Five Ways that Websites Suck
I love websites. Which makes a lousy corporate website such an annoyance. Who the hell creates these things, and what were they thinking?
Here are five ways websites suck, when they’re done poorly.
1) Confusion about Function. Is your corporate website designed to explain your company, or process transactions? Is it meant to cement relationships, or answer product questions? Is it a place for dialogue, or for sales? If you can’t answer these questions, you’re wasting pixels in a big way.
A
website can perform more than one function, but most poorly designed websites look like Pushmepullyous, because Marketing and Communications don’t agree about the site’s purpose. Nail that one, and you’re well on your way to having a good website.
2) Crappy Writing. How can companies put so much energy into brand development, advertising, marketing, sales, customer service and product delivery, yet they have a website that read like it’s written by a well-meaning 12 year old and his grandmother?
Websites are meeting places, where you can tell a story. Don’t delegate the site to the least imaginative, least talented writers. Involve your top copywriters. It’s a place to let the spirit of your organization sing.
3) Uneven Flow. A good website should feel like a good museum or even someone’s home, where there is a natural flow from one room to the next. And the person guiding you explains the back story as you explore.
A lousy website is like a series of dead ends, or vast caverns, where the most profound feeling is one of disorder, chaos and frustration.
4) Too Much Information. It’s great to be able to dig deeper, when you want to find out details about something. But who wants to spend their entire visit to a website wading through irrelevant information in search of some information that should be easy to find?
The company’s inability to narrow its focus and throw out excess verbiage is an insult to the customer or other visitor. If the company can’t be bothered to spend the time pruning repetitive or unnecessary information, why should the website visitor?
5) Confusing Structure. Websites are supposed to be intuitive. You shouldn’t need special instructions on how to navigate the site. The sections and subsections should make sense to someone with little or no understanding of your company.
When you send me down rabbit holes looking for information, and I end up stuck in a dead end, I lose interest. Nothing you are trying to sell me or inform me about seems worth the effort any more, because you’ve already wasted my time.
Websites that suck:
Yahoo. After a decade and a half, they still can’t decide what experience you should have on yahoo.com.
Brown University. Designed to make you queasy. The navigation is disorienting and behaves differently in different sections of the site. (Featured on the Web Pages that Suck top 10 list.)
Photo by Dan Wilton.
Tags: websites, design, flow, navigation, structure, business, communications, usability, suck, customer
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POSTED IN: Audiences, Communication Tactics, Marketing, PR Tools
10 opinions for Five Ways that Websites Suck
Chris
Jul 25, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Eric, I particularly agree with you on point #2. I am completely turned off by the mindless copy that appears on so many websites, and along the same lines, I would be embarrassed if my site were full of the spelling and grammar errors I constantly see out there. It’s pure carelessness. Great post!
Favorite Posts for July 23-27 « The Transfer
Jul 27, 2007 at 1:07 pm
[…] Five Ways the Websites Suck- Eric Eggerston from Common Sense PR outlines five easily implemented but often neglected principles of website creation and organization. As I read the post, several websites popped into my mind. I’ll bet we can all list our fair share of sites that transgress these essential rules. […]
Sherwin
Jul 31, 2007 at 5:51 pm
I can add here sites that break in Firefox, or any other browser for that matter.
Ian Bourne
Aug 1, 2007 at 1:07 pm
I am curious if you would visit mine and let me know if it falls in any of the traps you warn about - I do not think so but I could be wrong…
Eric Eggertson
Aug 2, 2007 at 7:37 am
Ian:
The main problem I had when I visited your site was the number of ads and doodads at the top. There were no headlines in sight, and no indication of what lay further down.
I’d suggest getting some HTML help to string the items across the top, so they don’t take up so much vertical space, delete some of them, or move them into the left margin.
The other quibble I have is the use of italics for body copy. It’s a rare website that can pull of italics and make it as easy to read as regular text.
Interesting stuff. The ring-wearing guitar player photos are truly gross!
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Sara
Aug 9, 2007 at 10:47 pm
Nice post, Eric! :) I like #5, though I’m torn. Some days when I see the “how to use this site” pages/links on websites, I want to tear my hair out thinking “shouldn’t it just be so well-designed that you don’t need that” but on the other hand, I applaud a site for trying to assist newbies/novices. Some writing advice guides will tell you to write for 5th graders, while others will say to write for an educated adults. So should websites be designed for novice surfers, or savvy web users?
Sara
Aug 9, 2007 at 10:48 pm
Then again hopefully the design is so good, it’s usable by both newbies and experts!
Eric Eggertson
Aug 10, 2007 at 11:38 am
Sara:
I think consistency and intuitiveness is the important thing for navigation design and the wording of website sections, etc.
As for language, if your site is aimed at tech geeks, you’ll probably use more tech jargon than a site aimed at seniors or soccer players (not that lots of seniors and soccer players don’t know tech jargon, but it’s alienating to those that don’t).
I try to aim for 7th grade with a lot of my writing, but if a word or phrase is right for the audience, I don’t steer away from it because the average 7th grader would have to look it up in the dictionary. Straightforward language doesn’t have to be simplistic.
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