Found this interesting collection of tech homepages.  The author judges them on a pass/fail grading system, which of course is completely subjective.

Top 30 Tech Homepages - Pass or Fail


Not sure if there was any consistent criteria used by author, evidenced by the very first review of Amazon.com:

"Although it may be a little cluttered for my taste, it would be short-sighted to say that the Amazon.com homepage is a FAIL. Amazon has created a company that has landed at the top of the InfoTech 100, and the fact that one hundred percent of their sales are made online shows that they understand how to use their website to attract and retain customers."

The first seven words mark the start of a solid design critique, but then the rest of the paragraph fails.  Obviously Amazon is a successful company - otherwise they wouldn't be part of The InfoTech 100 on businessweek.com.

So, the author passes it based upon it being on the list of successful companies.  However, even successful companies have room for improvement.  I'm not at this site - web design depot - for a Forbes 500 report.  Tell me about the design, man!  Gah!

In a similiar vein, the author fails America Movil and Microsoft before even reaching their homepages.  On both, he encountered a pop-up box.  As I did not when I went to both sites and considering many will not based upon their browser settings, I don't think failing them both is a valid assessment of the site and its design.  Even though pop-ups are annoying as hell.

And is it just me, or are most of these websites following the same boring layout?


Header with Nav bar (tabs or buttons)?  Check.
Cheesy Generic Picture from iStockPhoto with or without Product Overlay?  Check.
Bunch o' Text arranged in a Neat Grid OR Little Rounded-Corner Containers?  Check.

I'm looking at you, RIM, Western Digital, China Mobile, Nokia, LG, Foxconn, Bharti, etc.

In addition to being a bad photoshop job, this one is particularly snooze-worthy:

The author does give it a fail, though.  But, this one gets a PASS?

"I think that the picture on this page is a pretty cool. I also like their one sentence mission statement about 2020. I would recommend formatting the description of their company differently, but other than that, this a pretty good corporate homepage."

The color scheme is nice, but Cheesy Stock Photo gets it a pass?  Also, the one sentence mission statement is way too small and boring.  The author recommends formatting the description of the company differently, but not using some typography on that mission statement?  Who is this  yahoo?  I hope they're not being paid to blog.

And fyi, Bharti has changed their homepage since this blog post was written (as I'm sure most have.  I didn't click on all of them).


The formula can be done well, though.  HTC and IBM do it nicely:

Soothing color schemes, nicely laid out, easy navigation.
My fav of the bunch (based purely on aesthetics)? HTC and accenture:

The author doesn't seem to like accenture too much, though.  Guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.