The Unusable and Superficial World of Beer and Alcohol Websites
I was pretty excited when I came up with the idea of examining and showcasing some of the most famous beer and alcohol-related websites from a number of countries around the world. After all, who doesn’t like the odd drink now and again? (Well, besides me — I can’t stand alcohol in any form.) Surely this would make for an interesting article that would elicit quite a few comments. Well, if that’s the result, it wouldn’t be for the reasons I suspected when beginning to research this piece.
Instead, I’ve concluded — due to problems related to typography, accessibility, and usability — that the apparent “beauty” present on many of the websites related to this industry is merely “skin deep”. To put it quite bluntly, the designers and developers people responsible for decision-making in the beer and alcohol website industry should be ashamed of themselves for creating such horrendous user experiences. My analysis here will attempt to inspire modern-day designers and developers to avoid imitating the superficial design and development techniques employed by these web professionals.
But I won’t just focus on the negative. There are some positive things to be mentioned, and a showcase of some of the nice sites is certainly in order, so that will round out the article (and might even fool a few of the “I’m here for the pictures” visitors).
The Painful “Age Verification” Screen
Something that is common to nearly every site I found when researching this article is that all the sites require that you confirm your date of birth before you can view the content of the site. Obviously, alcohol is a very serious issue, and reasonable precautions must be taken to ensure that the owners of these sites are not encouraging underage drinking. So, typically, a site will have a “date picker” form where the website visitor can enter their date of birth (month, day, and year), as shown below on the Corona website:
A Legal Requirement? Or a Waste of Time?
Since it is impossible for such a welcome screen to actually ensure the user is really old enough to drink, then why not simplify this process? You’ll notice that the welcome screen on the Corona website also asks the user to enter their country of residence, which further complicates the process of entering the site. But don’t get me wrong; I am not suggesting that alcohol-related websites remove the age verification screen. In most countries, they’re probably required by law to do this. I’m suggesting that they make this process easier for the user.
First of all, if you want to know what part of the world your website visitors are from, use Google Analytics (or similar technology), or track IP addresses. Don’t waste your visitors’ time with a question that they could lie about anyhow. I certainly hope the owners of these sites are not depending on those statistics for any serious demographic analysis.
But more importantly, since the user can enter any date of birth they want, and the site will never permanently block a person that enters a non-qualifying date, why not just have a simple screen that clearly asks if they are of drinking age in their country of residence? It was surprising how many sites did not have a simple means of entering. Below are two of the few examples that I found that had a user-friendly intro page:
At the very least, if you must ask for their age, why not just ask for the year? It’s true that the person’s exact day of birth could determine whether or not they’re qualified to enter, but let’s be honest here — this screen isn’t stopping anyone. And you can’t drink a website. So simplify the process and get on with what you really want people to see.
During my research, I wondered if there were any laws in Canada or the United States that required the use of such a splash page. I contacted Labatt Breweries of Canada and I was informed that there was no law requiring the age verification screen, but that it was a company policy to have the user enter their date of birth. Okay, that’s fair enough. But I wondered why they would opt for the complicated version over the simple examples shown above. The woman I spoke to reemphasized that it was a company policy to have the user enter their exact date of birth. She suspects it’s the same for most other companies as well. I had also contacted Anheuser-Busch but hadn’t heard back from them.
Maybe the site owners are ensuring that they don’t risk any legal trouble (regardless of laws), thinking that the more difficult the process, the better it would look in their behalf. But considering the age form isn’t really stopping anyone from entering, it’s more likely that these sites suffer from poor usability management and tend to fall back on bad habits that were carried over from the old days of the web design industry. Also, some sites did have a simplified version of the age verification screen (as shown above), so there really is no reason for the overly complex version of that screen. If anyone involved in the alcohol website industry would like to provide some feedback on this matter in the comments, I will make any corrections as needed.
Unnecessary Complications
Some age verification screens are complicated for no good reason, and certainly for no legal reason. Take for example the Budweiser landing page:
After selecting the month and day you were born, the years are shown in 10-year blocks, with the start of each decade representing each block. In order to select the specific year you were born, you have to hover over the appropriate block, then slowly move your cursor until the year you want appears. What a usability nightmare!
The Samuel Adams website goes beyond ridiculous in who it allows to enter. Initially the user is presented with this screen:
Then, after you’ve entered a date of birth, you’re informed that you’ve “signed in” (which is not technically correct and can potentially be confusing) and now you have to reenter your year of birth:
It’s safe to say the Samuel Adams’ website architects have turned the bad intro page into an art form.
Yet another example that has two different age verification screens is the Rémy Martin website. When you first visit, you’re presented with this screen, unnecessarily created with a barely usable Flash-based date picker:
Then you’re redirected to a completely different domain, and once again are asked to enter your age:
The site colors and branding are different from the first screen, leaving the user wondering if they’re even still on the correct website. I really don’t know what they’re thinking with this dual age verification system, but it’s obvious that the site architects have little knowledge of modern website usability best practices.
