Why Greek Sites Suck #1: Q Telecom
Remember the “Why Greek sites suck” theme that I never followed due to busy times?
Time for its first. The winner of the ranting hat for today: the site of Q-Telecom, one of the big mobile services provider of Greece.
I’ll be brief.
Q-Telecom “sorry page”: Our site is too cool for Safari
A flash intro? A semi-downloaded page? No, the index page.
On hovering the menu, options appear. Almost a km away.
To add to the confusing lot, each menu pops up its options in a different direction than the previous one. The first option, left, second, right, third, left, you get the point.
My virgin eyes. My virgin eyes…
They even have different language icons. A typical square one for english, a waving flag for greek. I mean, Jesus.
April 3rd, 2007 at 8:45 pm
hehe, nice one. Check also the “Home” icon.
April 4th, 2007 at 8:56 am
OMG, I have totally missed that one.
There are so many greek sites in this spirit out there… It’s sad.
April 4th, 2007 at 10:28 am
LoL Sugs. You made me laugh. However although we rag the greek sites we gotta take in consideration the young “age” of the greek internet and the relatively less experience of the majority of developers.
Even in countries with a more mature internet/web age and more years of education and experience in the sector, you see atrocities in a vast majority of big corporate or government sites.
April 4th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
@acidsmile. I disagree. I don’t believe for a second that ‘maturity’ has anything to do with the sorry state of hellenic web sites. Hellas got commercial internet services around the same time as the U.S. and the rest of Europe (1992-1993). Sure, the culture, the people, the mentality did not immediately embrace the ‘net as it happened elsewhere, but that doesn’t mean that web developers/designers from Hellas are not ‘mature’. France, for example, took much longer to come on board, in lieu of their huge installed base and tradition of using the Minitel for a lot of things the commercial Web offered. But their style was never, ever even close to being half as bad as the Hellenic.
In any case, I don’t think you can even start mentioning ‘maturity’ when it comes to web design or development. The problems lie elsewhere, in my opinion. Among other reasons, having to do with the way people conduct business, the mentality, the norms in this country, I believe sites like these are pretty common in Hellas because:
1. In Hellas, you are who you claim to be. Lots of clueless, technically and ?sthetically challenged people claim to be web devs/designers. They are not and it shows.
2. You get the job because you ‘know’ someone or because you bribe someone. Not because you’re good. Lots of sites go to companies that have neither the expertise nor the capability for proper web development/design. These same companies gradually develop a portfolio of horrible sites, but still get new jobs. Weird I know.
3. People are more interested in making a quick buck rather than doing their job right. Reputation is irrelevant. The feeling of accomplishment one gets from completing a job, be it technical or artistic is non-existent. “It was a chore, it pays the rent, it’s done.”
4. People think they can come up with their own standards and metrics for what, how and when people use/browse their sites. I.e. some people still think that 90% of the people online use Internet Explorer and don’t give a damn about W3C.
5. People that think just because they’ve been using Excel or Word, have been setting up Windows for fifteen-odd years and programmed some BASIC or COBOL back in the 80s, they are the Ultimate Computer Programmer and, what the heck, Web Sites are easy, “Sure I’ll do it, for the right price”.
Now, many of those reasons are certainly true, to some extent, for other regions, countries etc. They are not unique to Hellas. The problem is that you won’t find high-profile corporate sites in the U.S., U.K., France or Germany being half as bad as most of the Hellenic ones. Government sites, maybe. I won’t even touch Web Applications. There just aren’t any….
April 4th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
@ cosmix: I couldn’t state it better. It’s all about the mentality and the mediocrity that rules most tech things in Greece. It pains me to see so-called “lesser” eastern european countries (i.e. Poland) having more usable and nicer looking sites than us.
@ acidsmile: Beware, girl, it’s two against one now!
April 27th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
This has to be the most innovative interface I have ever seen on a website. Seriously! It even reloads when you resize the window! how cool is that! hehe.
May 19th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Don’t you think the level of suckitude has something to do with the fact that 1 in 5 Greeks doesn’t use the Internet and 2 in 5 Greeks don’t have a computer. Maybe these companies are apathetic or don’t think they should invest in something that people may not ever see.
I agree with Cosmix, there are plenty of great sites, technology and skilled people to put it out there.