August 11, 2004 | View Comments (17) | Category: Design
Summary: Bad looking design doesn't always equate to bad success for a website.
Walk into a flea market you understand that you are looking for a bargain. The atmoshpere found at a flea market reflects the atmosphere of a bargain hunter. You won't find plush carpet and leather couches to relax in. Many times they will be under a tent (experience from Florida ones) or inside large warehouse type buildings. There is no intention to provide a “clean atmosphere”. Why? There is no need.
On the opposite end if you walk into a Coach store you do expect to find luxury items everywhere. You don't expect to hear a large grade industrial fan blowing behind you. It's a different atmosphere for a shopper with different tastes and intentions.
Why do I bring this up?
Well there has been this website that I have been wanting to talk about for some time now, but never got around to doing it. Basically, it was going to be a rant where I bash the design to pieces and wonder why anyone would even want to use the site. Then Jason decided to write a post about them and I noticed neither him or anyone in the comments made any mention of the design. Well I have to give my opinion. It's garbage.
The crazy thing is, the design doesn't need to be anything more for the site to become a crazy success. Next victim.
Then we get Bag, Borrow, or Steal (BBoS) (via Kottke, sites looks much better in IE) and again we run across a craptacular design. In the comments “brian” says that they need to find a web designer and I was thinking the same thing when I first went there. However, while working on the next site for the network and writing up an entry on it I realized how well these crappy looking sites succeed along with other big ones such as Amazon and eBay.
Now understandably Amazon and eBay succeed for much greater reasons than what I am going to say, but I do believe their “less than perfect” design is part of the reason for their success.
With all the sites mentioned above we have to look at the type of user (shopper) that is going to these sites. These are people looking for a bargain. You won't hear of people going to Tiffany's or Apple looking for a bargain and their sites reflect their high quality product offerings.
If Woot and BBoS were to be done by anyone reading this right now I can guarantee the sites would look 100x better. However, I am beginning to wonder if they would be 100x more effective. In fact, I am thinking to go as far and say that the sites might do worse if designed in a way to please us.
What if it was designed so well that I no longer feel as though I am getting a bargain? Throw the Apple design on Woot and I am not so sure it works anymore. The fun of the site is taken away along with the idea that I am going to go there and get a nice product at a great price.
Put the Tiffanys design on BBoS and people will wonder how much they are actually going to save by renting out these designer bags. The design just wouldn't match the intention.
There are a million factors that go into the success of a website. It's hard to argue that. However, I do think that for some websites, placing design as the number 1 factor is a big mistake. Does that mean we should all look for new professions? No, but it does show that maybe we overdesign some sites ourselves.
It shows that we really do have to think of the audience and what their intentions are when they come to the site. If you are a designer with a blog, the blog has to show some idea that you can design or no one will believe you. If you are a lawyer discussing politics how wonderful does the design have to be to be effective?
Something to think about.
Oh, and yes I still do think that a clear consistent design will win everytime. It just doesn't have to be so pretty.
Trackback URL: http://9rules.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/297
Ah bringing about the age old debate of Form vs. Function scrivs? It's definitely a tight rope act if I have ever seen one. At my last internship for a small consulting firm, I actually had to "design down" for this same reason...
Some websites have already established a "bargain" or "mom & pop" store feel, and to redesign that with elegant design almost defeats that expected feeling one gets when visiting a store or website. Good post... something to think about.
Ben Lumpkin (http://www.designrefine.com)
"...I do think that for some websites, placing design as the number 1 factor is a big mistake..."
I don't know about that. According to this Stanford study on web credibility, design accounts for a majority of what the public at large considers the credibility of an online organization.
I would think for an organization such as Woot, which has higher ticket priced items (at least from what I've experienced so far), is working with an unidentified company providing these products and has zero customer service to speak of - that establishing online credibility for themselves in the eyes of the surfing public, would be paramount to their business model.
Sure it's the online version of what you'd experience at a flea market, but then again it's not -- because typically you don't find the majority of items at flea markets (again, my experience) to be the higher ticket items.
Mark (http://www.lightpierce.com/ltshdw)
I think I should have said “aesthetics” as opposed to design as this will cause confusion. I do think that having a usable site is paramount to success and Woot does have a usable site that is ugly as sin.
What I am trying to point out is if they sellout of their daily items every single day, what need would they have to improving upon their design?
Scrivs (http://businesslogs.com)
Actually in the report, "design" is regarded as the same as aesthetics. Apparently most common folk regard the aesthetics of a site to be the highest determinor of credibility.
Information design was a distant second in ranking of importance.
Mark (http://www.lightpierce.com/ltshdw)
See Woot will work no matter what I think since it caters to the geek commuity and we are allowed to use RSS feeds to stay up to date.
However, it would be interesting to keep track of BBoS to see how well they do. For designer bags you would think that the design would be a little more stylistic, but what if it does succeed? What would the deciding factor be? Price more than anything probably.
Scrivs (http://businesslogs.com)
My old lecturer who is a programmer/computer geek and has no design skills whatsoever is the proud owner of a web site that provides certain people (programmers) with certain information about a certain programming language. Now, although I can't give you the link (as I fear an asswhooping), his site is AWFUL.
Does that matter at all? No.
Even though his web site is the most horrendous thing I have seen in my entire life, he still gets thousands of hits because people visit it purely for the content and purely to get help with the language that he's an expert at.
Would having a great design for his web site matter much? Not really, although it'd certainly be more pleasing to the eye for me.