Below is another overly-complex age verification screen, on the ZIMA website. Try to find your year of birth in this unnecessary mess:
Another problem with the age verification screen was that some sites required you to manually enter a 4-digit year, while others allowed you to choose a year from a <select> box. The Busch Beer site is one of a few sites that expects the user to enter the year in just two digits:
After customarily entering a year in 4-digit text format, or from a familiar select box, this 2-digit option comes as a bit of a surprise. So naturally, when I tried to enter the site, I typed a 4-digit year beginning with 19 — and the “19″ part stuck. I got this error message:
What if I was born in 1919? Well, after some experimentation, I discovered that anyone born before 1930 is considered “too old to drink” (which is fine), but despite initially receiving an error message, if you continue to attempt to enter a year prior to 1930, the site instead redirects the user to Worlds of Discovery, “a place of enjoyment for people of all ages.” All usability problems aside, that was pretty funny.
You may have also noticed the 1999-style “site requirements” notification in the above screenshots. Another strong reminder that the sites we’re dealing with here seem to be managed and developed by people who have not done a whole lot of research on modern design and usability trends.
Overuse of Superficial Elements
What makes a website “cool” today, is not the same as what made a website “cool” 8 years ago. In fact, if you didn’t know any better, after visiting 10 or more alcohol-related websites, you’d think it was 2001. It was astounding how many of these sites employed self-indulgent, superficial techniques that make the entire experience quite a drag.
While perusing some of these sites, I often had no idea what was clickable, when an animation was going to finish, or where a particular sound was coming from.
Too Much Flash Animation
Most modern developers understand that creating an entire website in Flash is rarely a good choice. Granted, in some industries Flash is useful for full sites. Kids websites and games sites are two good examples. But for the most part, the use of Flash in the alcohol web design niche is often unnecessary and seems to be used in a trendy way because of the false assumption that a complex Flash site equates to a “classy, upscale” experience. As mentioned, around 2001, that may have been the impression that users got, but that’s not the case anymore.
The Seagram’s Gin website is one of many examples of a full Flash website, an extremely common practice in this industry.
Why Not JavaScript-Based Animation?
I’m not saying that these sites should never use Flash. Some of the sites I visited had some complex user interactivity that would certainly require the use of Flash-based technology. But in many cases, animation and effects could be implemented through good semantic code manipulated unobtrusively with jQuery or another JavaScript library.
For example, the Finlandia vodka website has a mostly-Flash interface with promo boxes that could have been done with plain HTML and JavaScript:
Another site that overused Flash is the Three Olives Vodka website. Take a look at the screen capture below:
The content section displays the different vodka flavors, with a Flash-animated rollover effect for each bottle — which is understandable since the animation is somewhat complex. But the entire site is created in Flash, including the very static logo, top navigation, and text-based footer. All of those sections could have been done using conventional coding methods, making the site cleaner and more usable. In fact, many of the animations on this site could have been accomplished with JavaScript, making the experience much more up-to-date, intuitive, and flexible for future development.
The BACARDI website is another one done completely in Flash, including the header, footer and dropdown menus — all of which could have been done with HTML and JavaScript without losing anything aesthetically:
The Outdated “Skip Intro” Link
Another 8-year-old web design trend used on many commercial alcohol sites is the “skip intro” button, which is obviously a symptom of what was discussed in the previous section — overuse of Flash. Below are a few examples of sites with Flash intros that have the option to be “skipped”.
Even worse, after verifying your age, the Jameson Irish Whiskey website loads up a Flash intro of a super-fancy animated 3-D cube that does not even have a “skip” button:
Auto-Playing Sounds and Video
When Flash is overused, it’s inevitable that embedded sounds will be also. Sound should generally only be triggered by the user, and should always have an obvious method for toggling or reducing the volume. Many of the sites I investigated failed miserably in this regard.
After passing the age verification screen, the Corona website plays an intro-style photo animation with music playing. As seen in the screen shot below, there is no way to skip this animation and no way to turn off the sound.
The Bud Light website doesn’t even wait for you to pass the age verification screen to trigger automatic “ambient sounds” (people talking in the background, like at a party). The sounds are mildly annoying — but at least there’s an easy-to-locate on/off switch in the top right corner of the screen.
The Blue Moon Brewing Company website is a very beautifully-designed but nightmarishly-unusable site. It’s done with a book-style look that has nice animation, but is really out of place on the modern web. After verifying your age, a lightbox-style overlay initiates to advertise something about New Year’s Eve. This overlay is accompanied by the sounds of Auld Lange Syne — with no apparent method to disable the song.
The Michelob website plays a video during the age verification, and again when the site loads. In both cases this is done without initialization from the user. In this case, they weren’t annoying and obtrusive, and they were very brief — so I’ll give them credit for a much nicer and more usable experience than some of those we’ve already considered.
