OT: Silly web sites [was Re: [CLUE-Tech] Listening to CPR.org w/ Mozilla/Galeon?]

[David Anselmi]

Sean LeBlanc wrote:
[...]
> <ramble> 
> Man, that site is just too much. I can't believe sites are still
> being made that way - even discounting the fact that they *force* you to use
> Flash for a general-purpose website, the presentation is almost exactly what
> I remember Jakob Nielsen* (and others) ripping on the terrible Olympic web
> site about. There are "links", but you have to hover over them to discern
> what they are for. The bottom-right one shows the snowdogs logo when you
> hover over it - how are you supposed to know what that is for without
> clicking on it? Also, you have to wait for the little animation to finish
> while hovering over these to see the text...apparently these folks have not
> read "Designing Web Usability" by Jakob Nielsen. I had to send these folks
> my resume a few weeks back, and reverted to a W98 box to use the site,
> because I didn't have time to mess around w/ Flash setup. I wonder how many
> clients they have alienated with their site.  
> </ramble>

There's a gov't web site I'm supposed to use to manage my financial data 
(direct deposit, retirement account, health plan, so on).  It checks at 
the outset to make sure you have "128 bit encryption and javascript".

What it really does is a bunch of if statements on the browser name and 
version.  Mozilla reports as Netscape 5.0 (X11) which, since it isn't 
Windows or Mac fails.  It's funny because NS 4 is supported and Moz is 
at least as compatible as that.  The site only uses javascript, no flash 
or anything rediculous.  They probably could have got away without 
checking at all and let the site fail if you have a bad browser.

Sigh.  Guess it's time to write a complaint.

Dave