35 Examples of Bad Website Design in 2024

Historian of the Future is the portfolio site of Charles Ostman, a lecturer, author, and speaker passionate about evolving into the next millennium. 

A bad website design example, the Historian of the Future website is eye-catching with a consistent background image that keeps visitors guessing.

The background image steals all the attention on the site, making the texts displayed on one side of the homepage almost irrelevant. However, the different font colors do little to make the texts appealing to visitors as they get lost in the site’s colorful background image.

Sparkella picture book is one of many projects of New York Times bestselling author Channing Tatum. One of the visually appealing website examples, the Sparkella website is uniquely designed, with a catchy and consistent background image. 

The flashy display of visual elements from the site’s background image is one of the site’s design mistakes. Rather than enhancing user experience, the background image negatively affects user experience by stealing the focus from the site’s main content.

Daniel Arsham is a contemporary artist based in New York creating installations and objects that conjure a mythical contemporary archeology. A bad website design example, Daniel’s website is characterized by a slow loading speed, scoring low in terms of customer satisfaction. 

The website design is plain with lines dividing the homepage into different non-uniform sections, with plenty of white space visible. The texts displayed at the top of the homepage are faint, making it hard for users to read, with its repetition confusing site visitors.

Kurt Champion is a UK-based graphic designer and art director exploring the limits of image, text, and object. One of the poorly designed websites, Kurt’s studio website gives a poor user experience with the cluttered display of his work. 

Images of Kurt’s work compressed on the site’s homepage are the only visible content on the single-page website. You will notice the display of texts linked to Kurt’s Instagram page alongside images, easily lost in the disorganized array of other texts and images.

Riverside Art Center is home to a variety of art classes for all ages, inspiring creativity through the arts. An art-based brand, the Riverside Art Center website is far from artistic, as user frustration is noticeable from its bland web design.

The entire homepage uses a centralized layout, with different sections squeezed into different colored circles. You can’t help but notice the display of the header section and CTA buttons in similar black-and-white color schemes, making it difficult to distinguish between them.

Papaya Wellness creates tailored retreat experiences, combining movement, adventure, relaxation, support, and connection all in paradise.

One of the bad website design examples, the Papaya Wellness website falls short of building an effective connection with users through its website design.

The testimonial section is one of the homepage’s poorly designed sections, using a font color that’s difficult to read over the plain white background. The site’s clustered layout adds to its list of poor designs, failing to maximize space effectively.

Living Ahimsa brings calm, balance, and a sense of stillness into its clients’ lives by providing a space for them to take time out for themselves. One of the poor web design examples, Living Ahimsa is built using a gentle color scheme, consistent with the brand’s identity. 

The combination of colors on the website is one of the design mistakes noticeable as visitors get bored easily while scrolling through the homepage. You can’t help but notice how the hero section is avoidably large, a sharp contrast to the other homepage sections.

Needles + Leaves is a blog created by Tawni and Krista to showcase their love for succulents, crafts, and succulent-related projects. One of the poorly designed websites, the Needle + Leaves website is consistent with its display of low-quality images. 

An easily noticeable web design mistake is the site’s typography. The display of texts in a fading font color makes it difficult for screen readers and visitors to skim through the site’s texts.

Blinkee provides exciting glow-in-dark toys, flashing jewelry, blinking pins, flashy Blinkys, and accessories for the twenty-first century. One of the bad website examples, the Blinkee site stands out in its poor choice of color scheme for its hero section.

The hero section is interactive, displaying still and moving animated icons that overwhelm users as they scroll the homepage. The product section is plain and not well-arranged, with CTA buttons stacked over one another, giving the site an unpleasant look.

Located in Downtown Pensacola, Headhunter Hairstyling was started with a single goal in mind, to make its clients feel like each cut or style is special. 

One of the bad website designs, the Headhunter Hairstyling website is a typical example of cluttered layouts that hinder a site’s user interface. 

A parallax scrolling feature is visible, displaying a jumble of different background images that do not complement each other. The site opts for CTA texts as opposed to clear CTA buttons that are clear, ending each homepage section in their different font colors.

Paper Source is built around curiosity and wonder, sparkling delight, and is the source of fostering more thoughtful connections. One of the poorly designed eCommerce site examples, the Paper Source website is a world of complexity in its display of design elements. 

The web design of the Paper Source website tends to confuse visitors as it displays excess information on the homepage, overloading site visitors. There are CTA texts that blend with the site’s normal texts and are only distinguishable by an underlined feature.

TagTeamSigns is a full-service sign company specializing in commercial building signs, storefront signs, and monument signs. One of the bad website design examples, the TagTeamSigns website is poorly designed despite its modern and clean layout. 

