Underperforming Mobile Pages are Sabotaging Your Revenue. Here’s How to Fix Them.

Your site gets more traffic from mobile devices than desktops.

So… why are your mobile conversions so low?

That’s what matters most after all. Right?

Right.

The typical reason?

Your site sucks. Plain and simple.

It’s hard to use. The organization is a mess. And it’s slow as a snail.

But there’s good news and bad news.

The good news is that the fix is easy. Just build a new site.

The bad news is that you can’t always do that. Or someone won’t always sign off on it.

Here’s why you might want to rethink that.

And what you should do if it’s still a problem.

Why your mobile results aren’t what they should be

Many sites claim to be “mobile-friendly.”

However, that’s not always the case.

The reality is that most sites aren’t actually mobile-friendly. They’re just accessible on mobile devices.

Yes, there’s a difference.

According to Frank Reynolds at Compulse, there are actually three different terms for how sites appear on mobile devices: mobile-responsive, mobile-optimized and mobile-friendly.

• Mobile-responsive sites are actually user-friendly. They’re built from the ground-up with mobile transitions and user experience in mind, and they resize and adjust proportions, images and text according to specific devices.
• Mobile-optimized sites are built as a distinct mobile version of the desktop site. They look and feel more like an app, they’re just not actually designed to be apps. These are also typically built from the ground up.
• Mobile-friendly sites are simply regular desktop sites that have an accessible version on mobile browsers. They can be designed for a mobile experience, but typically they’re just smaller versions of the larger desktop site. *This is the majority.*

The latter option is, sadly, the option most used by sites looking to add mobile functionality to their desktop site.

The reason? It’s quick and dirty.

And you can throw it on after like a band aid. No need to start over from scratch.

Which translates into “a helluva lot cheaper than building a separate mobile site.”

Unfortunately, shrinking down a desktop site’s user experience into a smaller screen isn’t actually helping with mobile-friendliness.

It’s just making it harder for users to do what you want.

To convert. To opt-in. To give you their cash money bling bling make a marketer wanna sing sing.

Here’s why.

When “mobile-friendly” costs you conversions

Mobile-friendliness (or the lack thereof) impacts SEO.

Search engines like Google look for mobile responsiveness when driving traffic to your page.

Soon mobile-first indexing will be a thing.

This means mobile sites will take priority over desktop sites when showing up on Google’s SERPs.

But when Google says they’re looking for mobile-friendly sites, what it really means is that they’re looking mobile-responsive.

You know, that third option from above. The expensive one.

If your website is not mobile-responsive – designed from the ground-up with a mobile experience in mind – you will see a decrease in search traffic.

Lost traffic equals lost conversions. Less people to buy stuff.

And that’s assuming the same rate of people buy stuff between the two. Which ain’t the case, as you’ll see in a second.

Even if your traffic numbers remained steady, not having a mobile-responsive design will sabotage your conversions anyway.

The biggest trouble is that mobile-friendly designs aren’t always aesthetically appealing.

They’re essentially just shrunken versions of a regular site that are more difficult to navigate.

You know, like the creepy dude with a tiny head on Beetlejuice.

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According to Adobe, 38% of mobile users will stop engaging with a website if the content or layout is unattractive. And 65% rank display as the “most important aspect” when it comes to consuming content on mobile.

Bottom line: “Mobile-friendly” designs are killing your conversions.

Don’t listen to me. Go peep your own analytics. It’s all right there in front of you.

Three times. That’s the difference in new leads or customers.

Conversely, it means you’re losing out on 3x the leads or sales on mobile that you could be, should be, getting.

How much is an average lead worth to you?

Couple hundred bucks on the low end for B2B or high retention products or expensive average order values.

Three * a couple hundred bucks = lots of missed revenue.

Here’s what you should do about it.

Redesigning your underperforming site with a true mobile mindset

So are you doomed if you haven’t built your site from the ground up to perform well on mobile?

Not necessarily.

The trick is to not take the lazy way out.

Call it what you want. But that’s what it is at the end of the day.

Maybe you can’t rebuild your mobile site from scratch for some reason. You still should. Your reason can’t be better than tens of thousands in lost revenue each month.

But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that your friendly HiPPO won’t sign off.

Start with a simple assessment, then.

