Functionality and usefulness are far more important to the success of your Web site than how nice and elegant it looks.
The first time I saw the Grand Canyon was a truly memorable experience. The depth, distance and hazy rainbow of colors were like nothing I had ever seen before. The great Colorado River ooked shoe-lace-wide down below.
We spent a day driving along the Grand Canyon and then up into the equally magnificent scenery of Utah. But along with the otherworldly beauty what also struck me was the poverty that surrounded the Canyon.
For all its stunning beauty, The Grand Canyon would not be a great place to live. Certainly, you would have a hard life if you lived in the middle of the Canyon itself. And, given the steepness and inaccessibility it would be hard to imagine how a city the size of New York could develop there.
The things we think are the most beautiful are often the least useful in a practical and functional sense. Mount Everest is beautiful. Gold, jewellery and diamond rings are beautiful. Do certain things increase in beauty as they lose practical function?
There is no question that certain designs can be made both beautiful and functional. But for other design challenges, the more beautiful the design is made, the less functional and easy to use it becomes. This is particularly true for websites.
Ryanair, eBay, Amazon, Google, Craig’s List, My Space, and YouTube are ugly websites. They are also hugely successful websites. When I show audiences the Ryanair website, there are audible gasps. I see people recoil from its sheer ugliness. Yet last year, Ryanair flew 42 million passengers, and the vast majority of them booked their flights through Ryanair.com.
Have you noticed that the Web has started to grey? There is a severe outbreak of grey text syndrome, particularly in blogs. Web design is falling into the trap of caring more about how a page looks than how it reads.
Few would dispute that it is harder to read text on a screen than in print. Most would agree that black text on a slightly off-white background is easiest to read. It could also be argued that font size for webpages should be slightly larger than font sizes chosen for print.
So, why do an increasing number of websites today use small font sizes and grey text? The answer is simple: small fonts and grew text look better. They blend into the overall design of the page. They are more elegant and visually appealing.
The problem with larger font sizes and black text is that they stand out. They can dominate the page. This is exactly what makes them easier to read. Black text in a large font stands out from its background.
When I ask people to look at a website like Ryanair their instinctive reaction is often to say that it is ugly. If you ask most people to look at the most successful websites, they would also probably tell you that they look ugly.
The fact is we don’t spend our time looking at sites. We spend our time reading and using them. There are three things a great web design must be: useful, useful and useful.
Hi Mark,
I see your point here and you are probably right from an hyper-rational point of view. Nevertheless I am convinced that web design has more than a “superficial” function. Although it will never take over content and the “useful” factor, I think it contributes to making people feel good with the site.
From a strategic point of view, I think keeping a site “ugly”is like accepting a leak in the roof of a house. You may hope people don’t notice it but it just doesn’t feel comfortable and “if” another better opportunity to have both (usefulness and nice design) raises… people won’t double think the jump out.
I couldn’t agree more, and have noticed the problem even prior to the world wide web. . . graphic designers have run amok, caring more about showing off their deign chops than the information they’re supposed to present. I’ve seen text on top of text in sundry shades and fonts. Egads! Looked cool on the page, but I couldn’t make heads or tails of the text.Good graphic designers that draw attention to what is presented rather than how, and know that the best design is invisible, and that little touches they may add for panache becomes ostentation when slathered onto the page. Like xmas lights: a few clear lights on a row of trees–very beautiful; a carnival of blinking colors and lawn ornaments–an aesthetic kick to the head.
Let us praise designers who can put togethor appealing print or web pages that serve their function AND are pleasing to the eye.
What really drives me nuts are web sites built entirely in flash. They look and “move” great… but as you say, Gerry, “….the things we think are the most beautiful are often the least useful in a practical and functional sense.”
I’m not sure I agree with that philosophy applied across the board… but when it comes to web sites, an emphasis on “beautiful” (and “cool,” for that matter) too often seem to compromise functionality.
But here’s what I wonder: Does it HAVE to be that way? Is there a middle ground between visually pleasing and functional?
Gerry,
I take the opposite view. My job within my firm is to run it; however, my real job is to oversee the creative side, including doing most of the writing. We build lots of web sites. And we begin with the copy.
I believe and tell my clients that we start with the copy so we can base the design on the words. Why? Because design done well makes the copy pop and creates a positive emotional response that grows customers.
Great copy and great design produce a great website. One without the other turns away readers and customers.
