Have a happy period

I thought I would use one of the absolute worst marketing slogans that deals with that special time of the month to introduce one of the worst examples of navigation for a website on the same topic.



I actually gasped out loud when Vincent Flanders pointed out the sideways navigation on the Tampax website -- though I am glad he did, because if I had gone to that site on my own I would never, ever have seen it.

I think all of his videos -- from the hilarious Crumpler Bags to the PDF links on Dorset Police -- were really good examples of the need to balance an interesting or innovative website design with the fundamentals of navigation and usability -- because, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what your design looks like if people cannot find the information they need. Particularly with the Dorset Police site, which I would imagine services people who are coming for an important purpose: finding information that pertains to their security at home, at school, etc. As they say, content is king.

Also interesting were sites like the Diners Club, whose "mystery meat navigation" of pictures of doors that led to pages on airport lounges and customer service made no sense.



While design is subjective, you've still got to keep your audience in mind when designing. Many of the top 10 worst websites of 2007 were further examples of this. I found the Zune website to be really bad because it's for a mainstream product, one that is trying hard to compete with the iPod, a model of usability and simplicity.