A better option would have been to have a large play button to indicate the video is there, and allow the users to initiate it at their leisure.
The SKYY Vodka website plays a series of videos after you verify your age. At first glance, there is no apparent way to disable the videos or the sound. But when you roll your mouse over the video area, a video toolbar appears allowing you to pause the video and/or turn off the sound. Better than some of the other options we’ve considered, but considerably less than user-friendly.
And now for the Russian Standard Vodka website. What can I say about this horrendous, irritating, and unusable monster of a site? It’s a full Flash, fluid-width site that embeds a giant video as the background in the Flash movie, and, as is common, does not have an obvious way to disable this annoying video that shocks you to your very core — until you realize that clicking anywhere on the background of the movie will toggle the pause/play option. A true usability nightmare, and one of the most self-indulgent techniques you’ll ever see on a web page.
They weren’t the only ones to implement this bad practice, however. The Hennessy website similarly has a giant auto-playing background video with no apparent method to pause or stop it. The sound can be muted, but the background plays a series of videos with no end in sight.
There were so many more examples of sites that embedded sounds and videos. It’s amazing how the sites in this niche hold so much in common in the area of bad practices. The designers and site architects seem to live in their own little world of “trendy” web design and have, for the most part, failed to break out of many old-school techniques from which most modern designers have moved on.
“Mystery Meat” Navigation (in 2009?)
Until I started researching this article, I thought mystery meat navigation was an old-school practice that was overcome by a modern-day movement of user-centric design — but that is obviously not the case in the commercial alcohol website industry.
Because of the many superficialities, the overuse of Flash, and other self-indulgent design tendencies, many of the sites in this industry suffer from this “mystery meat” or “Where’s Waldo?” phenomenon — that is, pages where the user has no idea what is clickable and what is not. Take a look at some of the screen shots below and see if you can clearly identify the clickable elements. Below each screen shot I’ve included some explanations to decrypt the “mystery” elements so you can see how unusable some of these sites really are.
On the San Miguel Beer website (above), in addition to the navigation bar links, nearly all the graphical elements in the content area are clickable, including the car, the truck, all the doors on the building, and signs. Who knew?
On the Widmer Brothers Brewery site (above), there is a “mystery” link associated with each of the following elements: Both Widmer brothers, the big glass of beer, the lemon slice, the bottle cap, the keychain, the laptop, and the dart.
After enduring through the auto-playing “island” sounds, repeating animations, and the obtrusive “drink mixer” overlay advertisement, the Malibu Rum site visitor is presented with a semi-underwater island scene with “mystery meat” navigation as the focal point of the page. The five primary page elements (the mirror ball, the binoculars, the coconut, the bottle, and the drink mixer), however, are not the only clickable items; there’s also the satellite dish in the background.
Up to this point, all the examples of “mystery meat” navigation display a graphic or text hint, on mouse over, that explains what the clickable item points to. The next example doesn’t even go that far.
The Mount Gay Rum site (above) is all Flash, and the main content area is a book with pages that turn when clicked. First of all, finding the exact spot to click on the corner of each page is not the smoothest experience. But there are other clickable elements outside of the book object; you can click the liquor bottle (the barely-visible object in the top left, not the one in the content area), the glass of rum with ice, and the red hat (top right). In my experience, after turning the pages and clicking the mystery items multiple times, I still don’t know what those extra mystery links are for, and why they’re not labelled.
Outdated Design and Typography
From my research, many of the sites that do not suffer greatly from the problems discussed above, and are actually fairly usable, incorporated outdated trends and layouts. A few examples are shown below.
The Miller Lite website is too small for modern screen resolutions.
The Martell Cognac website has tiny font sizes and other small elements.
Beefeater Gin has small navigation text and even smaller drop-down menu text.
The 4Copas Tequila site is somewhat old-looking, uses small typography all over its pages, and has an outdated vertical navigation bar.
The Jack Daniel’s site is too dark, and many sections are almost unreadable because of the small typography.
Showcase of the Best Sites
As promised, although this article did come down quite hard on the designers and developers of many alcohol-related websites, there are many sites that are well-designed, usable, and do not overuse Flash animation and other obtrusive techniques.
Many of the sites I’ve already considered are actually nicely designed (usability issues aside). Therefore, this last section is not necessarily showcasing sites that are “pretty”, but instead taking all factors into consideration to compile a list of the highest quality sites, in line with modern web design and development standards and best practices.
Some of these sites have a few of the weaknesses I’ve discussed, but generally are more intuitive, non-obtrusive, and easier to navigate.
Conclusion
In no way does this article mean to imply that the designers of these sites are not talented. In fact, most of the designs presented here are far beyond anything that I could personally accomplish. But, as web developers have learned in recent years, beauty in web design does not guarantee success — and in many cases, a quest for a more visually appealing experience can often weaken the more important aspects of a website.