Gerry — I think that the examples you give are more simple than ugly. There is nothing wrong with putting functionality first, but disregarding design is a problem. I think Google, YouTube, eBay and Amazon are content focused and use minimal treatment to keep that focus. Not ugly, minimal. MySpace, I will give you, is ugly, but users can personalize their content.
Craig’s List and RyanAir I think are different animals. I see their design as part of a strategy. If you came to a discount airfare site or a trading post and it looked like them spent a couple million on a flashy design, you would probably feel like you weren’t getting the best discount. They’re focused on looking like the product they’re selling and staying true to putting the user first.
The strategy plays a big part (hopefully) in design. If your strategy was to present a lot of information to fashionistas, you would take a different approach than you would presenting to bargain hunters. Using the “ugly” argument is often a cop-out for not having designers that can create an elegant interface for the target audience. Luc’s point is right on the money with the leaky roof.
The grand canyon isn’t useful?
Did I just read that?
What if you’re a geologist, a white water rafter. What if you live within the teaming non-human habitat that call the grand canyone home. What about the tribes that once used it’s impenetrable geography for protection form nature’s worst and other tribes. I’ll bet the local economy does better with the grand canyon than it’d do without it.
The place is bursting with usefullness if you’re in the right demographic.
When it comes to design, blanket metaphors will never output a useful generalization. Like the grand canyon, design serves so many different audiences and an enormously wide range of functions.
Things get ugly (you tube, amazon) when things get democratic and everyone is aimed at to be pleased.
The lowest common denominator isn’t inspiring. If the Grand Canyon were made to be great for everyone it would lose all of it’s beauty as it were paved over and covered with strip malls and food courts, big box stores and cookie cutter houses.
Maybe it’s time for us to move beyond the one-design-suits-all era and stop looking at the web (and maybe our own habitats) as having to meet some one-look suits all requirement.
what if we could have 5 designs for youtube, or 10 designs for Amazon, then the highschool kid can get his small text and superfluous design with a flaming skull atitude Amazon.
And you can get your off-white background with big black text Amazon.
I love a great flash site. I seek them out. I relish in the inventiveness of what people try to do with navigation. The attempts to break from the norm and risk failure to try something new.
Explore, invent, dream.
This is the web, it’s Val Hala not a Communist color by numbers canvas where everyone makes everything to be loved by everyone.
Recognize the demographic your in, it’ll inform the judgements you’re making.
The Internet was designed for the spreading and transferral of information, and in my view no elements of design should hamper that. Websites that utilise Flash, for example, drive me to frustration unless the Flash elements are minimal at best.
There are two ideas common to both design and spreading information – keep them simple and not over cluttered – so surely these two elements should go hand in hand in taking steps towards a “good” website.
I suppose that at the end of the day, this discussion really brews down to what you consider to be “ugly” web design – there is the blatantly ugly (ryanair) where it doesn’t please the eye, and then there is the dull or simple (google, youtube) where you’re just not treated to the eye candy of other sites… Does a lack of eye candy instantly mean that a site is ugly? Surely it should just mean that the site is neither ugly or .. pretty
To Anne
“The Internet was designed for the spreading and transferral of information”
Grafitti is information. The color of a flower is information to a bee looking to pollenate. Dog’s smell other dogs’ butts to get information. Whether that information is pretty or not or useful or not depends entirely on who the information is intended for.
And Flash is an authoring tool. It, in and of itself, has nothing to do with the design. Look at Google Maps, a wonderfully functional app made in flash. The Nike ID site is also made in flash, and it’s another fantastic example of functional flash.
I wouldn’t be so quick to discount flash overall.
It can present information in a more kinetic manner than you can get out of HTML and that has more value to demographics that prefer a moving image.
The main problem with flash is it’s lack of searchability, the browser back button becomes useless and most flash developers fail to include the functionality to link to specific pages within a flash site. All things that I believe will change in the next few years. Overall
I have to think that flash is the power house front end authoring tool of the near future and it’s presence on the web will only grow.
I agree with the comments that indicate a Web site should have balance – of copy, first and foremost, and pleasing design. Not every entity online has huge traffic like MySpace or YouTube. Most sites are a mix of personal, B2B AND B2C, many of which have few page views.
Of course, everyone has an opinion on what a good site should look like. Ideally, it should represent the brand personality of a company or organization. For some, this may mean a more utilitarian approach, and for others, there are more design features.