There is excess space on the site’s homepage as texts are compressed together on one side, limiting user interactions. Screen readers and visitors with visual impairments find it difficult to read the site’s texts as they are tiny and displayed in the wrong font colors.

Irish Wrecks Online provides a complete driver’s guide to the shipwrecks around Ireland. One of the badly designed websites, the Irish Wrecks Online website is a complete wreck, with its ugly website’s design. 

The main page blends different design elements, leaving users confused as there is no visible sync between them. This site uses different font colors to display different information, giving the site a colorful yet unappealing look.

The NMG Group is a global advisory and intermediary firm focused exclusively on the financial services sector. One of the bad websites, the NMG Group website is a unique website displaying minimal content on the homepage. 

Welcoming visitors to the site are stacked-up black-and-white images with no visible addition to the site’s web design. One of the site’s many design mistakes, the hero image displays information text in White, which blends with the plain web design.

Great Dreams is a GRT Foundation initiative about encouraging young people to pursue their passion for achieving their own great dreams. A bad website design example, the Great Dreams website is user-friendly with few design mistakes visible in its web design. 

The site’s header menu is fully packed, displaying several header texts in two rows, making it hard for mobile website visitors to keep track. This site’s homepage alternates between different font colors, making it easy for users to get distracted while reading the site’s content. 

That Dog Lady is a premium grooming service that brings a fully self-contained, state-of-the-art grooming salon right to your doorstep. One of the bad website design examples, the That Dog Lady website is minimalistic, sticking to plain website design. 

The site’s homepage is overshadowed by another background image, giving the site a confusing look while restricting user flow. 

You can’t help but notice how the site displays the brand's logo, along with different stylish fonts, including barely readable fonts.

J. Money is the blogger behind the Budgets Are Sexy site and a lover of all things money, business, design, minimalism, and skateboarding. A bad website design example, the Budgets Are Sexy website is minimalistic, sticking to s centralized layout for its web design. 

Plenty of white spaces are visible on the site’s homepage, with the yellow color highlighting more than the site’s key texts. Still and motion texts are noticeable as visitors scroll the homepage, making it hard for users to focus on relevant information.

San Diego Coupons is a locally owned and operated marketing company focusing on providing an easy-to-use coupon guide that is affordable for visitors. This bad website example uses a two-column layout, displaying primary bold logos that take up space on the homepage. 

A long list of header menus is visible and pinned to the right-hand side of the homepage, easily mistaken for regular text. Another of the site’s design mistakes is the site’s extensive CTA buttons, with the length making it unattractive. 

Stephen Fry is a renowned author and illustrator known for his bestselling works Mythos and Heroes. One of the bad website designs, Stephen’s website is far from exquisite, boring visitors with a consistent plain background image.

The entire homepage lacks arrangement, as all sections are jam-packed together, making it difficult for visitors to easily distinguish between content.

You can’t help but notice the display of the site’s content on the plain background in a centralized three-column layout with the background image still visible.

Bolen Report is a blog site providing a science-based analysis of the North American healthcare system. A bad website design example, the Bolen Report has a weird website with a two-column layout displaying its site’s extensive content. 

The header menu is pinned to the left-hand side of the homepage, displaying a long list of header texts on a black background. Divided into different categories, the category list is endless, making it a bore for users to locate specific content on the site.

Timeless Pieces is a brand offering an exciting, unique, and meticulous collection of vintage, retro, second-hand, and handmade items. A bad website design example, the Timeless Pieces website stands out largely due to the inconsistent branding displayed on its site. 

The typography on the site alternates between lower and upper cases to list out its different products, displaying a lack of conformity of design elements. 

Each product displays images in the huge space in the middle of the homepage, a feature that is hidden until the mouse cursor hovers over texts. 

Simon Perini is an artist, photographer, and designer with a healthy appetite for nostalgia, refined design, and personality. A typical bad website example, Simon’s website displays a clustered layout with the site’s portfolio images packed into a centralized display. 

The header text listing the name of the designer stands out pinned on the top of the homepage and displays over the site’s main content. Two CTA buttons displayed at the top of the homepage blend in with other regular texts in a similar design. 

GRID Magazine is a news website that provides users with stories, news, collections, and guides about travel, adventure, and culture. A bad website design example, the GRID Magazine website stands out with one of the worst cluttered layouts in web design.

Leaving no room for visitors to process information, several news and stories are jam-packed on the site’s homepage alongside a few images.

Rather than opting for CTA buttons, the website uses CTA texts, making it hard for screen readers to distinguish them from regular texts.

Process Bulletin provides industry news and information about popular industries, including biomedical, chemical processing, textile, and sustainable industries. 

An example of a bad website design, Process Bulletin is minimalistic, sticking to a straightforward website design.