As shown by the final showcase in this article, not every site in the beer and alcohol website niche is unusable or superficial. But the number of poorly-executed design and navigational techniques and the overwhelming amount of self-indulgent elements I’ve discussed here make it clear that this industry has some important ground to make up in usability, accessibility, and best practices.
If you’re reading this and thinking that I’ve chosen a few specific examples to serve as a basis for an overblown opinion, you should know that there were dozens of other examples of poor usability and downright annoyances that I didn’t include. I also did not discuss special needs users, graceful degradation, semantic markup, and table-based layouts — any of which could have provided further evidence that these sites, for the most part, are downright awful.
Maybe there are underlying reasons for many of the decisions made in these designs. Those reasons could be due to business politics, legal issues, or even a failure to encourage forward thinking — so I will acknowledge that some of these criticisms could be, upon further analysis, overly harsh.
Or maybe these problems have something to do with the possibility that these designers are exposed to a lot of free alcohol…? Hmm…
Allen Walker
December 7th, 2009 3:38 pmI almost learned more from you all picking these sights apart than you just showing me the good stuff. Awesome post!
Bill
December 7th, 2009 3:55 pmI have worked on a few alcohol-related sites in the past. Here in New Zealand, as far as I know (and Australia as well) the age verification is a legal requirement and you have to ask for full DOB.
As to the design, my experience is that the design is done by print-focused agencies, and they want their designs to “stand out”. Too often this desire, and lack of understanding of web best practices, results in the type of sites you listed. They want to be clever and different. They want it to be a “journey of discovery” (hence the mystery-meat navigation). They want your attention. They want “interactive”.
An example of an actual question from a designer: “Where can I put the navigation? The top and left is too cliche. We want it to be different”
And the worst part? The sites you pointed to as the worst probably won multiple ad awards for “breaking the mold”, as voted by other like-minded designers.
Andres Jaimes
December 7th, 2009 3:55 pmExcellent! another great article…
nobody
December 7th, 2009 3:57 pmI can’t see the comments
Jeff
December 7th, 2009 4:01 pmYou spelled “Labatt” wrong… and got the URL wrong. But apparently they are used to people spelling it wrong and registered the misspelling too.
Louis Lazaris
December 7th, 2009 5:49 pmThanks, Jeff! I’ve corrected it. Nice catch.
Sky Willmott
December 7th, 2009 4:15 pmNice article… how do I get to see the comments?…. thankyou smashing mag – every day you give me something great to read and see… cheers!
D69
December 7th, 2009 4:15 pmDont get me started on flash sites, flash is good for adverts, video & designer showcases – someone just forgot to tell the marketing department a department whos’ last revolution was foil labels. Now if we can only get car makers to abandon flash as a “solution” rather than an enhancement to usability the world would be a richer place.
Tim Rohe
December 7th, 2009 4:29 pmI spent a lot of time researching the vodka category this summer, and the age verification screens did get very tedious. Why the complication? A simple yes or no question should make everyone happy.
ed
December 7th, 2009 4:54 pmwhat no pabst?
Bug
December 7th, 2009 5:00 pmI really don’t think this is just limited to alcohol companies. Large corporations seem to think what ever marketing plan they pop out can be modified to the web.
Can Masagi
December 7th, 2009 5:15 pmWow…
WebDesign is not easy as I thought… Beautiful WebSite doesn’t mean beautiful…
thanks!
fred
December 7th, 2009 5:18 pmsome worth checking… vb.com.au , vbraw.com.au , crownbeverages.com.au/mylabel
Mario
December 7th, 2009 5:40 pmGuinness falls into an script execution error when trying to enter and have not set date of birdth (Notice: Undefined variable: locale in /opt/rmt/guinness_com_locales/global/lib/gateway.php on line 84). What a shame…
hike
December 7th, 2009 5:45 pm“But in many cases, animation and effects could be implemented through good semantic code manipulated unobtrusively with jQuery or another JavaScript library.”
There are still a lot of people thinking flash = shitty timeline animation. But it is not! Actionscript 3 is a good object-oriented programing-language, no timeline needed.
Storm
December 7th, 2009 5:54 pmWhile I agree about the inherent usability issues that these websites have, one might say that seeing as all these websites have the same, or if not similar, set of issues, that this is the expected norm for users of such websites. I don’t really surf these sites (I prefer to drink the stuff not read about it) but for those users who do, one would imagine that they surf a variety of them and not just their one favourite beverage.
Is it really that bad that they have the same level of usability expectations for those websites? I don’t expect every genre of website to be used in the same way but I do like sites within the same genre to follow similar conventions. I would imagine this is why these large alcohol companies request sites like these, they see every other site in their niche as having the same elements. Isn’t that what usability is all about, presenting recognisable site conventions to aid usage?
I feel that even though these sites aren’t the most “usable” in the everyday sense of the word, the quality of design, use of flash and creative uses of branding evidenced in these sites is actually quite amazing. I wish I was half as good as some of those flash designers.
