Welcome to the Worst UI Contest!
This is about learning about bad UIs and dark patterns and their review through building and reviewing them!
- Have fun.
- Learn about UI/UX.
- And for the competitive among you: Win!
There will be a winner by public voting and a winner for the best analysis of why the submitted UI is so bad. For both winners there will be prizes.
Teams of up to 4 people are possible, but not mandatory. You can also participate as a non-techie: Either form a team and find techies, or create mockups for your terrible UI using software such as PowerPoint or Canva.
With every submission you must give an analysis: What's bad about my UI?
The analysis must be at least one sentence long and is limited to a maximum of 5 fundamental problems with the UI.
Tried and tested criteria for UI/UX reviews can be found here (German only).
Post a Slack post in #ec25-worst-ui, including:
- Participant list, optionally a team name
- Video of your creation (or screenshot, in case it isn't interactive or animated)
- optionally a repo/demo link as well
- Analysis of the violated design principles and standards (at least one sentence).
Submission deadline: before the working day on Monday 19 May.
Important: Please only submit designs that we can use in an upcoming QAtalk (no UIs from customer projects).
Anyone can participate in the public voting.
Just add the emoji 
:xdddd: to any post you like!
Deadline: before the working day on Tuesday, 20 May 2025
The announcement of the winners will take place during a QAtalk in the coming weeks.
If you need inspiration, you are welcome to come up with UIs on the topic of “Engineering Camp”.
There are template applications available for you in this repo:
You are also welcome to start with an existing application. However, this application must be publicly accessible: Submissions that use code from customer projects are forbidden.
Criterion: Number of upvotes with specified emoji :xdddd: on the post in #ec25-worst-ui.
External participants can give their vote by proxy.
| Evaluation category | Explanation | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Scope of issues addressed | How many basic UI issues were addressed? | The accessibility of the application is in need of improvement. |
| Justification | Was it explained why this design violates principles? | You can hardly read the white text on a light grey background. |
| Reference to standards | Does the analysis refer to specific guidelines / heuristics? | This contradicts WCAG 2.2 in the point ‘Sufficient contrast’. |
| Bonus | Scope for the jury if something stands out positively in the analysis that is not explicitly an evaluation criterion |
There is a minimum of 0 and a maximum of 5 points per category.
If you are an external guest or not yet with us on Slack:
You also have access to the repo. For submission and voting, please team up with your a QAware employee of your choice. There will be an additional comment in the submission channel for each submission in the thread, which can be used to vote on behalf of an external participant using :xdddd:.
Contact persons if required: nina.feifel@qaware.de, charlie.harding@qaware.de
If you want to receive your prize if you win, please include your e-mail address with your submission (either in the thread or by directly contacting Charlie/Nina) so that we can contact you if necessary.