The Ugly Showcase of Military, Intelligence And Defense Websites
Members of military and intelligence forces around the world risk their lives daily to defend their countries and assist in peacekeeping and aid missions both at home and abroad. The men and women who make up the world’s defense forces make sacrifices that most civilians wouldn’t consider to serve their countries.
So, with everything they do for us, shouldn’t they be represented online by website designs that reflect the honor and responsibility they undertake every day? Unfortunately, that’s not the case in many countries out there. Many military websites out there are some of the worst designs in any industry. Whether they’re outdated, broken or designed by amateurs, some of the websites showcased below are bad enough to make you cringe.
There are some good ones, though. A number of countries have obviously dedicated the time and resources necessary to project a professional and polished Web presence for their members. A number of other websites have obviously put in some effort and are pretty close. If you know of examples of other great military or intelligence websites from around the world, please add them in the comments!
The Outdated
The websites featured here might have looked great 10 or more years ago (which was likely when they were created). But either their designs haven’t been updated in a very long time or their designers are still borrowing conventions from the late ’90s.
Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Argentina
Everything from the color scheme to the header image to the skinny three-column layout dates this design.
Royal Bahamas Defence Force
This website wouldn’t look quite so dated if it weren’t for the drop-shadows behind the content blocks.
Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
The overall layout of this website screams early-2000s.
Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Belarus
Very minimalistic website. Unfortunately, gradients, tiny links and many  -empty spaces make it look dated.
Colombian National Police
Here’s another great example of a website that would have looked right at home in the late ’90s or early 2000s.
Hellenic Navy
The thing that dates this website the most is its width: it would look right at home on a screen with a resolution of 800×600.
Macedonian Ministry of Defence
The layout, the partially rounded corners and the drop-shadow against the background all date this website.
Pakistan Maritime Security Agency
Using an image like this one as a background was very popular in the ’90s.
Serbian Ministry of Defense
The layout here is almost grid-like, but it doesn’t quite make it. The color scheme is the most outdated, though.
Slovenian Armed Forces
Another website that would have been current 8 to 10 years ago.
Spanish Armada
The rounded colors and glossy buttons would have looked great a few years ago, but now they just harken back to the earliest days of the Web 2.0 style.
The Russian Federation Ministry of Defence
The design has a striking resemblance to traditional Google AdSense blocks, and the line-height property for the content area certainly should be increased..
Sri Lanka Ministry of Defence
The color scheme and typography here are definitely reminiscent of Web design 5 to 10 years ago.
U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation
The skinny layout, color scheme and overall look of this website feel at least 6 to 7 years old.
U.S. National Reconnaissance Office
This website screams late ’90s and early 2000s, especially the navigation and typography.
Uruguayan Air Force
This looks like it was based on a standard template from 5 to 10 years ago.
The Poorly Coded
These websites might not have been so bad if they were cross-browser compatible and adhered to Web standards even a little. But they are all so poorly coded that they don’t render correctly in browsers such as Firefox or Safari.
Luckily, there aren’t too many of them.
Brazilian Army
The coding on this website isn’t noticeably horrible… except for all the thin white lines running through the backgrounds and borders of the content blocks.
Pakistan Navy
I don’t even want to begin figuring out how they got the rounded-corner background to repeat like that in the main content area.
South African Army
This website wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the giant gray bar running down the main column, effectively blocking half the content.
United States Special Operations Command
The headers for all the content blocks here are fine, except the one for the news feeds, which prefers to be higher up on the page.
The Poorly Designed
These websites are just poorly designed. Some look like they were based on stock templates… bad ones. Others look like they were designed in programs aimed at hobbyists or those needing to set up personal websites (in any case, definitely not appropriate for government agencies).
Venezuelan Bolivarian Army
Between the color scheme, the header (which doesn’t come close to spanning the whole design) and the broken icons, this website just doesn’t look good at all.
Cuban National Defence
I’m not sure where to begin with this one…
Egyptian Armed Forces
It looks like they couldn’t decide whether they wanted a minimalist website.
Republic of Fiji Military Forces
This looks like your classic template website, with minor modifications.
Ministry of Defence of Georgia
This wouldn’t be so bad if the content areas weren’t so disjointed.
Indian Air Force
This might have been salvageable, except for the horrible alignment.
Kenyan National Security Intelligence Service
The padding and margins in this website aren’t adequate, and the alignment is off in places. The concept is sound; it just needs to be better executed.
Lebanese Army
This website might not have been so bad if the colors complemented the camouflage background, rather than clashed with it.
