destinations of navigational hyperlinks" [courtesy of Wikipedia].