For example, begin with the design:

• How does it look on mobile? Is everything shrunken down and hard to read or is it resized appropriately and scrollable?
• How well does it respond to mobile touch? (e.g. does it zoom in when pinched, etc.)
• How easy it is for users to perform the same functions as your desktop site? Can they fill out a form as easily on a smartphone as they can on a computer?

Then let’s take a look at all of the other potential issues. Besides lost revenue. Of which, there are many.

❌ Site speed – How fast is your site? Google’s Developer Programs Tech Lead, Maile Ohye, says that “two seconds is the threshold for website acceptability. At Google, we aim for under a half-second.” Both Google and site users expect mobile sites to load fast. Yours most likely ain’t that fast.

❌ Pop-ups – Are certain desktop features needed on mobile? Most likely, no. Pop-ups and other flash-based elements can cause mobiles sites to crash, reload, and slow down. All of which will damage conversions. Then there’s the whole “intrusive interstitial penalty.” Google says to make content easier to access, not less.

❌ Finger-friendliness – Can someone tap a form field with their thumb? Mobile should be finger-friendly. Buttons or form fields that are too small will hurt your conversions.

❌ Titles and descriptions – When it comes to mobile SERPS, you have less room to work with, so you want your titles and descriptions to be short, to the point, and keyword optimized.

❌ Vertical scrolling – Can someone use their thumb to read all of a page or do they have to sideswipe to find content?

❌ Top-loaded pages – Is your most important information at the top of each page? The layout of your content may need to be different than your regular site.

❌ Modern code – Are you using HTML5? Outdated languages, like Flash either don’t work or severely limit your mobile experience.

It’s important to be honest here. You can probably spot many of these issues from a mile away already.

If your mobile site isn’t living up to expectations, you need to reconsider whether or not developing an actual mobile-optimized or mobile-responsive site is worth the investment. (Hint: Yes, of course it is.)

But if you (or someone cutting your check) is still on the fence, you can use a few tools to prove your point.

If you want to see how mobile-friendly Google thinks your site is, try using their mobile-friendly site tester.

Simply drop in your URL to get the quick verdict. The thumbs up or down.

Green is good.

You can also use Responsinator to double check your findings. It will also preview how your site looks on several different devices.

Ideally, you want to see the site stretch wide across the device. You want to see the navigation menu collapse. And you want to see individual sections of your site rearrange on their own.

If those things aren’t happening or you see too much red in the tools above, try these tips below.

5 ways to optimize your existing mobile site

If you’re not sure your site is truly mobile-friendly (read: mobile-responsive), you have a few choices to make.

✅ 1. Create a mobile-optimized site.

The website’s built. Your boss/client just hired their best friend’s mother’s sister’s cousin who took a single HTML course in junior college to rebuild the entire thing.

Long story short: It ain’t changing anytime soon.

You may need to build a new mobile site that works seamlessly with your current site. Not ideal, but better than nothing.

✅ 2. Fix your mobile site’s layout.

If your site was made by selecting a template or theme from third-party website software, you can customize for mobile users.

If you’re on WordPress, for example, you can use a separate design for your mobile theme than for your desktop theme.

This enables you to provide a different user experiences rather than simply making a smaller version of your main design.

Plugins also abound for WordPress. The problem is that these often wreak havoc on your site speed.

Here’s why that’s important.

✅ 3. Optimize your mobile site for speed.

Almost all websites are too slow on mobile devices.

That finding comes from Google directly.

Image Source

Even if you don’t tweak the design or underlying architecture too much (though you really, really should), consider making changes that will make your mobile site faster and more usable.

This can include steps like:

• Clean up & minify your site code
• Compress & reduce files
• Compress & crop images
• Upgrade your servers & hosting
• Minimize redirects, even 301s, when possible
• Load scripts underneath page content

✅ 4. Measure the conversion roadblocks on your site.

You can run tests to see exactly where people are having problems on your website.

There are many, many things that need to happen before someone converts.

You have various micro-conversions. Then you have funnel or checkout steps. You can even run A/B tests. IF you have enough mobile traffic.

A certain percentage of visitors are going to drop off at each.

A Funnel Report can also quickly pinpoint these problem areas.

You can create a new funnel and segment the results by device category. So you’ll be able to pinpoint the difference in both conversions and conversion rate.

After the funnel, you’re still not done, of course. This is just one conversion point, for example.