The Philippine Marine Corps
This is another one for which I’m not even sure where to start.
Polish Land Forces
Forget for a moment how amateurish this one looks. Notice how the text doesn’t even match up with the navigation buttons.
Portuguese Army
From the header alone, it’s not so bad. It’s the lower area of this website that doesn’t seem to have any aim.
Romanian Land Forces
I’m still trying to figure out if that white bar across the top of each column is supposed to be there. Beyond that, they should have paid more attention to how the header colors go with the rest of the color scheme.
Royal Thai Army
There’s just way too much going on here, and no focal point to grab your attention.
Turkish Air Force
This almost made it into the “Not So Bad” category below, except that it doesn’t have any focus, and the alignment of some elements is off.
Ministry of Defence of Ukraine
The ads on this website should be better integrated in the overall design. Other than that, the design looks very dated.
United Arab Emirates Ministry of Defence
Where’s the content?
Zimbabwe Ministry of Defence
There’s no color scheme here, and the entire thing looks like something a kid did in class.
The Not-So-Bad
The websites here aren’t terrible. In most cases, only minor things hold them back. Most of them could be great with just a bit more work.
Ministry of Defence of The Republic of Armenia
Other than the width of this website (which is a bit narrow for even an 800 x 600 display), it’s not a terrible design.
Australian Secret Intelligence Service
This design is just fine, other than being a bit boring. And the text could be slightly enlarged for easier reading.
Ministry of Defense of Bosnia and Herzegovina
If more attention was paid to the baseline or vertical rhythm, this would be a reasonably good design.
British Secret Intelligence Service
The angles in this design should either be better incorporated into the other elements or removed altogether. Other than that, it’s not bad.
Bundeswehr
This is one of those websites that doesn’t have anything particularly wrong with it. It’s just underwhelming.
Ministry of National Defense of the People’s Republic of China
The elements on this website don’t quite have enough continuity, but the color scheme and overall layout are good.
Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Croatia
This website is also underwhelming. Nothing particularly “wrong” with it, but not impressive either.
Ecuadorian Army
The header here isn’t that bad, but the rest of the website doesn’t match up, and it feels a bit like a generic template.
Ecuadorian Navy
Parts of this website are great (the slidehow in the header, for instance) but other parts don’t quite match up, particularly the buttons on the right-hand side and the off-center navigation elements.
Armed Forces of Honduras
This website isn’t bad. But again, nothing makes it stand out.
Norwegian Ministry of Defense
Another example of a website that doesn’t do anything to stand out.
Peruvian Air Force
The idea here is good, but the result isn’t very interesting.
Portuguese Ministry of Defense
Another inoffensive yet unimpressive website.
Portuguese Navy
This would be great, but it has just a little too much going on. Some negative space would make a huge difference.
Saudi Arabian Ground Forces
This website is more interesting than some of the others here, but it doesn’t quite pull it together.
Sri Lanka Navy
Here’s another website that looks like a template. The use of white space could be better and makes everything look a bit disjointed.
Swiss Army
Another underwhelming, uninteresting design. At least it looks professional.
US Air Force
A professional yet boring design. But maybe that’s how military websites should look?
US Central Intelligence Agency
This website is way too narrow, and overall it’s just not eye-catching.
US Department of Defense
Too much is going on here, and the social media links (the icons especially) on the left look out of place.
US Navy
The icons and banners in the header don’t really fit the rest of this design.
A Few Good Sites
The websites below are the stars of this post. They are well designed, easy to use, professional and worthy of representing the armed forces and intelligence services.
Austrian Armed Forces
This one’s clean and well laid out, with plenty of white space and a great color scheme.
British Army
A professional-looking website, with a background that’s more interesting than most.
British Royal Air Force
Another website with an interesting background and a clean overall design.
British Security Service MI5
The color scheme here is great, as is the overall aesthetic, which is a cross between minimalist and magazine-style.
Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Bulgaria
A clean, well thought out design that makes good use of textures and gradients.
Chilean Navy
The header here is fantastic, and the rest of the layout works well.
Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces of the Czech Republic
Another great header design: this one doubles as navigation. Each section of the website has a different color scheme, while maintaining the same basic look.
Defence Command Denmark
A minimalist layout that leaves plenty of white space.
The Finnish Defense Forces
A clean and organized design, with double-tabbed navigation bars.
Netherlands Ministry of Defence
The purple color scheme here is unexpected, but it works well and sets the website apart.
Polish Ministry of National Defense
This is one of the nicest designs in this post, especially because of the header.
Swedish Armed Forces
A good clean design with a minimalist aesthetic and great typography. The transparent titles over the images on the right really take it up a notch.
