Graphic Design Heresy: Your site doesn't have to look pretty

[Dcrux]

Why Your Site Doesn't Need to be Pretty is a practical heresy to graphic design orthodoxy. I think the title is misleading. The message I took away is exactly opposite: Aesthetics matter more than you think.

Like most retailers, PETCO assumed that the best way to showcase the products on a category page was to use a shotgun approach: lots of thumbnails on the page to show the breadth of products. Wrong again.

That time, we learned that picking one or two products and showing a larger, more attractive photo converted visitors to buyers at a faster rate than the thumbnails.

This article presents an idea novel to many. Not that aesthetics do or don't matter -- that the aesthetic can be tested. What Petco learned was you can test one look against another.

The real message is don't be blinded by beauty.

Look at a nonprofit site. If the design draws attention to itself, it may be gratifying for the graphic designer. Unfortunately the user might just get the message the nonprofit doesn't need money. Or that what money the institution gets is spent on the wrong things. This doesn't mean the site design is unimportant, but that you have to be careful a nonprofit design doesn't seem overdesigned.

The concept that a site can be overdesigned isn't convenient for an industry which sells site construction services and templates by the pound.

Output volume isn't design -- effectiveness is.

Overproduced sites abound. Could it be a slickly designed site, fairly dripping with 'production value' is sending a different message? It may just be too slick sites put users on guard. When pretty is the first thought, the mind quickly searches for the balancing substance. What looks good in a graphic design portfolio should not be a requirement.

Today's culture is visual. It would be a shame if text was the only way for a site to communicate information.

Aesthetics matter -- as effective communication, not decoration. "Your Site Doesn't Need to be Pretty" shows the path to elevating graphic design, but underlying philosophy has to change. Graphic designers aren't being too innovative -- they aren't being innovative enough. There is a valuable business case to be made, and the message isn't getting out.

[SteveGerencser]

I helped develop a site years ago http://www.evaskincare.com.. It was a rough to get the tech working and then we were going to go back and make it "pretty".. We never got that far..

They decided that it was good enough for now, and as time went by the business gained from the site as it sat was more than they felt comfortable taking in.. So, since launch, the same ugly barely functional site has sat and made money..

It really has surprised us that this site continues to do well financially with so little effort.. Is it a fluke?? Is it just the right product for just the right market?? I have no idea, I just wish we could reproduce the results every time we build a site..

Steve

[kerer99]

I helped develop a site years ago http://www.evaskincare.com.. It was a rough to get the tech working and then we were going to go back and make it "pretty".. We never got that far..

They decided that it was good enough for now, and as time went by the business gained from the site as it sat was more than they felt comfortable taking in.. So, since launch, the same ugly barely functional site has sat and made money..

It really has surprised us that this site continues to do well financially with so little effort.. Is it a fluke?? Is it just the right product for just the right market?? I have no idea, I just wish we could reproduce the results every time we build a site..

Steve

It would be interesting to do some A/B testing on the evanskincare site. Even something simple like adding "people pictures" to the main page could make an interesting experiment.

Personally I love graphic design, as it's such a challenging, innovative field. Whether or not my designs have made me more money, I have no idea because I've never bothered to test them...I've simply hoped that pretty = financial reward.

DCrux, I like your example of the non-profit organization website. The opposite can also be said for small business websites that tend to be created in FrontPage by an uncle's next door neighbor's nerdy 14 year old son. :)

Regardless, I think we can all agree that graphic design on the internet is incredibly important. It is a reflection of you or your company, so it's important to be cautious. More companies should spend the time and conduct A/B tests on design, but as it's so time consuming, no wonder most don't bother...

[Dcrux]

Regardless, I think we can all agree that graphic design on the internet is incredibly important.

Yes. Until we put some effort into describing how aesthetics are important with more precision, it's going to be a tough go for graphic artists.

I quite agree, A/B split could do a lot for web design in general and graphic designers in particular. When linked to the business case, as the above-mentioned article does, the chance for testing aesthetics increases.

People versus no people might be a good test. But I think it can go further. For example, showing people using your product. Or showing your real employees, not a fashion model pretending to be a generic employee. To me, this is a one-man operation obviously trying to hard to act big.

Snapple did great with a campaign focussed on real customers. "The Snapple Lady" was not a fashion model, and the ads worked well. This is an actual aesthetic choice, in the way choosing one fashion model over another is not.

While frontpage chic is a no-no, the underlying idea may be interesting. There may be a reaction against, cold, sterile and futuristic. An ice cream shop site, for instance, can be done up like one of those old advertisements. Other kinds of companies can differentiate with the human focus.

[Faglork]

For example, showing people using your product. Or showing your real employees, not a fashion model pretending to be a generic employee. To me, this is a one-man operation obviously trying to hard to act big.

Absolutely. This is IMO one of the biggest pitfalls: To use those stereotyped images just because they look "pretty" (and because they are on a cheap images CD with big "royalty free" letters on it ...).

I have one client who uses his employees in all of his ad campaigns. They just look natural in what they do, and this is a great way for establishing trust.