There’s still multiple interactions that need to take place. That means you might need multiple landing pages and/or funnels after the fact before someone converts.

The trouble is that this quickly becomes difficult with most (bad) websites.

My favorite sneaky alternative?

Fire up a new site or tool to augment/replace these problem areas. Like your HubSpots or Unbounces of the world.

BUT, pay for them out of your own pocket or budget.

That keeps them out of the clutches of the “I Tried” department who will otherwise make your life a living hell. And most upper management literally has no idea what’s going on.

If they don’t know what a DNS is, you’re probably good to go.

Hey — we have jobs to do! Our livelihood depends on it.

One time we even spun up a new WordPress site on Godaddy to create a convenient workaround.

Are you honestly willing to let your own success be determined by people that literally have no idea what they’re talking about?

Pay the $99/month out of your own pocket. Slay the results. Get a raise paying you an extra $1,000/month because you just made the company $10,000/month.

If they won’t raise you, I will. #realtalk

It’s mean on the streets.

✅ 5. Simplify your website.

Simple websites almost always convert better.

There’s no need for the fancy stuff. Please don’t use carousel sliders. Or god forbid, parallax.

I can’t find a study on this, but I’m willing to bet that a static HTML site would convert better than most “sophisticated” ones.

It would also load faster and be easier to navigate, too.

Or just pay Squarespace.

You think I’m joking. Kinda. Sorta.

But then at least you know they work across all devices.

Conclusion

You might be able to visit a website from your mobile device.

But that doesn’t truly make it mobile-friendly.

And mobile-friendly makes a difference when you consider what matters most: Traffic, visibility, customer experience, and conversions.

Go verify this right now. The traffic and conversions from mobile vs. desktop should be all you need.

Then run your site through simple tools to diagnose what’s wrong and what needs to be fixed.

You might not be in a position to change your site. The Powers at Be might not sign off.

So get crafty. There’s workarounds if you know where to look.

Redesign pieces of your current site. You can use actual mobile-friendly templates and layouts. Even substitute pieces of your funnel with better tools.

Sometimes it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

Especially when your job and financial well being are on the line.

About the Author: Brad Smith is the founder of Codeless, a B2B content creation company. Frequent contributor to Kissmetrics, Unbounce, WordStream, AdEspresso, Search Engine Journal, Autopilot, and more.

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How to Master Analytics like Will Smith and Amazon

Will Smith is not just a pretty face. Nor is he just a likeable, talented actor.

He’s a businessman and a master marketer. The only Hollywood star that predictably gets over $20 million per flick. Even his movies that didn’t get good reviews, like Hancock and Suicide Squad, grossed over half a billion each worldwide. Wouldn’t you just love the worst of your ventures to make half a bill?

So, what’s the secret to Smith’s success? How has he chosen just the right way to focus his time, attention and resources?

Is it down to luck? An innate knack for making good decisions? Or an unwieldy drive to succeed?

These factors have played their roles, I’m sure. But Will applied a much smarter, more calculated method to propel himself to stardom. One that your company can – and should harness the power of, in order to drastically increase your customer acquisition and retention.

The answer is: analytics.

It’s the skill of observing what your prospects and customers do and have done in the past, using this to predict what they will do, want and need in the future. Then make smart marketing decisions based on this info, to maximize your profits and dominate your market (just like Will Smith).

In short;

Glance back over your shoulder before you plan new things.

This article will reveal how Smith did it, how Amazon is doing it, and how your company should do it.

The Fresh Prince of Analytics

When Will Smith first ventured into the world of Hollywood movies (from within the clutches of Uncle Phil’s tyrannous reign) he and his manager sat down and analyzed the ten highest grossing movies of all time, looking for patterns.

They analyzed what moviegoers (his target customers) did in the past to determine what they would do in the future. So that they could put Will Smith right where the money would be.

At the time, they found that ten out of ten of the top movies had special effects, nine out of ten had aliens and eight out of ten had a love story involved.

Next stop – Independence Day and Men in Black.

In no time at all, Will Smith became a household name.

That’s a simple example of the power of this technique. In marketing today – especially digital marketing – it’s all-important. It really is the key to consistently better decisions.

Let’s look at exactly how effectively using your data to predict your customer actions can boost your revenue and profits.

