The Outdated and Not So Bad

Smashing Magazine, a publication for Web designers and developers, recently published a critique of military and intelligence agency websites worldwide, placing dozens of sites in one of its categories: Outdated, Poorly Coded, Poorly Designed, The Not So Bad, and A Few Good Sites.

The magazine's editors introduced the feature this way:

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.

Sites in the United States came through the analysis a bit better than most other countries. Here's a quick glance at how they ranked some U.S. sites, along with the editors' comments:

Outdated

U.S. National Reconnaissance Office

"This website screams late '90s and early 2000s, especially the navigation and typography."

Poorly Coded

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

None

The Not So Bad

U.S. Air Force

"A professional yet boring design. But maybe that's how military websites should look?"

U.S. Central Intelligence Agency

"This website is way too narrow, and overall it's just not eye-catching."

U.S. Defense Department

"Too much is going on here, and the social media links (the icons especially) on the left look out of place."

U.S. Navy

"The icons and banners in the header don't really fit the rest of this design."

A Few Good Sites

U.S. National Security Agency

"Professional, easy to use and coherent: everything an intelligence website should be."

U.S. Army

"The US Army website brings together a lot of content of various types while maintaining a usable and consistent user interface."

U.S. Marine Corps

"This website stands out mostly because of the grid used for the main content area and the ample white space everywhere else."