US National Security Agency
Professional, easy to use and coherent: everything an intelligence website should be.
US Army
The US Army website brings together a lot of content of various types while maintaining a usable and consistent user interface.
US Marine Corps
This website stands out mostly because of the grid used for the main content area and the ample white space everywhere else.
(al)
Girl from Belgrade
June 24th, 2010 2:13 amWe all know how the government gets design jobs, and yes, if the aesthetics is not important here, then we turn to user interface. It should be clean and simple, informative and functional.
/Btw, people working for the government aren’t known for their good taste or creativity, right?/
Nevertheless, the subject is very personal, and one can’t be totally objective, because people always need a sense od belonging. The best example is, of course, our country. We were born and raised in one typicall society and culture, and therefore, this subject raises temper.
If we get past this, we can be objective. If we don’t, we are subjective.
Either way, we all love our countries. There is no place like home.
robin
June 25th, 2010 7:39 amI think you are as naive as the author to assume that we all love our own countries.
We should be striving for freedom of movement and equality for all!
Eran
June 24th, 2010 2:43 amThe Israeli Aerospace Industry (they construct and develop airborne military systems) website is much better than everything in this showcase
http://www.iai.co.il/22031-EN/homepage.aspx
Greg S
June 24th, 2010 4:34 amYou obviously missed this one. This is well worth a look. do the virtual 3D tour of the HMAS ANZAC. This awesome site was developer by Visual Jazz. http://navylifestyle.defencejobs.gov.au/main.asp
Nick
December 22nd, 2011 4:53 pmThat’s a horribly slow website… It’s not any better than the ones listed.. haha
Carlos Almeida
June 24th, 2010 4:43 amIm a webdesigner at Portuguese Navy and this post is VERY usefull to me and all webdesigner whom want to learn the goods and the bads of military webdesign.
Thx Smashingmagazine,
Carlos Almeida
Simon
June 24th, 2010 7:00 amThanks for the article.
As a professional web designer, you were right to critique the sites in this way. This is especially true for sites such as these that we would not normally come across and so we can be as objective as possible.
I for one found the dating of the designs very interesting – I’ll make sure I don’t make my sites too narrow or buttons too glossy. Easy traps to fall into, even in 2010!
As for the political comments that followed, this is not the place for them. Thanks to all those that posted positively, I enjoyed your suggested links too.
alecme
June 24th, 2010 7:50 amOne of both: Or Intelligence or Military.
Jared
June 24th, 2010 7:57 amCanada forgotten again! http://www.forces.ca
lee
June 24th, 2010 8:07 amthis writer is one of the worst, and naif i aver seen. this is not the first time i read article so poor and completely arbitrary.
Davin
June 24th, 2010 8:34 amThis design is just fine, other than being a bit boring. And the text could be slightly enlarged for easier reading. — True, but they would have to eat more paper when printed.
logolitic
June 24th, 2010 12:21 pmthat`s funny
Rhowdydog3
June 24th, 2010 12:48 pmThank you all for reminding me why I never read the comment section.
Manu
June 24th, 2010 2:18 pmIn France : http://etremarin.fr/ the promotionnal website to enter in “French navy”
Lann
June 24th, 2010 7:35 pmcheck this out.
Royal Malaysian Armed Forces
http://maf.mod.gov.my/eng/index.html
Kumar
June 24th, 2010 8:22 pmHi, Good article, but they have their own work ,Army’s duty is not to create a aesthetically nice website , but to protect the Country.they can least bother about the site, I know that you all designers are very good, but why don’t you offer a free re-design to them ?( at least for your country’s website) , instead of commenting on their website ?
theDOG
June 26th, 2010 3:35 pmI doubt the soldiers dabble in web design between operations, I am sure they put the job out to tender or employ an in-house team. I also doubt they would just let anyone do a free re-design. I expect they would actually welcome feedback on their sites. Who wouldn’t want to improve their site (no matter how exhausted they are)?
Vijay Nemade
June 24th, 2010 10:05 pmWow!
Interesting(::)
vinod
June 25th, 2010 12:18 amI am surprised to see Indian website in Hindi besides it’s ugly look. Cause ‘Hindi’ is not national language. Well, if not, why not entirely in english?
Hypocrites!
I am Indian, btw.
Sumeet Chawla
June 30th, 2010 1:48 pmThe principal official language of the Republic of India is Hindi…
Speider
June 25th, 2010 1:18 amI wonder what will happen when we realize that all nations are tied together financially and warfare and military spending both cease to exist. What could be done for those trillions of dollars? Oh, and the funding for all these web sites?