Three Ways Analytics Impacts Your Bottom Line

1. It Increases Your Leads & Prospects

Analytics allows you to see, repeat and expand on what works best to boost:

a. Your Leads
You can find and qualify leads better to know which ones are most likely to become paying customers. We get this by observing patterns in firmographic data (data from the company your lead works for), demographic data, geographic data, psychographic data and through the analysis of the industry and economy.

In other words; who they work for, who they are, what’s going on behind the lights, where they live, and what’s up in their world. All five areas, will give you clarity on where to find the most and best leads.

b. Your Prospects
Once a lead starts showing active interest they become a prospect. It’s getting hotter. They’ve seen the trail of breadcrumbs and are on their way toward you.
Analytics can tell you how to maximize your prospects from the five data types plus extra information your sales team learns while interacting with your customers.
A 10% increase in leads or prospects is a 10% increase to your bottom line (if your conversion rate remains the same).

2. It Increases Your Conversions

Mastering analytics can help you polish the method, frequency, and quality of interactions with your prospects. Refining each piece, cranking those conversions up and up.

It takes qualifying prospects to a whole new level of detail. By turning all important factors into data (such as the prospect’s level of need for the service, their budget, their level of authority, and much more), your sales people can quickly focus where the focus is needed most.

As the skill and precision of your qualifying, sales and closing techniques increase, so does your revenue.

A 10% increase in sales conversions is a 10% increase to your bottom line.

3. It Increases Your Average Customer Value (Purchase Size & Lifetime Value)

Amazon is the grand master of upselling and cross-selling.

Their ‘frequently bought together’ feature and recommendation system have arguably been one of the key ingredients in their world-dominating success story. Amazon uses data to automatically customize the browsing experience for its customers based on their past purchases, and optimize sales. So in a nutshell, Amazon’s analytics tells them what customers frequently buy together and they simply (and automatically) pass this info onto their customers, to help them out – which their customers absolutely love.

That’s right, good cross-selling is a service, not an imposition! So don’t be shy about it.

And that goes the same for upselling. Almost all customers are interested in at least knowing the options to upgrade.

Think how often you encounter this, from fast food restaurants offering super-sizing to high class airlines offering seat upgrades. If you don’t want the upgrades, that’s fine, but at least you’ll know what’s available and the cost to upgrade.

These successful upsells should give you some food for thought:

Dollar Shave Club

Dollar Shave Club lures its customers in with an incredibly clever name. But of course, they’d prefer you spend a little more than a dollar. And they encourage you to do exactly that, by lining up their “humble” one-dollar razor against some more appealing, more expensive options. Notice how they’ve dropped in some social proof to make this middle option even more enticing (using the words “member favorite”)?

Spotify

Spotify uses a similar, common (and effective) technique. The ‘free’ option here seems pretty bleak next to that juicy ‘recommended’ Premium option, with its colorful design and that long list of ticks. Don’t you agree?

Like Amazon, if you use analytics well, you will know from past customers exactly what extra offers to show your customer, in a way the customer appreciates. These are people already buying from you, which means they like your company already. Of course some of them will be happy to buy a little more. And a little more. And a little more.

Again, a 10% increase in average purchase size is a 10% increase to your bottom line.

Plug that Leak

Two other ways to boost the average value of your customer are to increase how frequently they buy from you and also reduce the number of customers leaving you.

By analyzing your metrics – such as the conversion rates of your cross-sell email campaigns or social media ads – you can understand what methods of communication and marketing are enticing your customers to buy from you more often. So you can expand on this.

It’s an easy stat to boost as, again, these customers already trust and use your service. Customers buying from you five times a year on average, instead of four times a year, is a 25% jump in revenue. Yet without analytics, it’s an area of marketing most people neglect. Make sure you don’t!

And if your bucket has a hole, let’s plug it before pouring in more water.

According to the Harvard Business Review, the cost of acquiring a new customer is five to twenty five times that of holding onto an old one. Yet both have an equal impact on your revenue.

Analytics will help you refine your methods for keeping customers longer (for example, by identifying and getting rid of mistakes that are driving them away – showing you the spinach in your teeth) and bringing back those who have already left.

Once more – a 10% increase in average lifetime value is (yep, you guessed it) a 10% increase to your bottom line.

The Wonderful Power of Cumulative Increases

I love this part. If you hit all three of these figures with a 10% increase, you get a 30% boost to revenue, right?

