Wow. I’m so underwhelmed that I can barely type.
The National Security Agency has updated their entire website. I wish I had the energy to give it a full critique, but it’s just terrible. Let’s just go over the low points:
- They’ve got a useless and ugly splash page done in Flash that sits and does nothing for 34 seconds before forwarding you to their Flash page.
- They’ve got a Flash page. To make it worse it’s got a spinning logo and a circa-1997 interface.
- Their Flash page does nothing but link to their HTML (well, .cfm) pages. I guess that you’d use that instead of the nearly identical HTML version so that you can get the full irony when you see the link to their accessibility page. Or you could be the kind of person that enjoys watching the preloader bar pop up every time you hit the back button.
- The HTML pages are no better: spinning animated gifs, lousy typography, and amateurish navigation.
. . . and the pain just goes on and on. Even the incredibly simple pages don’t validate. Obviously whoever built the site for them didn’t care about little things like that, but I’m guessing that they’re ignorant to boot.
For those of you who aren’t designers, here’s how you can tell when you’re viewing a page that was done by somebody stuck in 1997. View the source, and you’ll see something like this:
<tr> <td><img src="Images/home_html/spacer.gif" width="105" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> <td><img src="Images/home_html/spacer.gif" width="46" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> <td><img src="Images/home_html/spacer.gif" width="9" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> <td><img src="Images/home_html/spacer.gif" width="11" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> <td><img src="Images/home_html/spacer.gif" width="19" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> <td><img src="Images/home_html/spacer.gif" width="56" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> <td><img src="Images/home_html/spacer.gif" width="11" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> <td><img src="Images/home_html/spacer.gif" width="221" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> <td><img src="Images/home_html/spacer.gif" width="32" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> <td><img src="Images/home_html/spacer.gif" width="36" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> <td><img src="Images/home_html/spacer.gif" width="29" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> <td><img src="Images/home_html/spacer.gif" width="31" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> <td><img src="Images/home_html/spacer.gif" width="63" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> <td><img src="Images/home_html/spacer.gif" width="92" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> <td><img src="Images/home_html/spacer.gif" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> </tr>
The horror! The horror!
And for those that think I just don’t like Flash, you’re wrong.
If anybody needs me, I’ll be under my desk sobbing. I just hope it wasn’t my company that did the design.
For those of you who aren’t designers, here’s how you can tell when you’re viewing a page that was done by somebody stuck in 1997. View the source, and you’ll see something like this:
<tr> <td><img src="Images/home_html/spacer.gif" width="105" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> <td><img src="Images/home_html/spacer.gif" width="46" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> <td><img src="Images/home_html/spacer.gif" width="9" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> <td><img src="Images/home_html/spacer.gif" width="11" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> <td><img src="Images/home_html/spacer.gif" width="19" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> <td><img src="Images/home_html/spacer.gif" width="56" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> <td><img src="Images/home_html/spacer.gif" width="11" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> <td><img src="Images/home_html/spacer.gif" width="221" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> <td><img src="Images/home_html/spacer.gif" width="32" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> <td><img src="Images/home_html/spacer.gif" width="36" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> <td><img src="Images/home_html/spacer.gif" width="29" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> <td><img src="Images/home_html/spacer.gif" width="31" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> <td><img src="Images/home_html/spacer.gif" width="63" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> <td><img src="Images/home_html/spacer.gif" width="92" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> <td><img src="Images/home_html/spacer.gif" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> </tr>
The horror! The horror!
And for those that think I just don’t like Flash, you’re wrong.
If anybody needs me, I’ll be under my desk sobbing. I just hope it wasn’t my company that did the design.
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