• Slow-loading, zoomy Flash animation? Check.
• Music that kicks on when page loads? Check.
• Throbbing animated .gifs? Check.
• Eyestrain-inducing oversaturated color palette? Check.
• Borderline offensive use of models in suggestive food-eating poses? Check check and check.
• Bonus points: The site designer link leads to an Apache setup page. Oops.

The site’s got one thing going for it. But I’m guessing they didn’t actually research the advantages of radial menus for speed of onscreen target acquisition….it’s more about the pizza visual metaphor. The pizza pie menu is actually more efficient than a drop-down menu. Read up on the advantages and drawbacks of radial menus here.

But the zooming pizza slices are, let’s just say, optically unpleasant.

Could this be another “so bad it’s great” site, like Ling’s Cars? Maybe. I have half a mind to reach out to the site’s proprietors just to find out. I’m just so slammed with the new and growing company I don’t have any time to go on this type of adventure these days.

Check it: www.pizza-pop.ch

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I’m all for using friendly language in the user interface. But this first-person usage is quite frankly jarring.

Just who is it that’s referencing themselves? The programmer? The program? Am I to infer that QuickTime Player has passed the singularity rubric and is now sentient?

All hail QuickTime Player, our digital overlord. I for one welcome our…oh, never mind. :)

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Not a usability issue per se. It’s more of a metaphysical issue. My all items has no items. What do I do with that information? Is this some kind of sly statement about me?

Meh. Maybe I shouldn’t take it so personally…

Yale University’s Art Department site might just be the worst site ever created in the history of the Internet, Bitnet, Arpanet, BBS systems, Geocities, AOL, Compuserve, etc. Check it: http://art.yale.edu/

Please don’t blame me if you go blind, insane, or fly into a design-induced rage. I’m just the bearer of awful design news.

As I tweeted, it gets bonus points for having a nice big picture of Hitler front and center. Because, you know, there’s nothing more you can do to terrible design, except maybe to stick a picture of Hitler on it.

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Fail Whale has a little android buddy. Anybody know his name?

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Oh MSFT blue screen, you never fail to entertain me…

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From a printer manufactured (or probably more accurately, rebadged…) by a nameless large PC manufacturer based in the southwest….

This error message evokes cinematic, ominous drums beating in the distance, implying an impending massive onslaught.

At least it does for me. Your mileage may vary…

But seriously, this is a not-so-great error message for a couple of reasons:

• It’s not informative – it doesn’t tell me a) what the heck a drum is, and b) why I care about a drum warning.
• It doesn’t provide a recommended action – so, I have a “drum warning”…now what? WTF do I do with this information?

And if you look at the available screen real estate, there’s clearly enough room for more information.

It’s all about context, yes. Some immensely complex UI’s are necessary in certain domains, for certain workflows. But sometimes you can just look at a UI and know that, for whoever its intended users are, it’s a horrible failure.

So it is with this Ferrari steering wheel. Via FastCompany and @JasonSpector, look upon the horror and of course watch the vid. Bonus points for the headline “Ferrari F10 Steering Wheel Looks Like a Robot Barfed on It.”

Here’s the vid about it too. Enjoy.

Um, OK, whatever floats your digital boat. You require elevation, I need a face full of chocolate cookies, we all have our needs. Live and let elevate, I say. That’s my motto credo words to live by.

<Colombo>There’s just one more thing…and you’ll have to forgive me, I’m slow with this kind of stuff…what exactly are you elevating? If ya don’t mind me asking of course. It’s just that I don’t understand exactly. </Columbo>

(Whoosh is the sound that last paragraph makes as it sails over the heads of the 20-somethings…)

Just kidding around here folks, I assume it’s referring to elevated permission levels. But still.