Personally, after looking at Louis’ own website, I’m not sure why he is writing posts about design anyway. It leaves a lot to be desired…..
Louis
December 7th, 2009 7:43 pmStorm,
You brought up a good point which is worth discussing: Whether or not it’s acceptable to design according to your niche’s standards, and not the web’s standards. That’s an excellent point.
Now, regarding the latter part of your comment: If you think this article is about “design” in the graphical sense, then I think you should go back and read it again. The article is about “design” in the usability sense. Nowhere in the article did I ever state that the graphics on those sites were not attractive. Maybe you didn’t read the whole thing, so that’s fine; but towards the end I fully acknowledged that the designers of those sites are talented and that they created experiences that I could never accomplish.
But thank you for your thoughts, you added a good point to the discussion.
Juan Jose
December 7th, 2009 6:44 pmSorry, couldn’t finish the article, I have read better bashing articles in which respect for other’s people work is still considered. Who is to say what works or not? I find this article kind of disrespectful, but that’s just my opinion anyways.
steven benjaminson
December 7th, 2009 6:58 pmThis is really one of the worst articles I have read on smashingmag. I also couldn’t read past the first few points the author makes without feeling like I am reading an incredibly naive and inexperienced author. Not well researched and obviously created for a quick article payment.
Becky
December 7th, 2009 7:23 pmThat was quite detailed, but I felt it was a bit too long. If you want complicated, try going to Marlboro’s website and try and get in.
I am wondering though, why the ‘Skip Intro’ part is a no no? I have had clients who insist on flash intro’s, which I hate, and really feel the need for the skip intro link. Not everyone wants to sit through a flash intro even if you are forced to put it there.
Louis
December 7th, 2009 7:53 pmBecky,
The “skip intro” is a no-no because the “intro” is a no-no. Maybe I should have made that more clear. It was a shorter section anyhow. Thanks for pointing that out.
Becky
December 7th, 2009 8:06 pmNot a problem! I hate when clients demand them, no matter how much information I give them about how it holds up your site. Flash has it’s uses but not for intros!
Eduardo Guerrero
December 7th, 2009 8:47 pmwtf? you don’t mention absolut vodka in this article, remember that vodka has a good management of photography, graphic design and packaging, well done anyway
ruben
December 7th, 2009 9:23 pmNice post
Fuad Ahasan Chowdhury
December 8th, 2009 1:03 amNice share indeed!
Phill
December 8th, 2009 2:10 amI had a hard time reading this article, I agree with a lot of the points made in regards to usability however as most developers/designers know most of the issues mentioned here are basically down to the fact that big clients work with big agencies for all their media and generally have very little knowledge of usability or best practice and simply work to make sure their client is happy with the end product. If your new to design or development there are some good points for usability etc in this article however I feel a lot of the issues are there simply because with such big sites and big brands they are unavoidable or non-negotiable and new designers/developers should be prepared for requests from agencies that go against their better judgement.
Brandon S. Adkins
December 8th, 2009 2:16 amA very thorough article compared to some articles on SmashingMag. Good to see an extensive review of this problematic niche of websites.
I think saying that ‘this type of site’ doesn’t *need* usability is an ignorant cop-out. All sites should have some degree of good usability.
I’ve left many alcohol websites, because I couldn’t find the information I was looking for such as ingredients, mixes, nutritional facts, and more. It’s rather frustrating to have to go through hoops to get the information I want.
I believe the audience of alcohol websites is severely misunderstood. Many believe that those people that are visiting these sites are looking for some kind of flashy party-like experience. I beg to differ. I don’t believe that the stereotypical party drunk is really the main audience for these websites.
I believe more often then not it is someone looking for information, since the purpose of an alcohol site isn’t really to give the user a “crazy experience” and is generally more commonly used to introduce someone to the brand or heighten their involvement by giving them mixes and recipes along with company information and history.
Unfortunately most of the useful information is hidden behind wall after wall of lousy attempts at giving the user some kind of unnecessary, generally unfulfilling “experience”. If I want the experience, I’ll actually drink the alcohol. If I want information, I’ll visit the website.
Being an alcohol website is absolutely no excuse to abandon usability. That said, many times it is up to the client, so I understand the designer/developer are not necessarily at fault. It is unfortunate.
Bilal Çınarlı
December 8th, 2009 2:28 amVery interesting round up
Dzinepress
December 8th, 2009 2:49 amReally professional listing and we getting inspirations of latest trend designs. thanks
bryan
December 8th, 2009 4:10 amOne reason that most of the sites are so over the top, is because it is all they have, all style and no content. Beer is just beer (of varying qaulities) but after that there is not much to say. Hands up how many of you aside from a design perspective have ever wanted or more importantly looked at an alcohol site, I have been working on design and drinking for quite some time, and have never felt I a need for inspiration or guidance. Alcohol is not alone, that is the whole principle of advertising to create a desire and interest in things that are usually not very good and we are not interested in. All the very best products of any sector never need to market heavily because they have a reputation earnt through performance, excellence and simply communicating what they do, without claiming to change your whole life or get you laid.
