Your brand needs a great site to drive sales. Perfecting your user experience could be the key to amazing each customer, new or old. But falling into the trap of bad website design is all too easy.
In this guide, our team will show you how to make your site stand out in the right ways.
How Bad Website Design Hurts Your Firm
There are still some people who think a good site isn’t worth the effort. But you can’t just rely on a barren home page with a single Contact Us button. The way your site looks can say a lot about your business. Here’s how bad site design can sink your sales:
- Annoyed users: If you don’t signpost the site well or the pages are slow, people will give up. This means they won’t stick around to read more or get in touch with you.
- Low search ranks: Sites that don’t focus on SEO and great web content will get very few views. Most people don’t go beyond the first few pages of a Google search.
- Payment errors: If an online store doesn’t set up its payments well, people won’t be able to buy things. You’ll lose sales and the money they would’ve brought in.
- Update issues: Poorly designed websites are more likely to fall apart after an update. If you add a new block of text, for example, it might mess up the whole page’s format.
- Poor mobile traffic: If you don’t have a mobile version of your site, it might look bad on those devices. Phone users will then be a lot more likely to stop browsing.
- Less trust: Sites with poor layouts and broken links can make you look less skilled. This can lower a reader’s view of your firm. It may even convince them to look elsewhere.
- Wasting money: Even bad sites will cost a lot to run and update. But if a site can’t turn your leads into new buyers, this will just be money down the drain.
Bad UI and Bad UX
Your site’s user interface (UI) is how each page looks to the end user. In contrast, your site’s UX (user experience) is how it “feels” to use. Both of these aspects will need to fire on all cylinders if you want results.
It’s possible for a site to look good, but still load pages slowly. In fact, if you put all of your effort into good graphics, this is quite likely. A fluid UX that guides the user well can also drive more sales if it’s nice to look at.
The UI and UX should mix well on any site. Your designs need to at least help a user get to the page they need. For example, each page must clearly show them where to see a list of your services. Poor navigation will cost you a lot of sales.
Your brand’s site can only succeed if you pay enough attention to both the UI and the basics of UX design.
What Makes a Bad Website Design?
The UX should be the main factor in any site’s layout. Each page and feature must help viewers get just what they need. Here are eight clear signs of poor website design:
- Poor signposting: If people can’t find what they want, they’ll just leave your site to find it elsewhere. Make sure your site has a menu that shows every major page.
- Busy UI: Too much design clutter on a page or site can overwhelm a user. Make sure your UI has plenty of room to breathe, as well as a clear design hierarchy.
- Too much white space: If there’s a lot of white space on your site, it looks empty. You can use this to highlight or space out your graphics — but don’t overdo it.
- No mobile view: Even some of the biggest sites today look bad on phones. This shows that the owner didn’t test how their site shows on devices other than PCs.
- Slow loading: Flashy web graphics will slow your pages down to a crawl. A study by Portent shows that the faster a site loads, the more sales it can generate.
- Inconsistent: Each page on your site has to tell one part of the same story. If they don’t blend together via fonts, colors, and overall layouts, this can confuse people.
- Not accessible: Blind people will struggle to use your site if your images don’t have Alt text. You should also make sure each video (on each page) has full captions.
- Outdated elements: If you don’t keep up with new web standards, you’ll fall behind. For example, old plugins that no longer work will just slow your site down.
Picking the Right Font for Your Site
Typography elements such as fonts are a great way to set your site’s mood. There’s no harm in going for one of the main formal options, such as Arial or Helvetica. But you’ve got to pick a style that suits your firm and the rest of the site. This might mean going for a more niche font.
Though many people praise Comic Sans for being easy to read, this might be a bad choice. It’s a very casual, informal typeface. This means site viewers might not take your brand seriously.
Use Google Fonts to look through over 1,000 free font options. You can test each one in a range of styles to see which ones work best. Once you’re happy with your choice, get the embed code and set it up on your site.
Why Your Load Times Matter
One of the biggest bad website design examples is a slow UX. In today’s fast-paced world, pages taking more than five seconds to load will turn people away. Even if the text loads fine, they may click off before the site’s graphics appear.
You should compress each image on your site. This might lead to a drop in quality — but they’ll load a lot faster. Use JPEGs for your images. These can store a lot of data in small files.
Complex JavaScript or CSS files can also hurt your load times. Your team needs to make sure your site is just as lean under the hood as over it. Or people might see it as one of the worst internet sites in terms of UX.
Despite the name, “lazy loading” can speed up your web pages. This approach only loads a site’s graphics when the user gets to that part of the page. That means your fancy design won’t weigh down a viewer’s site experience.
Making a Phone-Friendly Site
Not everyone has the means to make a separate phone version of their site. But you should still make sure mobile users can view each page with ease. Test the site on mobile devices before it goes live and see if it all shows up.
Fluid grid design will scale your web elements to each platform. This makes photos smaller on phones, for example. But buttons must still be large enough for people to easily press with their thumbs.
Load times are again worth taking a look at. Use simple and lean designs that make the most of the space you have. Simpler pages will load much more quickly — this is even more vital for phones than strong PCs.
There are lots of popular websites with bad design on mobile. Taking the extra time to clean up the phone layout will help you stand out with ease.
The Importance of Color Schemes
Your site needs to use the right colors. These will likely be ones that pair well with your brand’s logo and house style. Basic color theory will show you which hues go together and the ones you should avoid.
Colors also highlight a site’s buttons or web features. This lets you more easily guide a user to an action. For example, a call to action button may use bold colors to draw the eye. It helps to stick to three or four core colors. This includes your brand’s main hue and the text color alongside extra accents or background colors.
Remember that some people on your site will be colorblind. Avoid red/green or green/brown mixtures where you can. There are tools that let you see your site in colorblind “filters” of sorts. Test each page to make sure it’s viewable for every type of condition.
Three Bad Website Design Examples
Even major firms aren’t immune to poor web layouts. But this means you’ve got a chance to get ahead of these big brands. Here are a few badly designed websites that are (for one reason or another) still very popular.
1. Craigslist
This private sales site has been using the same broad design for decades now. At this point, it’s a key part of their brand image. The minimalist (or basic) layout makes it seem old, even though the pages load well. A lack of modern touches and search filters also work against Craigslist’s overall UX.
2. Zara
Fashion chain Zara famously struggles with its navigation. For example, the site’s hamburger menu in the top left corner can be easily missed. This opens a window with too many options to fit on the screen. The end result is sure to overwhelm some users. This is just one part of what makes a bad website design — but it has a big impact.
3. eBay
This online storefront aims to keep its users informed about each product they look at. This has the side effect of filling the page with information. The site’s product pages have basically every relevant detail, even before the fold. This might seem helpful, but it causes an unclear design hierarchy.
Why Are There Popular Websites With Bad Design Choices?
Good design is sure to help your site grow. However, there are still many Fortune 500 firms that have big web design issues. This may be because they’re famous enough to get away with it.
Most people aren’t going to stop using Craigslist, Zara, or eBay due to their design. This is because they already have name recognition as popular, helpful services. If you’re making your own site and brand from scratch, though, you won’t have this built-in goodwill.
It might feel like even the worst websites still get high traffic with ease. They’re still losing sales in the process — but they can afford this. Small firms have a lot more to lose when they push buyers away with poor design.
Avoid Being One of the Worst Internet Sites by Improving Your Website Design
Keep an eye on your UX, even if it isn’t where most of your sales come from. You can learn a lot from the big sites in your field — even those with bad website design.
With Page Flows by your side, you can browse our full catalog of UI flows. Check out our library today to inspire your next app or site!
