Appreciation post: that Geocities tribute to the Winchester Mystery House

I went back to the Winchester Mystery House last weekend and got to thinking about a fan site I remember from the late 90s. Some guy in San Jose had built this massive page with a black background, neon green text, and a MIDI version of the Addams Family theme that would not stop playing. Every room had a tiny GIF of a spinning key or a winking skull, and there were 47 separate pages linked by a hand-drawn map. It was clunky and slow and the layout broke if you resized your browser, but the sheer effort of it impressed me more than the real tour did. The official site for the house that exists now is clean and fast, but it has no personality, no soul. So here's the debate: does that old painful design count as bad design, or is it actually better because it showed real human passion? I lean toward saying the passion wins, but I know some folks think usability is everything. What does everyone else think about that 20 year old mess?

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oscarwright16d ago

Older sites like that at least told you the person actually walked the rooms and cared about the details, while the official one feels like it was built by a marketing team that never left the office.