Fernando alcantra
December 8th, 2009 5:31 amI not fully agree with your opinion, i think all this overused flash sites must be considered hotsites, without apply the usability rules, cause they just wanna sell their product, is not a system that the user have to work, the user just will enter in the site if he want…
neonWired
December 8th, 2009 6:32 amWould have been an interesting article had the writer not first complained about “bad habits that were carried over from the old days of the web design industry” and then ran headlong into misinformed anti-flash snobbery.
I think the point of ‘branding’ is completely missed. It’s never about usability.
LA
December 8th, 2009 6:41 amGreat article. I’d like to see your thoughts on this recent post on SM: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/the-death-of-the-blog-post/
Reality
December 8th, 2009 7:02 amI’ve designed MANY websites in the spirit industry for a long time now. Two points I can add insight to are the legal driking age verifications pages and the use of Flash. The form fields presented for determining age and location are determined by the legal departments of the company and the trade groups they belong to. The marketing teams, designers and developers involved have absolutely no say on what information is gathered. We’ve tried many designs over the years and done lots of user research and the net result is that there is really no perfect way to require someone to fill out 5 or 6 form fields before the enter the site. User drop off at the LDA page is huge and everyone knows it. Go talk to the lawyers and the government about fixing that.
While many people use flash because of it’s production value, we’ve used it (more specifically Flex) because of it’s flexibility for global sites. It’s cheaper and easier for us to maintain a consistent look and experience in general across 20+ languages if the site framework is built in Flash. It also allows for easy integration of local promotion sites into the main global frame. That means every country can easily and cheaply build their own micro sites and plug them into the main global site/url. Of course that’s possible to do with other technology but Flash/Flex does the job pretty well.
Maybe there are bigger reasons that all of these sites have the same flaws beyond the designers being stupid?
Nick Yeoman
December 8th, 2009 7:10 amI really liked this post. With all these fancy jquery plugins, crazy SEO marketer and different browsers, we tend to forget who we are doing all this for: THE USERS!
Thanks for the great post, I try (and not necessarily succeed) to blog about usability on my blog. I’d love your guys feedback.
Mike Street
December 8th, 2009 8:06 amOne of the things that the writer of this article is not knowledgeable about is that extreme legal requirements that all wine and spirits sites must go through before they can even be launch. While the writer might not like the LPA there are hundreds of legal requirement that go into the back end of the LPA. Each region of the world has many different regulations and the programming that goes into the age gate can often be extensive.
Check out http://jimbeam.com or http://theredstag.com for some good examples of great design and great content.
Tim H
December 8th, 2009 8:13 amNice to see a critical and somewhat tongue-in-cheek but fair article.
John
December 8th, 2009 8:48 amLike the article. I’ve worked on a few beer sites. and find its quite a big waste of money because its all fluff usually.
Sam
December 8th, 2009 11:19 amA big, old industry using big, old print techniques. Flash helps support the ‘big lie’ (about how drinking their brand will make you sexier or more important, well liked, etc.).
TV and Print ‘Sexy’ just falls flat in an interactive environment.
Enjoyed the article ;’)
z0r
December 8th, 2009 12:50 pmYep, wanted to test some of the sites, but left after the “enter your birthday”
CopperBot
December 8th, 2009 1:39 pmFantastic read!
Alan
December 8th, 2009 7:34 pmI thiink everybody is waaaaaaaaay over thinking this and missing the purpose, they are alcohol websites……..people don’t visit them to find vital information and they don’t need to be super efficient. The purpose is just to put up some big, cool looking, flashy, billboards that make people think “cool, Ima go drink some a that stuff now!”
michal
December 9th, 2009 1:20 amThe author is missing a key aspect there. The alcohol websites do not SELL, they only serve as a point of reference to the coolness of the brand. And excuse me but FLASH is the tool for that. Btw some of the alcohol webs out there are fantastic. The author did not find them but they are there. just go to fwa or other gallery.
Armando Alves
December 9th, 2009 4:15 amMost of the alcohol industry is self regulated (in the EU: http://www.efrd.org/efrdinaction/b01b.html ), with several standard established practices in communication. Much of what is produced is thus a consequence and not a web designer’s fault, per se.
dw
December 9th, 2009 9:27 amhttp://www.zubrowka.pl
and
http://www.pva.com.pl/index-en.html
and
http://www.vodkasobieski.com/
matt fisher
December 9th, 2009 2:50 pmboring.
Jerad Koskey
December 9th, 2009 3:34 pmThese websites are advertisements!
This is not Facebook or Ebay. It is not a news site or a blog. Its a big flashy advert. Finding the info is not as important as making an impression and reinforcing the brands image. (no, really) If you want important info for your favorite booze, you read the bottle.
