Fire That Designer

Gizmodo.com (and the rest of the gawker family of sites) all were given a serious overhaul recently. A few of the many reasons why the re-design is terrible:

Confusing double scrollbars

Despite the iPad app look, doesn’t even work on iPad

Way too busy

Can’t tell what article you’re on

Feels sluggish

Overlapping logo just looks sloppy

Makes me want to do anything except read an article

Design asthetic: D Usability:  F minus

And if that wasn't all bad enough:

Cabel at Panic.com writes about the egregious design flaw in the ever-so-popular animated gif loading spinner that is on so many websites.

All the segments should get lighter as the spinner rotates. But, in frame five, the trailing segments of the spinner get darker, for a single frame. (I think the designer accidentally left two layers on at once.)

Now look at that 16 x 16 sample again. You’ll see a brief, dark flash at the very top of the spinner, once per rotation. And, if you’re anything like me, you’ll never, ever be able to un-see it. Ever.

Cabel @ Panic- You're hired! Designer at ajaxload.info - You're fired! (But not really because your service is so handy. Ok, now that I think about it, you're hired too. Just fix that one nit-picky little thing.)

Art Director: "Just cram that temperature text in the corner over there. WE NEED HUGE CLOUDS!"

Whoever designed bathtubs needs to be fired. They're too small.

Here's a great idea: Put a button that totally disrupts the flow of browsing through presets RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of the presets.