Rob
June 25th, 2010 6:20 amhttp://oaa.army.mil/
@trudesign
June 25th, 2010 9:45 amI think this is a great listing. Maybe you haters forget that there are many designers that create these sites for governements, plus there are tons of websites that are created that the public cannot see. I work for the US Gov on a classified web app and I find posts concerning gov sites very interesting. It’s one of the great ways we can see how behind governments are with their technology, and what the trends are on new sites. Thanks for the post Cameron!
Domi
June 26th, 2010 7:15 amCould you make a similar post for government websites? I’d like to read your opinion, for example, to the EU portal (odd), to the page d’accueil de Palace du Champs Elysées (plagiat) or to the Deutscher Bundestag (pimped-up dust).
ajprice
June 26th, 2010 7:47 amNever commented here before, here goes.
I didn’t find that much useful here, basically because the article was saying “Look at these, they’re rubbish.” I didn’t need to see the huge amount of sites either. Oh and what is the point of saying a colour scheme is outdated when they are the national colours of that country and its their flag in the design?
There were way too many examples of the ‘bad designs’, towards the end of them its got to the level of saying things like “there’s nothing really wrong with this but nothing stands out”. Something better would have been to take a few examples and give more of a workshop article, saying what is wrong, whether its code or graphics, and how they could fix things, maybe with a mockup redesign showing examples.
Falk
June 26th, 2010 11:47 amI agree with ajprice. The topic itself is so very polarising that a more objective point of view might have been the better solution to ‘amuse’ the Smashing readers. Rather that saying “this is so nineties” (very personal opinion) it would be interesting to find out why different websites look of different age. Many countries in the world are still only starting to use the internet for communication. I am not just talking about the “third world” countries, but even Australia – compared to countries like the UK or maybe the USA – are a good few years behind with regards to web design and internet usage in general. So it might have been a good way to point these things out rather than sitting up on the high horse to laugh about people who are sitting with 486 series PCs… (I know, I am exaggerating)
Another interesting point of view would have been to compare the different designs under the aspect of how military service is regulated in these different countries. The German Bundeswehr site looks a bit boring yes, but this is probably because there is a compulsory military service where theoretically every lad older than 17 will have to join. There is a constant stream of thousands of recruits every year, so many that they actually don’t know what to do with all of them… However, a British army site will try to be much more visual and mindblowingly (…) fantastic to attract young people – especially if on a weekly basis British soldiers get sent back from Afghanistan or Iraq in boxes, which is not the best publicity… It would be very interesting to see this sort of things and to try to understand why certain website look the way they are. You cannot really compare a French/American/Canadian website to the web attempt of some communist regime.
However, this article at least made me look at websites I have never ever been interested in and I now know they exist. This is a good point. But as described above, I think every now and then articles like this should be written from a different point of view, to break out of the “I am a designer and this looks crap” mentality because, to be honest, people who would usually look at these sites, don’t care about the design – for them it just has to “work”.
Keep the articles coming, Smashing Magazine, and try some new ways – some interesting unbiased stuff – it would be great.
hened
June 26th, 2010 12:04 pmI’d like to see showcase of some music web sites!
Sam
June 26th, 2010 12:28 pmyeah, we have one too http://www.mod.gov.lv/
Rajesh
June 27th, 2010 3:19 amNice article, love it…
Ramm
June 27th, 2010 8:05 amI like the article, and of course it’s been making something move around.
The thing is, Military is the one with more money and resources than any other organization around the world, and we all know (as developers) that making a great website doesn’t need a lot more than making a poor one. You just need the right people to do the right job, they obviously picked the wrong people.
sameera
June 27th, 2010 8:40 amPersonally I dont think most of them are that worse. And at the end of the day they should represent information (in a readable manner). But as military web sites , who cares about being it Web 2.0. Its will be OK for a web designing firm
and if a web site is ugly (as per the author) there should be a clear measurements how to say ugly. There should be a defined set of rules and then should match them with each of these sites.
grrrr
June 27th, 2010 6:39 pmWhat a ridiculous article. Who wants to see a collection of poorly designed websites?
rer0rer0
June 27th, 2010 9:59 pmThere is something I don’t like about this article but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Wait I can. The voice and the reasons for categories. I don’t like it and I am sticking with it. Having said all that IT IS THE FRIGGAN ARMY. They are not working towards your cuteness vote!