Take a look at the advertising agencies’ sites. They need to show off their abilities from the get-go, so design, flash and other new-fangled design elements are evident immediately.
I believe overall, that sites are the marriage of functionality and visual appeal that keep people coming back. The balance ratio depends on the strategic objective of the site.
Another “ugly” but dominating website: wikipedia.
While I strongly believe design matters and plays a critical role both online and off, I also believe websites serve a wide variety of purposes. Sites that are “tools” (research or search or transaction) may not require the same aesthetic sensibilities as a website that plays the central-role in a “branding” strategy.
This is a bit like debating the role of design in a Yellow Page ad or whether or not an encyclopedia entry needs to have the production values of a page in National Geographic.
Design follows function — or something like that.
Sorry about calling you Mark, Gerry… Another question : doesn’t a word like “ugly” have a subjective definition that may affect people differently? Example : Wikipedia or Google are maybe not ugly. Perhaps just “simple” could fit the perception some people may have of these sites.
And I agree with Lewis when it comes to the synergy between content and form.
It all depends on what you are selling. If I sell hip fashions I better have a site that reflects the company personality.
If I sell data as does Wikipedia then my look message is different.
What really counts is relevance. Is the information and the look relevant for me? Am I the target of the web site?
And sites can look good and be easy to use.
I know that when I encounter a new website I rarely think about it’s beauty but rather its functionality. I really don’t want to spend precious minutes watching birds fly by or elephants dance – I want my information and I want it fast.
When designing our website we tried to make it easy to use and read – sure we added a bit of color here and there but we weren’t trying to repaint the Sistine Chapel just provide the best darn information on seminars we could.
I really loved the Grand Canyon but I wouldn’t want to sit online for half an hour while it loaded on my screen.
Ugly is a strong word. And that’s why I think some web designers hate black text and large fonts. It’s ugly. Whereas, grey text and small fonts are much more beautiful. I’d prefer ugliness any day.
One thing I was trying to explore in my piece was the conflict between beauty and usefulness. Is it true that the more beautiful you make something, the less useful it becomes; that the more useful you make something, the less beautiful it becomes?
The essence of the Web is about being useful. So, beauty takes second place to functionality. Sure, we should try and reach a balance, but a balance is not always possible.
I don’t know how many web designers have complained to me over the years about Amazon. I hapenn to think it is the model for ecommerce. We should do four-year degree courses on Amazon.
Amazon has just announced that in its second quarter, it’s earnings have tripled, revenue grew strongly and profit margins expanded. More ugly websites please.
There’s no reason to settle for ugly, no matter what the site. Given the nature and purpose of the site, simplicity/minimalism may be required. That’s OK. But no matter what is being offered on the site, it can always be made attractive in some way. A little digital mascara and rouge can go a long way…!
Gerry – We should be careful making assumptions about why Amazon is successful. Yes, it is very useful, but not BECAUSE it is ugly. I’m confident that it could be made more attractive and still retain its usefulness and usability (and Amazon is able to break SOME usability rules based on the trust it has earned from speedy and accurate fulfillment of orders — see Jakob Nielsen’s 2005 take on the subject, titled “Amazon: No Longer the Role Model for E-Commerce Design”).
“Beautiful” and “Useful” are NOT mutually exclusive. Nor are they even proportional (directly or inversely) with one another, although that mindset has often seen designers pitted against their siloed counterparts in usability.
I would even say that means it’s not even about “balance” between usefulness and beauty. You can have both.
Of course, developers do have to make compromises all the time on the basis of business goals, limitations of the medium, and typical user behavior, but that’s a different thing from saying that one must sacrifice beauty to be useful, or vice versa.
I agree. There are site that are beautiful and looks good but does not have that to offer. Take for example the http://www.rollingpricesback.com, look simple but very improtant to me. It gives me the ease of shopping whenever i am busy shopping personally. There some other site too but there are too many to mention
good topic to post and great discussion too. well in my line of work i come to the design vs content crossroad quite a lot, although i cannot take one road. thats because i create content and put them up on the website (our only mode of reaching out to members btw).
given a personal choice, i wud take the ‘ugly’ look of craigslist and stuff it with so much quality content that users just cant seem to give up on the site. that way i will retain a competitive advantage all along and also build unmatchable content over time (amazon, google, etc). now i can also focus on design partly but again it comes down to allocation of resources in the first place (75% content, 25% design). as i said i wud go with a base design (5% maintenance time) with 95% content creation (=quality). thats whats win-win for me and my users/customers/clients!
