The horror of bad website design…

[elfs]

A friend of mine pointed me to the website of CB Richard Ellis, a real-estate investment and management house with a big footprint here in the Pacific Northwest.

Their hiring website is a horror. No, really, go look, unless you’re an epileptic. (Sadly, the effect only seems to be present for Firefox users. Opera, Chrome, and IE6 didn’t show the evil.) Then go read The Federal Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Standards, better known as “Section 508″, and document how they’re out of compliance. (Hint: Section 1194.21k).

I fully believe it’s possible to design very attractive websites that don’t violate Sec508. CBRE has failed on a galactic scale with this abomination.

If you’re not a Firefox user, here’s the horror: Every input button has this added to its CSS: text-decoration:blink;.

Yes, that’s right. Every input button is set to “blink.” I don’t know what’s worse: that the people who wrote their site thought that was cute, or that Firefox honors it.

This entry was automatically cross-posted from Elf's technical journal, ElfSternberg.com

Comments

[cadetstar.livejournal.com]

Why, oh why would you have that in the input button? Why would you use that, ever in a professional website?

Our company has a very basic application site. It's clean, and no blinking anything.

-Michael

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Because your graphic designer comes from print, is completely flamin' incompetent and has never studied his craft, thinks "web design" is an oxymoron, and has no idea whatsoever how to design proper calls to action (http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/10/13/call-to-action-buttons-examples-and-best-practices/).

[jenk]

FYI - No IE will show that, not just IE 6.

When I was on the IE team it was maintained that not supporting blink was a feature. (OTOH, IE came up with marquee, which is easily as bad.)

[elfs.livejournal.com]

My hacked copy of WebTV says: 'Your URL cannot be visited because it uses the "https" security protocol which is not supported by WebTV at this time.'

And yes, I keep a jailbroken WebTV around just for amusement.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

E-gads!

[funos.livejournal.com]

Hm. I don't see what's so horrific about it. Yes, the blinking is annoying, and the layout is cramped, but it strikes me as an ordinary bland little back-room of a corporate site.

The main site design is completely different.

[lovingboth]

Ditto. There are a lot worse.