This is what happens when ad agencies design your website

I've done a little bit of interaction design consulting for old school ad agencies. It was a pretty silly experience. Large advertising agencies that have slowly added web, mobile apps, Facebook apps, etc. to their list of services as clients expectations have changed. These agencies are still organized in the Mad Men style (copy writers, art directors, account directors, project managers, strategist/planners, media buyers, etc.). Traditional ad agencies are very very very bad at doing the digital work. The "creatives" guard their turf as owners of all the concept and design work, but they have a very poor grasp on the technical side of digital work as well as standard user experience design patterns. User centered design isn't really a part of the culture.

I was asked a few times to do wireframes for projects. They wanted me to trace and annotate completed and approved visual design comps.

The fact that they need the tutorial on the topbar should have been an indication that the design should have been scrapped.

http://www.youtube.com/results?q=brawny+man+commercials

I think I may have nightmares about this now. The strange broken slidey scrolling animation bizarreness is a wonder to behold. I wonder how many meetings it took to get all of that agreed and signed off, and if any of the people who were given the job of implementing it are still sane.