And trust is what is badly needed. In a rather anonymous world ("on the net, no one knows you are a dog") it is important to show the "real faces" behind, to show that this is no bogus website.

faglork

PS: Great postings, DCrux!

[dante_casablancas]

It would be interesting to do some A/B testing on the evanskincare site. Even something simple like adding "people pictures" to the main page could make an interesting experiment.

Personally I love graphic design, as it's such a challenging, innovative field. Whether or not my designs have made me more money, I have no idea because I've never bothered to test them...I've simply hoped that pretty = financial reward.

DCrux, I like your example of the non-profit organization website. The opposite can also be said for small business websites that tend to be created in FrontPage by an uncle's next door neighbor's nerdy 14 year old son. :)

Regardless, I think we can all agree that graphic design on the internet is incredibly important. It is a reflection of you or your company, so it's important to be cautious. More companies should spend the time and conduct A/B tests on design, but as it's so time consuming, no wonder most don't bother...

Design is the most important ingredient in a website and/or any marketing piece. People are visual and they take and ingest information easier visually. Before someone will delve and find out more about your website or about what you have to say in your marketing materials, there is a split second time frame where they register information visually. A bad design will usually result in a click out of your website or a "not interested" opinion on your marketing materials.

Stanford University and Consumer Webwatch did a study a couple of years ago on "How Do People Evaluate a Web Site's Credibility?"

DESIGN by far they found out is the most important factor in determining website credibility among U.S. Internet Users.

[tomfoolery]

I disagree that design is the most important aspect when it comes to a website/sales. I've done countless A/B tests over my 20 years of online/offline marketing, and have always reached the same conclusion: The key to selling a product or service is very simple: have a great offer.

One case in particular - we did an A/B split of a campaign where Site A had a snazzy web design, with some great images/buttons, Short and snappy copy (all above the fold, with "more" links, etc), while Site B had plain fonts, with a skeleton site, and only a single (plain) image. Copy was also 3X longer. In this case, the offer was the same (free 30-day trial to a newsletter, plus a series of free reports by pdf). Site B (plain) outpulled Site A by 3 to 1! Further down the road, we boosted the offer on Site B, and found that it outpulled Site A by 5 to 1.

FYI - the (plain) Site B is still in use today, albeit with some minor adjustments here and there.

So, even if you have the worst looking website on the planet, you can STILL be very successful if you have a fantastic product, or an unbeatable price, etc. This is why Direct Mail still works so well, even with a simple letter in courier font.

On the other side of the coin, I've seen SOOOOO many websites overdesigned to the point that a customer would get confused or put off, and simply go somewhere else. (this is all based on comprehensive user testing and/or feedback). This is usually caused by a company/business using a graphic designer who may not know anything about the client's product/competition/marketing, or by ignoring the Unique Selling Proposition, and simply designs something flashy to dazzle the company brass. Brass is happy, designer is happy, client is confused. Classic case. This is probably why so many companies experimented with those annoying Flash entry pages that are now going extinct -- as testing reveals that people will click the "skip this screen" almost immediately. They simply got in the way of the client finding the product. Golden rule of marketing: give the customer what they want, and nothing else.

While I agree that visuals are important (the brain works in pictures, not words) they must be used sparingly and intelligently. In the vast majority of cases, a single, strong image will work better than a collection of weaker images.

Anyway, just my 2 cents.

[Dcrux]

Testing as the arbiter is the message here. Very few people test any aesthetic element, however.

No matter how good looking, the look is wrong when it draws attention to itself. Visual communication is not just what looks pretty to the designer. Like any communication, it must test itself with users.

This doesn't go down well with the 'creatives.' It probably isn't going to do template sites any good either.

[ADAM Web Design]

First of all, I'd like to say how much I love articles like these. What usually happens is that one group of people goes off on their post-modern experimental bandwidth-intensive graphics kick under the guise that "design is the most important element" without realizing that the content partly defines the design in an indignant egomanical hissy fit. The second group, on the other hand, gets the message and also enjoys a hearty chuckle at the expense of the first group who goes off blindly creating abominations that do nothing but impress their equally clueless buddies in the first group and interpret success as the number of people who go oooooooooooh and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah rather than the number who actually use the site and buy stuff.

It's easier to add pretty to functional than it is to add functional to pretty. Design matters, but not strictly in the aesthetic sense. Design is about consistent navigation, making sure customers can find what they want quickly and easily, and getting to the damn point as much as it is about pretty flashy spinny rotaty things.

Second, I'd also like to predict that someone will call me an idiot or attempt to discredit me with some bizarre twisted argument (usually attacking one of the older sites in my portfolio, all of which before 2003 are undergoing redesigns at this time.)

[skateservice]

For those that dis-credit you, i'd have to say GROW UP. The guy has a point.

When people come to a website they are coming for information on a product. Whether they want to buy the product is up to you, the store owner. Make it esay for them to find what they want, pay for it and get on with life.

So, the information is key, but the way people see your company is even more important.

Personally, i prefer good sites that have the product that i'm looking for and also look like they actually spent some time and money making their virtual store front look good.

If a site has a junky design , to me it looks like a "dollar store" kind of place on the net. I will not buy from them, i will not trust them.

Let the flaming begin ;)