The reason we still see countless “sales letter” pages that in my opinion are very ugly, is that “they work”.
They work, very, very well.
I started out as a designer online in 95. It took me years to lose the ego. In the end it’s about meeting your marketing goals. If you have to be ugly to do that, you have to do it.
Hi Gerry -
Easy to use and ugly are not synonymous. A good site is both easy to use and easy on the eyes. Example – Facebook: Pretty, incredibly simple, growing exponentially. MySpace: Disorganized crap on a screen, hard to figure out, crappy website.
I agree with the Harry Hillman. The look of a site should depend mostly on what is being sold or promoted. If I am researching which resort I should choose, I’m probbaly not going to choose a resort whose site doesn’t accurately portray the resort. Conversely, if I am using a site simply as a search engine, I’m not expecting it to be extravagent.
I don’t think design appeal usually needs to suffer in order for a site to be functional.
Great article. I agree with all of the web sites except Ryanair.com. When I am trusting my life with someone, I don’t want to feel like am with a second rate airline that barely has enough money to put together a decent web site. In my eyes the design and effort of the web site directly reflect the values of the company.
All this talk of beauty vs. ugly and only a few mentions of the user? In the end, it’s in the eyes of the beholder and people vote with clicks and dollars.
Gerry — What Lewis Green wrote about designing around copy really resonates with me. I work for an organization who has consistently done “copy fitting” for new site designs, and all we end up with are “pretty” sites that miss the point of their real purpose.
I also agree with Matt Dickman’s assessment of the designs for the sites you cited. It doesn’t seem plausible that the design of these sites were an “afterthought” for any of these online powerhouses.
Design is a very important component of usability IN CONJUNCTION with usefulness and each part deserves equal consideration.
Dear Gerry:
Your article has some degree of merit, except when you stated that beauty was not useful. I vehemently disagree! Through the centuries, beauty has been a touchstone relating to the development of society.
What you are saying is analogous to saying that because a work of art or a book is beautifully executed, it has no worth. That is simply idiotic.
Additionally, you have two typographical errors in your article! The article is not beautiful, but it is useful and has some merit.
Excellent discussion and many excellent points. On one level, isn’t a website also a form of the product or service’s packaging and therefore should exhibit the qualities consistent with other marketing materials? The point about ryanair.com is spot on; as a discount airline, one might be suspicious if the website was sleek and glamorous. On the other hand if I were shopping for flowers and came upon a website looking like ryanair’s I wouldn’t even consider looking let alone buying. Having said that, the ability for the user to navigate easily to get what they need (functionality and usability) is most important no matter what the “package” looks like.
Interesting discussion. To me, it is not about design, content, beauty or ugliness. It is about the visitor, the user. If you’re message is a visual experience, by all means, put design first. If your message is about content, alas, a no-brainer. In the end, if you see your website first as a means to represent yourself, I believe visitors will recognize that. I personally use the web for information. I appreciate design, but I come back to the site if it answers my needs, not because it’s pretty. If I want the Grand Canyon, I’ll go and see it. But that’s just me.
Thanks Gerry. Ralph
Interesting discussion. To me, it is not about design, content, beauty or ugliness. It is about the visitor, the user. If you’re message is a visual experience, by all means, put design first. If your message is about content, alas, a no-brainer. In the end, if you see your website first as a means to represent yourself, I believe visitors will recognize that. I personally use the web for information. I appreciate design, but I come back to the site if it answers my needs, not because it’s pretty. If I want the Grand Canyon, I’ll go and see it. But that’s just me.
Thanks Gerry. Ralph
Hello Gerry McGovern … I suspect that everything comes down to lazy simplification. True, the most successful websites are ugly, but I suggest this simply means that those companies didn’t give a damn, their emphasis was on product and sales. Keep these websites user friendly, keep the great product, improve the look of the website and I don’t think that the buyers would suddenly flock to other sites just because they are ugly. Chicken and egg.
There are a lot of marketing and branding tales around, where we all begin to believe our own ‘truths’ and in hindsight everyone has 20:20 vision.
