Cookeville TN Linux Users Group

Now I really hate to bash and/or rag on poorly designed web sites, but this one takes the cake. And not only because of poor design, but partly due to the fact that it is run by a media/marketing company (whoes primary business it business image and whatnot).

Check out http://www.cookeville.com

Things that just stick out at first glance:

1. Horrible jpeg image that is severely pixeled and looks as though it was spliced together with Microsoft Paint.
2. “If Viewing in I.E. 8 Use Compatibility View” – this is unacceptable for any serious production (read: well designed/tested) site.
3. Almost complete lack of spacing between text and page elements – both on page copy and main site links.
4. A right column cluttered with ads that have text so tiny you can not read them.

This entire site reminds me of the days of poorly hacked up Front Page sites of the 90’s.

Digging into the site reveals an extremely un-polished user experience. Now, I ain’t just saying this because I do web design myself, in fact heres some others locally that [as far as I have seen thus far] perform some outstanding web design:

1. http://www.one7media.com/
2. http://www.cookevillecomputers.com/ <– Pretty damn impressive for a “computer fix-it shop”
3. http://www.eyeblastmedia.com/
4. http://www.mmacreative.com/ <– A favorite, really clean

Cookeville.com: if you are reading this, please contact one of the people above (or somebody) to get things up to 21st century web standards!