The net—only as good as its weakest site.

Design purists, don’t let the door hit ya.

When I first came across safetycones.net, it just looked like such an easy target for blogging gold here, but as I read through it, I seriously have to give it credit on a lot of levels.

First, given the product, (safety cones), the banner ad that I saw below to get to the site was too strange to resist. Who doesn’t want strippers at construction sites, but okay, I’ll click, right?

First reaction after being greeted by a dude on an asphalt-like surfboard was damn, followed by wtf? I may have even said both simultaneously. As I looked around to find the absolute worst navigation I’ve come across probably in a long time ever, I also became intrigued at where stuff led me to.

Video clips were all over or in different spots. Audio clips played randomly like a bad MySpace page. Contact and About sections didn’t do what I thought. (Wait, there is no standard contact, you just have to order from the product page or the order button.) Then I started reading the content because I wanted to know about the person behind the site.

Turns out Guy Griffith was severely dyslexic when he made it.

He put the site together himself without being able to read or design. He’s a contractor who had invented a disposable and biodegradable safety cone after seeing a lot of waste on job sites.

(Cones are one of those things people take for granted until they nearly almost hit one while on their cell phone driving through work areas, but they’re everywhere and eventually, you do have to get rid of them. Seems like a smart idea for the environment.)

He acknowledges what you already know about the site when he says he makes better cones than websites. I give him credit though. I’ve worked on all types of sites. Brands with money who respect the process of heuristic evaluations and A-B testing like it was the bible to mom and pops who just wanted a new masthead.

This one though did something a vast majority of them want to accomplish even if they don’t admit it: It got me spending a lot more time learning about the product.

Sure, you can say well, it’s because it took longer to find stuff based on what normal user experience has conditioned us to expect. Maybe, but it’s not just that.

Usually when that happens, you say screw this, too hard to navigate, I’m outta here. I’ve definitely done that with high-end sites who’ve messed up a simple registration page that doesn’t retain the full page of info I just filled out, let alone a whole site experience.

(Even Facebook and it’s updated look still masks a basic problem with the intuitive flow of the site and how hard they make there to do simple things.)

I think part of it though was that it has this look and feel like something you’d see spoofed on what not to do online. (Much like they did here with their agency site or this real one.) Because of this ordered chaos, I kept looking around for the punchline, but realized there wasn’t one, and that’s when I saw his story and how honest the site was, which made me take a little more interest in it.

He makes cones. He stars in his own videos. He stands on his own products to show how strong they are. He probably grabbed the animation from some CAD/CAM program. He even prepared some for use at the White House using what I will recommend now become his trademark pitch: Being supported by your own product.

Laugh, but when what you do for a living ends up at the White House, you’ve done something few have.

What Guy’s site reminded me of is that sites get too complicated with all the redundancy they have in with navigation to the corporate speak proofed by lawyers throughout. (Can you see legal approving him standing on cones without a helmet and safety harness plus a long-ass disclaimer?)

The realignment of basic UI/UX/IA/i.e./e.g. “best practices” yatta navigation principles did more than adding an audio clip ever could to get my attention. (Think how many sites add in extra features to make up for flaws in basic user flow.)

While social media sites like Twitter are both simple in form and function, designers still lose sight of this stripped-down approach when it comes to websites. Doesn’t matter what brand it is.

JC Penny throws down a lot of money on TV spots and requisite monster corporate retail website to make me think they’re younger and hipper, yet Guy and his cones come off as being more genuine.

So maybe this approach is extreme and not something you’d ever do, but making an experience for visitors be a unique and honest one is what you aim for, no? Get your brand in peoples’ minds? Absolutely. If I ever need disposable biodegradable cones, there’s now only one place I’ll remember.

How many products can you say that about?