The homepage displays the latest news on the site’s extensive information, alongside broken links that give out little information. You can’t help but notice how the combination of the text color and background color makes it hard for users to read the site’s content.

Daniel Effenberger specializes throughout The Jersey Shore, within Monmouth and Ocean countries as a realtor responsible for $60 million in total sales. A bad website design example, Daniel’s website discloses little about his work, rather than focusing on himself. 

Other than the testimonials from past clients, there is little on the entire homepage to link Daniel to real estate. The links in the header menu are not functional, making it difficult for users to access the site’s other pages. 

Bond Street Mortgage is an outstanding mortgage lending firm serving the lending needs of real estate professionals, builders, and individual home buyers. 

A bad website design example, the Bond Street Mortgage website opts to a display of bold design elements that complicate the entire website design. 

Too many different fonts displayed on the site’s homepage make it hard for users and screen readers to focus on specific texts. The footer section is empty, with no information, logo, or icon visible in sight, a complete waste of space. 

Dental Care of Greensboro is a trusted dental care provider offering cutting-edge preventive, restorative, and cosmetic procedures at its state-of-the-art facility. 

A typical example of a bad website design, Dental Care of Greensboro has a slow loading time, making it a bad user experience for visitors.

I find the display of the Contact CTA button over the site’s hero section, one of the site’s unclear CTA buttons, unattractive. Designed differently from other CTA buttons, it is difficult for site visitors to recognize this feature as the site’s Contact CTA button.

Dr. Roof Inc. is a commercial and residential roofing company offering new construction and repair of decks, sliding, windows, general contracting, and much more. 

One of the bad website designs, the Dr. Roof Inc. website is information-packed, with a cluttered layout welcoming visitors to the site. 

The header menu is extensive, concealing key information displayed in the site’s hero section alongside several broken links. An extensive search bar is visible in the site’s header menu, with the search icon, hardly visible in its faded color. 

ON THE GRIND sets itself apart from the average drive-through experience, revolutionizing the way people enjoy their coffee, smoothie, or energy beverage. 

A bad website design example, the ON THE GRIND website engages users with a bold display of colors with a subpar user experience. 

The site’s hero section is just a logo imprinted on an image of the sky, displaying no text to announce to visitors what to expect. Beneath the hero section, the site displays segregated homepage sections characterized by poor navigation. 

Janie Bay is an artist, singer, songwriter, and musician known for the creativity she brings into her songs, whether written or recorded. One of the weird website examples, Janie’s website is a case of bad web design that does little to uphold her brand image. 

This minimalistic website with a plain web design displays minimal content on her homepage’s extensive plain white background. A mini-framed image of herself and short one-word texts listing her expertise are all visitors get when they visit her site. 

Lauren Sheldon is a motivated and detail-oriented visual communicator pursuing a career in graphic design. Her website is unique, sticking to Double Spanish White as the homepage’s background color. 

The website displays the logo’s colors as the site’s font colors, with the Stone font color hard to read over the homepage’s background color. Notice how the website layout gives room for plenty of space as minimal content is visible on the site’s homepage.

Joel Eklof is a PhD candidate at the University of Washington in the Hydro-biogeochemistry department research group. A top researcher, Joel pays little attention to his website design with its poorly designed web design. 

The homepage displays minimal text with an image of Joel amidst centralized texts displayed as the only homepage content. Social media icons are visible in the site’s header menu in fading black colors, easily overlooked in the site’s design. 

Sandra Sünram-Lea's background in biological psychology and neuroscience fuels her interest in biological factors and mechanisms that affect human cognition and behavior. One of the poorly designed websites, Sandra’s website is minimalistic, sticking to a plain web design. 

The uneven arrangement of her site’s homepage sums up the site’s poor web design, giving the homepage an uneven layout. Notice how the CTA buttons displayed on the site’s homepage are unclear, alternating between texts and buttons in different font and color schemes.

Begley Living is a family-owned and operated venture offering inspiration for a sustainable lifestyle. 

A bad website example, the Begley Living website welcomes visitors to a poorly designed hero section, displaying three similar centralized images that contrast the background image.

Large arrow icons pinned to the side of the hero section allow users to change the centralized image while maintaining the plain background. The large display of logos of its sponsors takes up a large chunk of space on the homepage.

Paulo Coehlo is an author and inspirational speaker known for his stories, reflections, and inspirational quotes. A top professional, Palo’s website is one of the poorly designed website examples, with its minimalistic web design. 

The entire site’s homepage uses a black-and-white color scheme with sections jam-packed together in no clear structure. Links to view his books displayed on the homepage are embedded in an arrow icon that blends well with texts and is easily overlooked.