Interactive experiment
The Website from Hell
You have 60 seconds to book a plumber. How hard could it possibly be?
Pop-ups. Hidden buttons. Endless forms. We have squeezed the internet's most annoying website habits into one challenge. See how far you get before your patience runs out.
60 seconds
That is all the clock gives you.
No real bookings
Nothing you click is real.
No personal details needed
Sample details are provided for you.
Pipe Panic Plumbing is a fictional business created by Launch North for this challenge. Nothing here is a real booking, no money changes hands and you never need to enter your own contact details.
The challenge
Ready to meet the worst website we could build?
Pipe Panic Plumbing is a fictional business created for this challenge. Request a callback for a leaking tap tomorrow morning. Use the sample details supplied. No real bookings, no personal details needed.
About the experiment
Why a frustrating website?
Most websites are not slow because the internet is hard. They are slow because of choices: pop-ups before content, buttons that hide, forms that ask for everything. This challenge exaggerates those choices so they are easy to see.
In the frustrating version, every step between you and a booking is an obstacle: an oversized cookie panel, a newsletter pop-up, a booking form buried in a Solutions menu, a chatbot sitting on the button, a form that asks for your favourite pipe material, a surprise administration fee and a confirmation that asks if you are really, really sure.
In the clean version, the same task is a clear page, a prominent button and four form fields. Most people finish in well under a minute.
The challenge is a demonstration, not a study. There are no participant statistics, no rankings and no research claims. You play anonymously, we never see your answers and the sample details are fake.
If it makes you look at your own website a little differently, it has done its job.