Wael
June 27th, 2010 11:43 pmyou missed this..maybe should go on the top of the list : http://www.mmc.gov.eg/ ..thanks for @abdozdotcom
Patrick
June 28th, 2010 12:41 amI don’t think there is a single decent design on the list, not even in the ‘good’ category. A few edge into acceptable, but that’s it.
I don’t care whether a site uses the latest design trend or one that’s ten years old. What matters is whether is clean and easy to use, with decent focus and a clear path through the site. These sites don’t have that, for the most part. The basic design is bad for almost all, and that’s nothing to do with trends.
I agree that this article is a waste of time. If you want to look at badly-designed sites, just google any term at all and look through the results.
The article would have value if it really analysed why the sites didn’t work, but it doesn’t. It’s just a list, with nothing behind it. I thought Smashing Mag had gone beyond this.
Tommy Rochette
June 28th, 2010 8:29 amYou should take a look at the Canadian Army recruitement website…. yes we do have an army! ;-)
http://www.forces.ca
An RAF person
June 28th, 2010 1:33 pm‘British Royal Air Force’???? No no no no, it’s just ‘Royal Air Force’. No other air force has the same name and the RAF was the first one!!
Damn
June 28th, 2010 2:10 pmTalking about the ugliest: http://www.ima.edu.co/
Marciano
June 28th, 2010 11:43 pmon the other hand, the new airforce website of the Netherlands;
http://www.luchtmachtbase-x.nl
Beautiful :)
Vince
June 29th, 2010 1:20 amSome dutch examples which are pretty good:
Landmacht
http://www.werkenbijdelandmacht.nl
Defensie (Ministery of Defence)
http://www.defensie.nl/landmacht
Marine
http://www.werkenbijdemarine.nl
Anastasia
June 29th, 2010 1:42 amThat would be really funny if any of this websites had an online support button or something like “special offer! 20% off, order now! :)
Acacio
June 29th, 2010 8:19 amWhere is http://www.nasze-wojsko.pl ?
Sumeet Chawla
June 30th, 2010 1:51 pmI believe that why don’t budding or successful designers of every nation write petitions to the govt. and volunteer to make beautiful websites rather than just commenting that this is not good and that is not good..? Its our nation and its our duty to improve the site if its not up to the mark. Serving ones nation is not only limited to the field of war or is it?
Jeff
July 8th, 2010 10:15 pmThe problem is that you cant just volunteer to work on a govt site. They have their own way of going about and finding developers/designers; and their way sucks.
Danny
July 2nd, 2010 8:01 pmTo me, military is the highest form of bad taste in any way. I’m not surprised their websites are ugly too.
alex
July 3rd, 2010 1:59 pmdidn’t like the article. the “good” designs look like the thousands of free templates you get for open source cms, and the poor ones look the same, just with a buggy stylesheet. nothing creative here….
Jeff
July 8th, 2010 10:11 pmMost of these sites are asp.net based. Who uses asp anymore? Get with the times and technology. Most asp.net sites I see are pretty ugly and are still using old tech.
Robert
July 16th, 2010 8:17 amhave you seen guatemala Defense website? http://www.mindef.mil.gt/
js
July 17th, 2010 8:46 pmIMO abw.gov.pl looks great! Just take a look..
Anton Hilman
July 27th, 2010 5:07 amhmmmmmmmmm how about indonesian army?
Stéphane L
August 12th, 2010 6:40 amDid you know the French website for the french marine? http://www.etremarin.fr
I like it! But it’s not for your ugly showcase…
Dave
August 25th, 2010 7:47 amThis is the case with govt websites of many many countries. Even e-governance portals are pathetic as far design and usability go.
This article shows what not to do to keep the design current.
So, great job, thanks.
I hope none of these armed forces come looking for you ;-)
Andreas Ostheimer
September 28th, 2010 5:42 amThanks for showing the good and the bad. One can only learn from poor design. I find it interesting (and positive) that SM obviously pays a lot of attention to the comments to this article by Cameron after the last article which did hurt SM really bad.
So again: thank you for this great and FREE content!
army mos
May 31st, 2011 7:52 pmIs it required to have an afro to join the Royal Bahama Defense. Lol
Alison
December 11th, 2011 4:38 pmhttp://www.forces.ca/en/home/
This is a nice site from Canada.
Brad
April 2nd, 2012 8:22 pmOf course, none of your design-related comments mean much in the grand scheme of things. A website either accomplishes its goals, or it doesn’t. Period. And since you know absolutely nothing about how well these sites accomplish their individual goals, this entire post is merely window dressing. You can say you do or don’t like gradients until the cows come home. But it doesn’t have anything to do with the success of a website.