Sites I Like and Like to Hate

KompoZer can help web authors produce valid HTML and CSS. The creativity one has at their disposal is a different, highly personal matter. You have seen my work and know my creativity is far outpaced by my enthusiasm for WYSIWYG, HTML editing. I thought I would show a couple of sites I like and why. To keep balance we will have some hated sites as well.

Justine

Someone asked me to look at this site some time ago and it just struck me. I really like the graphic of Justine Henin recovering from what must have been a monster backhand on the home page. That shot used to be more prominent on other pages before she won that cup.

I don’t follow the girl or tennis for that matter but the color combination and the use of borders is excellent, at least to my eye. I guess another thing that appealed to me is the fact that I could have built that site with KompoZer. "Could have" if I had any creativity because it is done with table format.

The menu is unique. I really like the way is scrolls as you mouseover the main categories. Her web team does a nice job.

Burj Dubai Tower

Burj Dubai Tower is a monumental undertaking and the web site reflects the grandeur and perfection of the real thing. Unlike Justine’s site that could have been done with KompoZer the Burj site is done in flash.

Flash has some problems on websites and this site was difficult to navigate at first. The site tells quite a story so I'll go along with the way it was done.

Every site needs something that makes the visitor say, “Wow.” Burj Dubai just redefines awesome -- both the place and the site. I looked for the number of stories it will eventually have but gave up. They are at floor 159 and counting as of this writing. Awesome.

The Hated List

There are lots of sites that are on my hated list and most of them look like NASCAR.com. The issue is there is too much stuff for my simple mind to sort through and most of the stuff is revenue producing. I don't mind folks making money from their site or product but these guys clearly put their profit above my reason for being there. I don’t go there to give them dollars I go there to find out about the sport. And they wonder why ratings are slipping.

Having too much information to display seems to be a common problem. Another of my least favorite sites seems to have cleaned up its act if only a little. It used to be lots worse.

I have commented before that having links it a good thing on a website but they need to be maintained. Nothing worse than clicking a link and having it come up missing. With 18,193 links this site really has a problem. I clicked a couple at random and got nothing. Wonder how many…

You needn’t take my word for it because there is a website that specializes in stupid web sites. Web Pages That Suck even has a checklist to see if your website sucks. As my experience with ddj.com went a lot of the sites Mr. Flanders mentions have cleaned up a bit. Guess he gets their attention with his fairly blunt but accurate critiques.

When you get tired of reading dry, humorless stuff about how to build a website, read some of the lessons on Web Pages That Suck. Let me know if any of my pages show up.

Wysi

; .