Your Website Sucks…And Here’s Why

A Designer’s Mind

And Other Corrosive Materials from Outer Banks Design Works.

I bet that got your attention, right? But you know it’s true. Deep down inside you have always known it. Heck, I’m one to talk; my own website sucks and I build them for a living. The truth is that I would go as far as to say that 90% or more of all websites suck. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be so bad, but first let’s go over why it sucks in the first place.

Skin Deep

As human beings we are a visual bunch. We “look things over,” we “watch the kids,” we “see the truth,” and so on. In most cases, we are gifted with amazing visual prowess and the ability to see things in 3D technicolor detail. Our eyes are the cameras for our brains, taking in all that visual information thousands of times per second in a never-ending stream of photons straight to the head.

All of this preoccupation with looking at things is one of the biggest reasons why our websites aren’t always so great. We spend far too much time worrying about how it looks instead of worrying about how it works. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so what constitutes “good design” is subjective and wrought with opinion. We all know what a hammer is for, right? It doesn’t take an MBA in Fine Arts to understand that you pick up a hammer and smash nails into wood with it. A hammer is a tool that does its job well and certainly one that doesn’t need to look pretty to be effective. I have seen some really nice hammers that cost a lot more than traditional hammers, but they all do one thing; smash nails. Beauty in design is a wonderful thing, but in most cases form should always follow function.

This is why your website sucks. You worry too much about how it looks instead of the important things it needs to be doing, like working for you and your business. It’s easy to get caught-up in the aesthetic appeal of web design and lose focus on what a website is meant to do for you; provide information. That’s the job it was born to do. But instead of spending time on the content and the engagement factors of your website, you focus more on how “cool” or “beautiful” it looks. That is a bit like having a shiny, silver-plated hammer with a tri-color grip handle and beautiful inlaid designs in the metal. The hammer still needs to smash nails, so why dress it up in all that fluff without bothering to see if it still works effectively?

But What About the Children?

Obviously this is a bit of an extreme analogy, but the point is that website owners often worry too much about how their website will look — often to the point of micro-managing a designer to death. I often use the home building analogy with regards to building a website. You wouldn’t tell the people building your house how to do their job so why would you tell your website (or graphic) designer how to do their job? This goes back to the subjectivity of what constitutes beautiful design — what looks good to you may look terrible to someone else — and often times the company owners are not the best folks to direct the look and feel of a website or any design project. The company is their baby, their bread-and-butter, their personal creations. They have an emotional attachment to the company; they only want the “best for their baby.” But there comes a point in time where the owners must let go of that attachment and trust that other folks are going to make the right decisions on their behalf (even if they don’t always agree with the final product).

If you are a company owner, and you entrench yourself in your company’s branding and marketing decisions, then I am talking to you. How many times have you vetoed an idea brought up by someone else because you just didn’t like it? I hate to break this to you, but you may be stifling your company’s ability to adapt to changes in the marketplace. If you are a company’s owner you may in fact be the absolute worst choice for making decisions that affect your marketing direction. The reason is simple; you don’t ever want your baby to outgrow you and move on. If you happen to be a parent then this should really start to sink in. How many times did you buy your kids some cute clothes only to realize later on that you were dressing them up like a dork? Raise your hand if this has happened to you. This is the same phenomenon that can occur with your company when you are the final word in how your brand is portrayed to the general public.

Your Website is for Your Customers

I’m not saying that as the company’s owner you shouldn’t be included in important decisions about your marketing endeavors, but you should step aside and let someone else handle most of the work for you. Part of letting go is realizing that you may not be the best at making educated, unattached decisions about how your website should be produced. For example, I am often asked by clients to make sure that I include some fancy animation or some new-fangled widget in the design of their website. I turn this around and ask them flat-out, “why do you need this?” More often than not, this question is met with a mix of silent confusion and exasperated rolling of the eyes (or in some cases, a questioning of my professionalism). The typical response to my question is, “because I saw it on Competitor XYZ’s website and I want it for my website too.” Notice all of those “I’s” in that statement; “I saw it and I want it.” There is never a mention of what this will do for the end user who is visiting their website. If it doesn’t provide value to your customers, who are the reason why you do business in the first place, then why waste time in a pissing contest with your competitors?

Fancy design widgets and gee-whiz animations don’t make your website more effective. Take the energy you put into stalking your competitor’s website and put it into learning about your customers and their needs. This is why most websites fail. Too much time is spent trying to outdo the competition and too little time spent on engaging the customer. And the worst culprits for this kind of website design manifesto are the ones where the company’s owner takes an active role in the entire website design process. If you really love your business then you need to learn to let go and allow others to take the wheel sometimes. An outside perspective on things may be just what your company needs to one-up the competition or truly engage your customers effectively.

Outer Banks Design Works

A Designer’s Mind