Are Web Designers REALLY This DUMB? (What Happened to Website Functionality?)

I put my website back together. I was ready to go back to work. Unfortunately, I do not have the images I need for it. So it looks kinda unfinished.

Understand. When you offer certain types of services, it is HARD HARD HARD to find “speaking” images. When you offer training, it is nearly impossible to find anything that conveys the process of learning or teaching. So the lack of images is not incompetency on my part, and I cannot just go get them at BigStockPhoto either. They don’t HAVE them.

I did what all good business people do. I went to see what the competition had, to see if I might be able to fake it like they do!

Their sites are worse than mine!

Oh, they HAVE images. Not good ones, but they HAVE them. They just have BIG images.

In fact, that is ALL they have!

They are VERY contemporary. And really STOOOPID.

The prevalent design seems to be totally dysfunctional.

One big image.

Three words.

One button.

For some, that is ALL THEY HAVE.

Perhaps, in a few, some indecipherably small menu links across the top. Not more than 5. Filled with teeny tiny text that blurs together it is so small. I don’t have the best eyesight right now (stopped wearing glasses when my eyesight was worse WITH them than without), and it wasn’t that! NOBODY could read them!

The one big image does not tell me what they do.

The three words tell me what they want me to want from them. But not NEARLY enough to tell me whether they HAVE what I want.

The one button gives me TWO choices only. One is to “START HERE”. The other is to LEAVE.

Why do I want to START HERE?

Start WHAT?

You have not let me get READY to START HERE. I am not ready to start something I have not CHOSEN to do with YOU. And you have not LET me investigate. You have, in fact, SHUT DOWN every opportunity to investigate!

So I click START HERE. I have no other choice if I want to know whether I can see WHAT THEY OFFER.

I then am presented with another ACT OR LEAVE choice. Not a good idea when you just met someone!

The page shows a SIGNUP FORM.

I don’t even know if I WANT what you offer, and I have to SIGN UP in order to find out if you offer something I even want to INVESTIGATE.

I’m in INVESTIGATIVE MODE, and you force me to COMMIT!

I don’t know WHAT YOU WANT ME TO COMMIT TO! Or what it will COST me!

So I exercise the only other option they give me.

I leave.

If I am not going to sign up with a store just to see whether I MIGHT want to buy from them, I am not going to sign up with YOU just to see what you offer. You are just another Zulilly and I’m no sucker.

Under the teeny tiny menu links of another almost IDENTICAL site, I discover a page of product listings. Each product listing has a list of features, and a price. NO IMAGES!!!

Ok, so I don’t mind that so much, but so far they’ve not shown me ONE SINGLE EXAMPLE of the nifty thing they said they could do for me, and now they are expecting me to click the BUY button! A fairly EXPENSIVE buy button at that!

They do not let me SEE what I might be able to buy. They only offer me the choice of BUY, or go away!

I went away.

Another similar site HAS IMAGES!!! They have a Flash Rotator.

Aparently they LOVE their Flash Rotator.

They have 12 of them.

All in rows.

You cannot see all of the rows at once. There are TWO rotators PER ROW, and they scroll down, down, down.

I can see TWO ROWS at a time.

That is FOUR images that keep changing. Fairly rapidly. ALL AT ONCE!

After 10 seconds my eyeballs want to fall out of my head and keep on bouncing. Everything is moving.

It is like having to document every move of 12 toddlers. ALL AT THE SAME TIME.

It didn’t matter anyway.

EVERY SINGLE IMAGE WAS THE SAME!

They just had different pictures behind them. Other than that, they were identical. They were all just as dysfunctional as the website they were displayed on.

Honestly folks, a SINGLE ROTATOR would have done! Heck, a SINGLE IMAGE would have done, they are all the same thing!

I sighed. This stuff is just so dumb.

And I’m still stuck with a site that looks half finished.

I know just ONE THING.

I am NOT going to finish it like those websites!