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For those of you who don’t already know and love The Oatmeal, you’re in for a treat.
Came across this yesterday and, while it is funny, it’s also painfully true. Most of you know that I work a lot with restaurants via my Sevilla Tapas site and as a result have checked out hundreds of different restaurant websites. I know it sounds crazy but almost all of them have some awful flash intro that takes forever to load, then the music kicks in (and half the time you can’t find the off switch) and you will usually not find basic info like opening times, the address with a map and a bit about the menu that doesn’t require downloading a f*cking PDF.
Next time I visit a prospective social media client I’m taking this link with me…
casa azahar 
bloody brilliant site! Really funny – just have to check to make sure my web site doesn’t have all the faults listed! xx
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BWAA HAA HAA too sadly true… Oh how I hate musical web sites that make me jump out of my chair and scare the cats…
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Not to mention delivery: Do they? What is their delivery area?
Does it cost extra? Nothing I hate more than seeing the Take-out menu, spend 20 minutes trying to figure out what I want, call, and then find that I have to drive to an industrial park in Outer Mongolia because they don’t deliver. OR that they tack on $5 for delivery… AFTER I’ve ordered.
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Oh… and those menus… Full colour with gigantic photos of the food with lettering so small that you can’t read it… Flash links that DON’T WORK and that they don’t KNOW don’t work because they’ve never actually visited their website…
ANY site, whether a restaurant or on-line store which has tiny photos and a link that says “Click here for larger image” and you click and get a photo that is the same size as the one they have on the main page…. or even better, take you to a photo of another product.
I’ve often brought broken links. etc. to the attention of the webmaster, often with a good response but sometimes with either zero results or a rude response telling me to do exactly what I already did (click on the image for a larger photo) — they obviously didn’t read my email…
I will actually write the company an email and send them the response of their “webmaster” and tell them that if they actually value their online business they should actually visit their website rather than depend on their “so-called” webmaster to tell them how successful their website is.
Sometimes I get a response sometimes not.
My particular bugaboo is websites which are designed to draw in visitors to a community… Such as the National Capital Commission website for Canada’s Capital. The NCC website which had pages for things like the Tulip Festival and Winterfest which SHOULD have wonderful photos highlighting the beauty of the city so that people can SEE what they would be missing if they didn’t come to visit during these events… or even just highlighting the beauty of this city… have few photos, mostly tiny, and BORING! They may have some logos and graphics but when I am thinking of going to a city, I don’t want to see a logo, or a graphic of cartoon people looking at the outline of some building. I want to see PHOTOS of the city!
They probably paid millions of dollars over the years for this website and think “We’ve got a website… that’s all we have to do”.
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But what do you *really* think? 😉
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agreed. Most restaurant websites are really bad
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I love the Spanish restaurant websites that have the flag to click for English version, which then gives you the headings in English but the menu etc still in Spanish!
(PS love the blog, we are temp residents in Calle San Miguel, dangerously close to La Azotea!)
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Hi Ted, and welcome!
Ha, yes I’ve seen plenty of the faux English versions. Even funnier are some of the English translations.
I was just at La Azotea last night! Well, across the street at their wine & gourmet food shop for a cheese tasting. Definitely go if you haven’t already.
Have you seen my tapas blog? Lots of recs there.
Sevilla Tapas
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Hi again Az, yes have been reading your Tapas blog with interest, and have been customers of the wine shop too as well as having a great lunch in the restaurant yesterday..lovely people running that place..
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Yes, Juan & Jeanine are wonderful hosts and everyone working there is also very friendly and helpful. Plus the food is amazing, as you know.
Glad to hear my tapas blog has been of use. Always gives me a good feeling to know people are enjoying it.
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