Wrong!

You get a 33.1% increase.

The initial 10% increase makes your revenue 110% of what it was before. The next 10% increase on that makes it 121% of what it was before. And the next 10% increase makes it 133.1% in total.

That is the power of cumulative growth.

And that’s only a little 10% boost from your analytics. A 20% boost to each is a 72.8% total increase in revenue. A 30% boost to each is a 119.7% total increase. A 40% boost to each is…

Starting to look pretty cool, wouldn’t you say?

See how the little things add up and make your bottom line more buxomly?

Turbocharge your Content Strategy

Apart from the numbers at the top end of the funnel, analytics also make it very easy to improve and streamline your content marketing strategy. You can always know what to say and say it so that people love it.

By plugging into social media and analytics tools, you can quickly see patterns in what content gets liked, clicked, downloaded and shared the most. From ebooks to posts to videos to Tweets. The full shebang.

Always know what’s hot or not with a glance at your dashboard!

Because of this, knowing what to talk about just becomes easy. You become the conversational master of your industry. The heart of the party, not the awkward wallflower in the corner.

And of course, with a better understanding of what your target prospects actually want to read/hear/watch, you can create content which attracts, engages and converts more. And yes, that means faster growth, more leads, more conversions, more sales, more profits, more money, bigger houses, etc.

So, How Exactly Can You Start Making the Most of Analytics?

To put it simply, you need to set up systems that collect data for you – data about your prospects, customers, market trends, methods and sales techniques. Data about everything. You need to arrange this in a way that is simple for you to glance at and see helpful patterns emerge.

When you have this system set up, you can make decisions and then watch the impact on your bottom line. If the impact is good, you can go further in that direction. If it’s not, stop.

It’s that simple.

It’s really all about being able to see the 20% of customers, offers and activities that get you 80% of your results. Then focusing on that 20%.

It’s all about efficiency. If Mr. Pareto were still around, he would love analytics.

Two Tools that Nail It

There’s a lot of noise about analytics tools out there, so let’s keep it simple. Here are two useful tools you can start with. Check them out, test them out, and see what works for you.

Kissmetrics
Kissmetrics is a great choice for detailed and easy analytics. It creates profiles for customers across all devices. It tells you about customer behavior, response to product features, etc. It tells you where people drop off in your funnel and how segment behavior changes over time, and more. A tiptop tool to start with.

The Kissmetrics Funnel Report

Google Analytics
Google Analytics works well as a simpler introduction to analytics. You can start with Goals, an underused feature of Google Analytics. You tell it even very specific actions on your site to track (time-on-page, opt-ins, video plays, add to carts, anything really), the tool tracks it and displays it in Google’s usual easy-to-follow format. That’s the free option, you can also upgrade to Google Analytics 360 for a more comprehensive online-only tracking platform.

Audience Overview in Google Analytics

This is a Story All About How…

Let your journey of analytics analysis begin. I guarantee it will add a twist to your company story (a good twist, not a Game of Thrones twist).

It really is one of the surest ways to crank up your revenue, your content quality, and understand your customer and business better than your competition. Because when you have a solid system in place you can see patterns with ease that your competitors miss. Day in, day out.

And those three key revenue stats really are worth paying attention to! Making changes and measuring results is easy when you keep track of your leads, prospects and average lifetime values.

It makes you more secure too. You can understand and pinpoint profit problems, quick as an F1 mechanic fixing a Lotus, mid-race.

Don’t let the jargon around this topic put you off. Everyone is just trying to sound clever. Remember, you’re just doing it like Will Smith and Amazon – look to the past, take what works, put it into play, and watch your profits grow.

Good luck!

-Konrad

About the Author: Konrad is the CEO and Content Strategist at The Creative Copywriter, and has a pretty darn creative noggin on his shoulders. His gang of word-slingin’ cowboys know how to compel, convince and convert customers with words. Download his Fluff-Free Guide to Content Strategy here, for free.

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The Myth of Ugly Design

Have you heard the dangerous lie that’s going around? It goes like this: “Design isn’t that important. I have an ugly site and it sells like crazy. It outperforms the ‘well designed’ site I used to have.”

This horrible myth is perpetuated by marketers.

They tell us…

• Ugly sites outperform beautiful ones
• To make our sites uglier
• Pretty pages suck
• Ugly products sell better

But, is it true?