Take google, yahoo, amazon and oh so many other brandnames – does anyone really believe that, when these guys where agonising what to call their baby, they had any idea whether the name would sell the offer? A brand is only a vessel, a container. Call it sh…t and put in a brilliant product/solution. Once people grasp the fact that it’s brilliant, they’ll buy sh…t. Same with the websites. I am not advocating grey, small and elegant, I quite agree that that’s a designer desease (however understandable from their point of view) and doesn’t add to what a website must do: offer a great product/solution, easy use, easy reading, easy browsing, be idiot-safe and sell, sell, sell. But that doesn’t mean they MUST be ugly. I’d rather think that they do their stuff EVEN THOUGH THEY’RE UGLY. Some visual improvement wouldn’t do any harm and gladden the soul.
Rosmarie
Hi – I’d love some opinions on my client’s site.
http://www.bevmo.com
In the fashion business, however, ugly doesn’t work. I agree however that for many things I’ve bought quite handily from ugly sites – a lot of yahoo shopping stores for example. I also hate flash sites. They waste my time – especially the fashion ones. Let me see the clothes, thanks!
Hey Gerry! Your article was an interesting one. Yes, sites like eBay, amazon etc are hugely successful sites, and they might be ugly, at the same time they fall into the easy to use and navigate category. Would like to know your views about a new launch website that wants to cut through the clutter, and I guess one of the ways would be to create a uniquely creative / attractive / beautiful site
I think there is a happy medium between the two.
People can really get turned off on a poorly designed website, no matter if its ugly or beautiful.
It also depends on what you’d consider to be an ‘ugly’ website. For example, while Youtube isn’t fancy, I’ve never thought of it as ugly.
“Ugly” has it’s place: David Gelernter, HArvard professor and UNA Bomber victim, says that many Americans prefer ‘ugly’ because they associate it with ‘function’, and ‘designed’ pieces as having more of a ‘look’ than have ‘function’ ( clumsy Windows vs elegant MAC interfaces, bulky American vs slick European cars, LazyBoys vs. Bauhaus furniture, eg). In the US the ‘Form follows Function’ mantra is used as “Function requires a specific Form”; meaning it’s gotta be ‘ugly’ to work properly.
‘Ugliness’ comes across ‘functional’. Even inspirational. Fine with me: I don’t have to change the world as a designer, just learn to see what makes people tick.
Guessing bad. Testing good.
The entire premise of this post is flawed.
Good design is about communication.
If a site is functional AND beautiful/creative, then it is succeeding.
If a site is functional and ugly then it’s failing.
Don’t confuse good design with beautiful.
Good design is how something works not what it looks like,
The by-product of which is often beauty in one shape or another.
I smell the not the uncommon whiff of design prejudice here.
Have you noticed that the Web has started to grey?’
No I haven’t. I have noticed the use of different shades and tone to create order and visual hierarchy, vital tools for functionality.
Even this ‘ugly’ page uses them to prevent visual chaos.
What really frustrates me about post’s like these is the undertow that design is secondary or even superfluous. This flies in the face of all we have learnt in
the last 60 years about it’s importance. All I hope is that businesses old and new don’t listen to these damaging arguments. It’s hard enough to succeed in these difficult times as it is.
I do hope, Gerry, for the sake of your clients, that you are not involved professionally in website design & development.
Mark Boulton reflects on Gerry McGovern’s naivety and clear lack understanding.
http://www.markboulton.co.uk/journal/comments/gerry-mcgoverns-clear-lack-of-understanding
Call me cynical but maybe this is Gerry’s idea of a PR exercise. Standby for a raft of ugly websites.
I think that design should support usability. In the worst scenario design plays opposite role – it bothers to find needed information. I would not say that Ryanair achieves its profits mainly to its usability supported by well working design. This company run a lot of different marketing activities in order to get money. In other words – all marketing activities influence company profits.
In terms of Ryanair design – despite it is ugly it does not bother in finding information and it is crucial. However it is difficult not to say that the web site looks as if was designed over 10 years ago. I am talking about all design details like huge “bevel and emboss” effects, icons looking like designed for Microsof Office, etc.
Sometimes I think that it is Ryanair strategy … cheap flights = cheap looking web site
To be honest … if I did not know the brand and if I visited their web site the first time in mi life I would probably leave it in a few seconds because I would not trust the web site looking like over 10 years old. In spite of that … I always use their web site to buy tickets 
Why? Because their are cheap. Nothing else. At least their airplanes look better than their web site 