Whilst I'm going on about bad web experiences, I'd like to point you to Yo! Sushi's menu on their website.

This glares at me as "Glaring designed by their ad agency and not a proper web design company"

Three things jump out at me as really really annoyingly bad design. In order of annoyance:

  1. The url is www.yosushi.com/experience.php instead of the more obvious www.yosushi.com/menu/ (and also really shouldn't show the file extension)

  2. No obviously link back to the home page (from the menu). That's because it (the menu) opens in a new window. Why? Somebody was smoking crack I suspect.

  3. Stupid annoying idiotic painful and useless flash (SAIP&UF) menu crap

I'm going to focus on the SAIP&UF menu. If anything shouts out Agency! it's the useless flash.

So what's wrong with this?


  • No proper navigation between the different sections. Sure their are a series of links at the top, but they in no way look like links or stand out. Also if you naviagation is so long it stretches over two lines then you really should be using a vertical navigation or some other paradigm, like drop downs or reveals (although for a menu I would go with showing alll at the same time)

  • The navigation is in the same page order as the menu in the actual restaurant. That might be ok for someone browsing through an actual menu but doesn't work for someone scanning through a list online. Either put it into alphabetical order or logical order (starters, mains, deserts)

  • Assuming you don't notice the navigation link you have to notice the copy telling you to drag and click the menu corners. If you don't notice this, your buggered.

  • If you don't notice this, you may not realise the instruction is wrong, or at best poor. What you really should do is just click the corners. If you try drag them you end up performing complicated operations with the mouse to try get the page flipped which mostly ends up with you getting the page three quarters there and then it falling back onto the same page. This is super endlessly annoying and very frustrating.

  • The corners you are meant to click don't have any indication they are clickable or what you are meant to click. This does not make for easy targeting.

  • This is the web, not a real life paper menu. The reason you flip pages in a real life paper menu is because on real life papers menus you have no choice. On the web you do have choices and their are better paradigms. The page flipping animation adds exactly zero value and looses it's appeal after one page flip. Waste of bloody time is not generally a good USP.

  • In a real menu you have limited space and have to optimise that. On the web you have the option of (get this) hyperlinking to additional content. Use it. Each menu item should link through to a high resolution picture of the dish, nutritional information, and any other useful information that could provide value. Oh and a bloody permalink direct to that dish. Seriously have you guys heard about all this sharing going on? Have you heard of Google? I guess not

  • Accessibility is running at about ... zero. There is no reason for this to be in flash, aside from the stupid page turning thing, which their is no need for. You can do this all in AJAX and have it depreciate to decent HTML for older (and mobile) browsers.

  • Search facility? Hello guys .... anyone there? I see lights are on but ...

  • The only thing that looks like a button is the big orange "Order Now" on the top right hand side. Except that's not a button but a suggestion that makes a little more sense on the paper menu in the actual restaurant. Online? It should either link to take our order or be gone.

See this is why I said in my last post I keep expecting someone to expose me for a fraud. This stuff is all really really obvious. Surely they can see that?

But no, you can see the agency has just done an exact copy of the print menu. No thought, no use of the wonderful opportunities the web gives you, no innovation, nothing smart of surprising. This site offers nothing more than putting the menu on the web, and that is a sad waste of a good resource.

The only thing they missed was putting some annoying music on as well.

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13 Comments

30 Mar, '07 5:11 PM

1. razorhead

I looked at the menu before reading the rest of your post.

  • I missed the navigation at the top of the window
  • I was getting frustrated at clicking and dragging the page before I realised that I could just click the corner
  • They appear to be selling raw fish. The dirty bastards.
30 Mar, '07 5:28 PM

2. Matt

As soon as I saw the little “loading” sign I knew I was in trouble.

I thought there was a little icon on the corner of the menu pages, but it turned out to be a smudge on my screen.

I still can’t find a link back to the home page. Are you sure there is one, and that it opens in a new window? Or have you been smoking crack too?

The url is www.yosushi.com/experience.php instead of the more obvious www.yosushi.com/menu/ (and also really shouldn’t show the file extension)

I don’t understand this part at all. Am I a n00b?

30 Mar, '07 6:04 PM

3. Adrian

Matt, like I said there is no link to the home page. In FF it opens in a new tab. I assume that means it opens in a new window in non tabbed browsers. So it beaks the back button and breaks the window.

As for the URLs, good sites have human readable friendly URLs (although interestingly that link could have better URLS itself.)

Anyone can look at yosushi.com/menu/ and no what it means and remember it. No one will with experiance.php. Also for most people seeing the file name is unneccessary, especially for something that is a not document.

This should naturally then extend to yosushi.com/menu/sashimi/, which still makes sense, still is human readbable, provides permalinking and also then extends to yosushi.com/menu/sashimi/coriandersearedtuna.php

The page on coriander seared tuna is a document, and it’s ok for it have extension or file name. The menu is not, it is an area and looks tacky showing it as filename (the same reason we have lifewithouttoast.com not lifewithouttoast.com/index.php

31 Mar, '07 1:18 AM

4. Matt

Aaah. So hence archives being like lwt.com/2007/03 and stuff, linking to .php articles/documents. Interesting. I shall note that.

I am not a n00b! Yay for me. Possibly.

Also, you reference the “home page” and then reference “it” opening in a new window/tab, without making it abundantly clear the the “it” you are referring to is, in fact, the menu, not the home page. Just a grammatical criticism.

I still think you’d make a better Undergarment Consultant than Web Experience dude though.

31 Mar, '07 8:20 AM

5. Adrian

Matt, good point. Corrected.

I’d be quite happy being an Undergarment Consultant, but no body is going to pay me what I’m worth on that.

31 Mar, '07 11:50 AM

6. bezwick

I like it. And how to do I get back to your home page on your web site?

Yours sincerely

Devil’s Advocate

(although I do take the point about the order now button and no links to nutritional info).

01 Apr, '07 6:21 PM

7. Adrian

You click the MASSIVE sevitzdotcom logo.

It’s pretty standard to click a companies logo to go back to the home page.

01 Apr, '07 7:25 PM

8. sausage

i want sushi!

04 Apr, '07 10:35 AM

9. Adrian

I guess spiders are more interesting than web dev.

05 Apr, '07 2:43 PM

10. nat

this is proof of the absolute difference between us - before reading all of your post i went on to Yo Sushi’s website and looked at the menu stuff. as someone who is genuinely not technical at all, I found it simple and very easy to use. I don’t particularly care that there’s no ‘link’ back to the home page. you just shut the menu page thingy and you’re done……..you click at the top on what you want and it takes you there without having to do any dragging and clicking of any mouse.

05 Apr, '07 2:58 PM

11. Adrian

The fact you can use it doesn’t mean everyone will be able to. What I am trying to point out is some problems that people do struggle with, as countless usability studies have shown.

The clicking only works if you don’t try drag. And since you can drag it’s counter intuitive and many people wont find that feature out. It’s still poor design regardless of easy you found it.

11 Apr, '07 3:11 PM

12. Lyle

Me, I’m just praying that Sevtiz (intentional) one day finds a decent inline spellchecker.

I’m sorry, matey, but in a couple of bits that was just painful to read…

11 Apr, '07 3:21 PM

13. Adrian

But I do have an inline spellchecker that I do use.

What I need is a way for people to tag misspellings …

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