We know design matters. We know it’s a deep and fundamental part of communication. But we’re often unsure about how to communicate that.

This horrible myth is perpetuated by marketers

We’re left feeling angry and frustrated. Let’s be honest. As far as marketing is concerned, most executives are focused on one thing: Money. At the end of the day executives want to know—will it attract more leads, customers and sales? To them, everything else is secondary. It’s a common assumption made by many executives, marketers, business owners, and entrepreneurs. Some of these professionals will even pay for an amazing design, but they’ll do it because they feel they have to. That it’s something the marketplace expects them to do.

This leads to an unremarkable disaster. They create a design so they can meet the demands of the marketplace. They’re not interested in optimizing their design. They don’t want to improve the UX, follow usability best practices, or A/B split test their UI. They just want to get it done and over with. So they can focus their time and attention on something else.

They prefer a lie over the truth…because it’s easier. Because it’s faster and more convenient. But how do we know this is actually a lie? For all we know, an ugly design could be the right move, right?

Not a chance.

We know this is wrong, even when we can’t prove it. Here’s the thing though. We won’t get the support we need at work if we can’t prove it. So how do you go about proving this?

You work backwards, looking at how people think. Okay…

What do people really think about beautiful design?

• Food manufacturers used beautiful designs to create iconic brands. These designs helped them sell more products at a time when competition was brutal and fierce. Case in point? Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola has always had stiff competition, but it’s their iconic bottle design that helped them come out on top.
• People buy more from design-driven companies. The good news? Research shows Design-driven companies outperform the S&P by 228% over 10 years. The bad news is that out of a pool of 75 publicly traded U.S. companies, only 15 meet the criteria to be considered design-driven
• People form first impressions about websites, people, etc. in 1/10th of a second or 50 milliseconds. This first impression is based entirely on visuals and it utilizes emotion. These snap judgments bypass logical reasoning completely and once made, are incredibly difficult to shake.
• Research shows physically attractive people are viewed as more sociable, dominant, sexually warm, mentally healthy, and intelligent.

These examples show that people rely on design to form first impressions about the people, groups and organizations they’re interacting with.

Just one problem: We still haven’t dealt with the biggest lie of all…Most people carry this lie around with them in their subconscious. They use it as a measuring stick in their day-to-day interactions. That’s a bad thing because it leads to continual disappointment. What lie am I talking about?

Design = Beauty

Here’s how Oxford dictionary defines design: Purpose, planning or intention that exists or is thought to exist behind an action, fact or material object.

There wasn’t a single word about beauty. Not a single word about appeal, attractiveness or looks.

Amazing designs rely on two important ingredients. Your design is actually a presentation vehicle. It’s a communication tool customers use to evaluate and interact. Your presentation is actually a mix of tangible and intangible factors working together.

• Tangible factors like typography, color, layout, quality, imagery, etc. Things users can see.
• Intangible factors like clarity, ease-of-use, trust, values, credibility, uniqueness, risk, the UX, etc.

Here’s the thing about these tangible and intangible presentation factors. Your users expect them to match. Users expect your tangible and intangible presentation factors to align. When they do, they feel comfortable, safe and relaxed. It’s easy for them to work with your UI. Your design is appealing, they’re drawn to your product or service etc.

When your tangible and intangible presentation factors match, user resistance goes down. When there’s a mismatch user resistance goes up. That’s the problem. Marketers and managers are ignoring these presentation factors.

Managers ignore design, then blame designers when things go wrong

Managers ignore design, then blame designers when things go wrong.

Unsophisticated organizations assume presentation and design is all about “looks.” But they ignore the backend work that goes into creating a purpose driven design.

This leads to three common presentation mistakes.

1. A tangible/intangible conflict
2. Design expectations that miss the mark
3. Beauty without benefit

1. A Tangible/Intangible Conflict

Have an ugly tub? Bath Magic wants you to make it beautiful with their re-glazing products. On their website they focus on the downsides of an unsightly tub.

From their perspective ugly = bad. So why does their website look like this?

This is an intangible/tangible conflict. It’s the elephant in the room, the unspoken assumption almost every user will make. You make bathtubs beautiful, why is your website so ugly?

This tangible/intangible conflict increases user resistance. This inconsistency means people are far less likely to buy, read, invest, etc.