The authors blind negativity towards flash is obvious. For those of us working in online advertising, we know that Flash is the STANDARD for this type of content. Proposing javascript animation as an alternative is a joke. This type of sites are where Flash really shines and I advocate them. The fact that he mentions an applauded FWA winner as a “bad” site makes me seriously question his judgment. I enjoyed reading the article and the debate regardless.
Will
December 10th, 2009 3:26 pmAn interesting and informative article.
The users would have to be drunk to navigate some of these sites and even then, they may induce motion sickness…that 26000vodka intro is enough to give you vertigo!
Nice work, keep it up!
Kevin
December 17th, 2009 11:46 amWhy is a developer writing an article about design inspiration? Many of the sites you call “outdated” actually ARE from a couple years ago so of course they won’t include the latest web trends from 2009. I agreed with many of your usability critiques, but you just seem to be complaining about how many of these sites weren’t made recently. You don’t seem to understand marketing. For instance, the 26000vodka site is an EXCELLENT brand builder and a great advertisement that speaks to their young, affluent target market of club-scene types. If you get motion sickness from that site, your probably not in the target market, so sorry grandpa, your opinion is irrelevant.
Why go back to writing code; not articles about how you are smarter than those “superficial” folks in the advertising industry.
Rick
December 17th, 2009 11:53 amAgreed.
Jason
December 22nd, 2009 5:58 amYou’ve stated clearly why each of the above websites didn’t work and went so far as to explain why. But when it came to the best sites I got a huge link list and that’s it.
Why not explain why each of them were included in the list like you did above instead of just throwing a massive pile of links on the page. I read the top part, but just skipped over the bottom. I’m not very interested in a mystery link blob, I care to read an article.
Tom
January 4th, 2010 9:53 pmWow. I don’t know much about web site design. I am, afterall, just a liquor salesman who happened upon your article. I’ve just got to say, you are right on the money.
I’ve often wondered who creates some of these pages, but more importantly, who approves this garbage.
I will say, though, it is great to work in an industry where my basic understanding of complex and confusing programs such as excel and paint shop pro makes me tech geek.
Thanks for the article. I can’t wait to pass it on.
Nigel
January 5th, 2010 11:33 amTo be entirely honest I disagree with your opinions on these sites. The goals of the client in these cases are very specific; create a visually stunning web site that acts like an interactive commercial. They aren’t intended to be updated constantly, or search engine friendly. Sure there are major problems such as load times, unintuitive navigation, and missing mute buttons but for all intensive purposes many of the sites you seem to dislike greatly are very successful, fun and enjoyable experiences. They are intended to be visually stunning multimedia pieces that function as an augmentation of the brand, not information sites about alcohol. These people are trying sell booze, one of those magical products that happens to sell it’s self. No one will decide upon their next alcohol purchase because of a web site that doesn’t navigate well, they will buy alcohol because of cost, experience, word of mouth, image and the intention of getting their drink on.
In a traditional sense, sure many of these sites are abominations. But in the same vein many of these sites are wonderful experiences and do their job extraordinarily well. So, I think you’ve missed the point.
Michal
January 6th, 2010 12:07 pmI love this beer page of Slovak beer called Golden Pheasant http://www.zlatybazant.sk/eng/
ziggy
January 8th, 2010 4:51 amthat Molson Canadian site was terrible, unusable for everyone except canadians.
it requires you to insert a postal code.
after 5 minutes of trying to enter i gave up :((
facke
January 9th, 2010 8:21 amEXCELLENT brand builder and a great advertisement that speaks to their young, affluent target market of club-scene types. If you get motion sickness from that site, your probably not in the target market, so sorry grandpa, your opinion is irrelevant.
Arek
January 11th, 2010 5:24 amGreat article, you should also check the 2600vodka, it’s super clean and realy nice looking site done completely in XHTML/CSS – http://www.26000vodka.com/
Drew
January 11th, 2010 9:37 amI cannot agree more with this article. I was just talking to my buddy about this.
I actually made my own beer website with wordpress. Drinking one new beer a day for a year.
http://365beers.wordpress.com/
Let me know what you guys think of the design!
dev
January 11th, 2010 6:06 pmReally, really, really bad article in so many ways. I thought we took jakob nielsen out the back and shot him years ago – it is mind boggling to still see morons still campaigning against flash.
The web is not text – get over it. It is an amazing place full of life in all forms – get used to it. Flash is a fantastic medium and makes the web a much more enjoyable place to be – if everything were text I would be reading this on a kindle.
Further genuine full screen only became available in the last three years – oops. Outisde of that it was a hack.
when ever I read stupid blogs like this I can not help but think of the fact that most companies before TV believed it was a novelty and would not last – most of them no longer exist.
Campaigning against flash is the last vestige of incompetent old men who cant code, cant design and have no idea.
Finally the purpose of gathering this information is for demographics on a scale you sir, have no idea about –
You should take this blog down – it is for html coders and only serves to embarrass you.