We constantly live in a blogging community full of designers/developers who are perfectionists and are expected to have the perfect web site - however, as it's already been pointed out, sometimes a brilliantly designed (IA etc still need to be good) web site isn't neccesary.
Robert Lofthouse (http://www.ghxdesign.com)
You'd have hoped that no matter how crappy bagborroworsteal (shouldn't it be bagstealorborrow like the phrase?) looks it could at least be accessible. try turning off images on the homepage and you are greeted with absolutely nothing!
Sometimes I feel like faking visual impairment so I can sue these woeful designers.
Phil Thompson (http://www.doubleonegative.com/)
I mean it's sad to say, but what if you are making a killing from that website. Do you even worry about the design? As a designer of course you do, but from a business perspective you have to wonder if you should even bother. I know a lot of people out there are shaking their heads in disbelief at what I am saying, but I know executives who think like this.
It's along the lines of Apple makes pretty computers, but Dell makes more.
Scrivs (http://businesslogs.com)
Considering the web is a place to find information and the majority of people who surf the web surf it like everyone else - then in a lot of cases people don't honestly care about the design of the web site aslong as they can find the information they require and it isn't impossible to read.
The good thing about css/php/xhtml etc is that it's all behind the scenes. All the coding that goes into making a web site faster/better does so without the user knowing. It doesn't matter that they don't see it, it's just helping them to get the information they require faster.
However, a lot of design is just satisfying the ego of the designer. Who cares how beautiful something is if it doesn't hit the right audience or get the company the money?
A good design can go unseen, but good content will always be found because people are searching for content, not a design feature.
I'm not saying that everyone should suddenly build crap web sites. Most people I know all hate the layout of ebay and amazon, but they have to use it because they both provide brilliant content.
If amazon combined a beautiful easy to use interface with their exceptional content, then it would make a lot of people happy - but it wouldn't increase or decrease their sales. They'd still be "number 1" at what they do.
Think of it this way: Would you rather Amazon worked hard on a blogger type interface or develop new features, for example - the search within a book feature.
I know in the back of my mind though that people are only putting up with the designs of their favourite web sites because they've been forced to live with it for years. In order to use amazon and get the latest offers, they have to put up with a crap interface - but they're used to it, so they don't care anymore. People have adapted and got used to the fact that in order to get a good service, they'll have to put up with a crap interface.
Great design and crap content = useless
Mediocre/bad design and great content = success
Great design and great content = success
Forgive me for any mistakes in the post, it's nearly 2am here and i'm shattered.
Robert Lofthouse (http://www.ghxdesign.com)
Scrivs: How come on the "preview" section the title bar says "Whitespace Power Rankings >> Whitespace"?
Weird.
Robert Lofthouse (http://www.ghxdesign.com)
Mmm, this reminds me of the advertising sort of motto that goes, "the cheaper the product, the cheaper the advertisment."
Apparently if you want to sell a product that lacks quality, the best way to do it is to use extremely cheap and tacky forms of advertising.
Max (http://makenosound.com/)
well, it's good to see that self-righteous is still "in" amongst the well-paid corporate design set. do your work well, and don't lose sleep over the rest of the internet. your Moveable Type templates will never, ever be able to save the world... why act like they can?
some guy
I dunno. I don't think BBS looks that bad. It's 'cute' and it's targeted at people who give a rat's ass about designer handbags... not exactly the normal target audience. Cute sells. Really, the only thing I really dislike about it from an aesthetic POV is the yellow background, it's too flat. The site's straightforward, easy to use, gets the point across directly... I really don't see what your problem is with it.
And Woot isn't that bad either. I hate the floating iframe style thing, but you have at least a couple of regular posters here who use that in their blogs and don't seem to mind it there...
If you want to talk about sites with godawful design that still work, check out something like cell-phone-accessories.com -- great deals on stuff for older celphones (I got about $200 worth of stuff for my old celphone for $40 a year or so ago), but man does it look bad. Or directron.com for that matter.. ugly site, but they're one of the best places on the web to buy computer parts, especially if you're building a non-beige computer.
And "some guy" ... Bugger off. Go troll somewhere else.
JC (http://thelionsweb.com/weblog)
I agree that there are far worse designed sites on the web than woot or BBS. I'm not sure why you all think woot is so bad. It's simple and uncluttered, and all the information you need is within two clicks. Most bad designs that I have seen result in trying to clutter the page with too much design.
Chuck
Summary: Bad looking design doesn't always equate to bad success for a website.
Substance will always be victorious over asthetics. Pretty graphics has it's place and can certainly enhance the prospects of a site, presenting a front of respectability or crediblity to its genre.
However in the end a site that only has asthetic appeal it will fail miserably, where as one with compelling content will succeed regardless of its looks.
You want ugly? http://welcome-to-my-town.com
Designed by a blind midget who couldn't quite see the monitor I believe. :)
Hooer
Keep track of comments to all entries with the Comments Feed
©2003-06 9rules, Inc. | Thoughts Feed | Notes Feed
Amazon Stores: Powertools | Jewelry | Books | Health | Landscaping | Kitchen | Movies
#1
I agree, obviously, that you have to always keep the end user in mind when designing a site, but I don't think a better design would hinder or necessarily miscommunicate the 'flea market' deals they are going for.
I also don't find either woot or bbos particularly distasteful. I think www.slickdeals.net could def use a redesign over those two (another flea market type deal site).
Taylor (http://gtmcknight.com)