An Experience in Bad UI
Who would save or catalog a website with a bad interface if it’s so frustrating to use? Well, how about one that’s intentionally bad and used as a joke or a game. Let me introduce you to User Inyerface, a domain that was created using some of the most egregious UI practices.
Let’s start with the first pop-up on the website, a simple question asking if you want to allow the website to track your data via cookies. Since yes is highlighted in a white square box, you would think that it was a button, correct? Well, it actually does nothing, and the only way to close this pop-up is to agree to accept cookies. Another pop-up window you’ll see very often is a FOMO urge-to-action window that constantly warns you that you only have a limited amount of time to create an account. The discreet close button is not only in an unconventional region of the popup window, but it also disguises itself by looking like a copyright.
How about creating that account? Each text box’s placeholder text is filled with actual text that you will have to select and delete for each text box. On top of that, your password is not hidden when you type it out which, though it might be helpful to see what you’re typing, is essentially a security risk. When you’re done with your initial login information, you’ll be misleadingly asked to not refuse the terms and conditions, which proceeds to prompt said window and reduces your ability to scroll the new unclosable window to a fraction of your normal scrolling speed. Just to finish things off, once you’re done with all of that the biggest and brightest, and therefore the most attractive, button on the screen actually cancels all of your progress
Then there’s also the negative/positive selection boxes for choosing your gender. Can you guess which gender is selected here? That’s right, the current selection is female! Not only that, but when you select your domain’s country of origin, you select it through black-and-white imagery of every nation’s flag. The slider also doesn’t update until you’ve released it.
Not for some minor nit-picking. The website doesn’t include a unique identifier for the tabs section, and the CAPTCHA (which isn’t a captcha) is scrolled down so that the top row of selection boxes is hidden from view and causes slight confusion.
A noteworthy nod to Medium.com for having so many missing functionalities for creating blog entries, such as being unable to resize images, change the distance of text wrapping, or designate which column of text a paragraph should occupy.