Edd
January 20th, 2010 6:42 amWell..if your goal was to create A LOT of fuss about website design and get a bunch of comments to your article..CONGRATULATIONS, YOU DID IT! Anyway, I do agree that age/country verification – in spite of being a legal requirement – is, at least for not-so-innocent people over 10 (this being a decreasing age these days), a waste of time, as anyone can lie about this. I also agree that some parts of a website DON’T NEED to be made with Flash. But, then again, why not? Flash Player is installed in most computers, anyway…and maybe some people don’t like Javascript…but we could be talking about this forever. What I don’t agree is the “Mistery Meat” part of your article. I do like websites where the clickable parts are not immediatly visible to the user – that’s a consequence of IMMAGINATION AND CREATIVITY from the developer/designer and it helps creating a not-so-grey-and-standard Web. If everyone was making “standard websites”, with standard menus, etc, there wouldn’t be any of those interesting/funny websites and web applications – I guess you can say that the Web 2.0 concept wouldn’t exist either. So…as Dev said on his comment “the web is not [just] text – get over it”. Peace
David
January 27th, 2011 7:55 pmWhere is it a legal requirement? My research says it’s not (in most markets).
Just everybody following along like sheep because somebody did it first. There ARE voluntary codes of practice and corporate ethics/policies that insist on age verification – but they are completely pointless in my view.
However we continue to build client sites with age verification because clients want it – mainly because they don’t have the time or courage to buck the trend or face down corporate/head office mandarins.
Sad.
terrence
February 7th, 2010 5:49 pmage verification… besides getting information such as which region your IP is located, the website’s market research system now has the age of the visiting individual… providing of course if the said visitor is indeed telling the truth which is found by yet another market research system that finds the percentage of who is telling the truth.
so, just for a few numbers… 10 people visit the site, of the 10 there are 3 underage and 2 are them are male (beer just for argument sake) so to grab more lady drinkers, they decide to develop a “corona” type drink called bud light with lime and promote it using fun loving smart-sexy covered 20-something girlies… you know just to break into another market. :)
seriously people, you really needed to ask?
Chad
February 11th, 2010 5:02 pmThere isn’t a legal requirement for age verification, however there is an industry requirement established by DISCUS (Distilled Spirits Council of the US). DISCUS has created a code of responsible practices, and the relevant section states:
“Age affirmation mechanisms, utilizing month, day and year, should be employed for DISCUS member- controlled beverage alcohol advertising and marketing websites. They also should contain a reminder of the legal purchase age.” From http://www.discus.org/responsibility/code.asp
In light of this, I would love to see this article updated to show a proposed best practice that has great usability AND is DISCUS compliant.
Captain Quirk
April 11th, 2010 5:27 pmMost of them were visually appealing (more so as still image thumbnails on your site) and all of them had something that made me ask “how the hell did they do that?” but that doesn’t excuse the fact that none of the ones I visited offered the user anything of any real value to warrant all of the noise, ruckus or ………………..waiting.
Alcohol companies have truckloads of cash…..this compilation certainly illustrates that money doesn’t buy good taste.
Dave
September 1st, 2010 8:34 pmGood article- I’ve had to visit the web sites of 187 microbreweries (and that’s just getting started) for a project I’m doing. By far the worst is the dreaded all flash site, which seems to be extremely pervasive. The age verification is very irritating too, however it seems much more prevalent on us sites than Canadian (like 99% to 75%), and as you mentioned, on many sites it’s very hard to figure out how to enter your birth date.
I’ve also noticed several sites are noting but several jpegs (in one case the entire site was a single jpeg).
The sites I’ve been looking at are all microbreweries (very small businesses) but they seem to be copying the big companies as closely as possible.
This was a spot on article. I think a good web designer could make a killing redesigning microbrewery web sites!
Graham
September 9th, 2010 6:59 amIf anyone’s still following comments on this article here’s a great example of good age verification and a nicely interactive site with NO flash.
http://donq.com/
Samuel Bednar
May 25th, 2011 1:31 amGreat article but linked pictures are missing – pls. repair it, thanks!
Sven Lennartz
May 25th, 2011 2:49 amfixed! sorry for this
Al
August 8th, 2011 8:36 amAwesome article! Building a site now and these will come in handy :)
Sam Jarvis
December 15th, 2011 3:32 pm“…very beautifully-designed but nightmarishly-unusable…”
When related to the web, this is an oxymoron. Surprised to see this written in a smashing article!
Ben C.
August 22nd, 2012 10:18 pmI found this article because I was interested in other people’s opinions about the unneccesary age verification screen.
I’m working on an alcohol related website, and I have noticed that it is a very fad driven industry. What one brewery does, another brewery wants to follow. It’s hard to get the client to allow creative freedom on the designer’s part because they want their site to look like “that one,” and they really like the sound the site makes when you load a new page, so they want that effect too.
I couldn’t agree more with this article. Here’s to businesses in the alcohol industry maturing in their individuality.