2. Design Expectations That Miss the Mark

Users expect artists to understand design. Users expect an artist’s website to be beautiful, creative and appealing. Most designers would agree. The Visual Arts League decided against creating a beautiful website.

Users who are unfamiliar with their organization find the experience jarring. Aren’t artists supposed to create beautiful, functional things? The site is ugly and it’s difficult to use.

3. Beauty Without Benefit

Take a look at this micro site for Toyota. It’s clear from the design that someone spent a lot of time on this.

From an artistic standpoint it’s appealing. What’s not clear is what users are supposed to do. Click on any of the details on the screen and a portion of the site animates, but that’s pretty much it.

As far as designs go, it’s difficult to use. There’s no obvious purpose, plan or intention behind it, it’s an art piece.

As far as designs go, these aren’t the only mistakes. This also doesn’t solve our problem. The vast majority of ugly designs are dramatic failures.

What About the Ugly Success Stories?

Marketers reference a few ugly websites citing these as proof that “ugly is best.” They swear by these sites and they tell everyone that ugly is more profitable.

Craigslist

Launched in 1995, Craigslist is viewed by many as the poster boy of the “ugly is best” campaigns. A 2016 estimate listed their annual revenue at 694 million.

Drudge Report

The Drudge report is a one page political site with no onsite “content.” The site is heavy on headlines (links) with a sprinkling of images throughout. The site was also launched in 1995.

Basecamp’s Jason Fried has argued that Drudge Report is one of the best designed sites on the web.

Lingscars.com

Our worst offender comes from Ling Valentine, owner of Lingscars.com, a UK based car dealership. Ling wanted publicity for her website but she didn’t have a sizeable marketing budget. So, she built her business using social media, publicity stunts and a website that looks like this:

Lingscars was hailed as the biggest individual seller of cars, selling £85 million in 2016.

These designs are terrible, what gives?

These websites are successful in spite of their terrible design, not because of it. They’re the exception, not the rule.

Craigslist and Drudge Report are layovers from 20 years ago.

These sites built an audience around their design. They chose to leave things as they were and their audience stayed with them. Lingscars.com uses her terrible website as a prop. It’s intentional but it’s also unsustainable.

How do I know?

Look at Ling’s website when she started. Her first website is actually an improvement on what she has now.

The ugly websites I’ve mentioned (and the ones I haven’t) use tangible and intangible presentation factors to attract users, customers and sales. Ling’s publicity stunts work in automotive sales. Would they work in the high fashion, cosmetics or tech industries?

Not a chance.

Because the user expectations, the intangible aspects present in their industry, won’t allow it.

When it Comes to Design, Beauty is the Default

Beauty is a subset of design. But design is focused around purpose, on planning. That purpose is determined by the tangible and intangible presentation factors around you.

Beauty is a subset of design

In the right industry, an ugly and difficult design can work.

But ugly and difficult work in spite of the poor design, not because of it. Because great designs consistently outperform bad ones.

What makes a design successful?

1. It has a purpose and a plan
2. It’s crafted around and serves your users
3. It aligns with tangible /intangible presentation factors
4. It’s iterative, continuing to evolve around users
5. It isn’t a cute, clever or trendy art piece

If you’re a sophisticated designer you know this. Your co-workers don’t. Which is exactly why marketers, managers and co-workers spread the lie that ugly designs are best.

Does this mean a design should always be beautiful?

It means design should have a purpose.

Anything made by people first requires design. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It’s subjective and often difficult to quantify. Amazing designs on the other hand, are clear, compelling and precise—which incidentally, is beautiful.

Your Designs Should be Purposeful and Clear

Ugly and difficult isn’t best. You don’t have to be blindsided by the lie. Marketers may not understand why good design matters, but you do.

It’s up to you to show them. 

This irritating deception gets lobbed at designers repeatedly and most of the time, designers are completely unprepared. You’re ready. You understand the tangible and intangible elements of design. Share it with your team. Give them the education and resources they need to combat the lie and you’ll find it stops mattering.

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Comics of the Week #405

Every week we feature a set of comics created exclusively for WDD.

The content revolves around web design, blogging and funny situations that we encounter in our daily lives as designers.

These great cartoons are created by Jerry King, an award-winning cartoonist who’s one of the most published, prolific and versatile cartoonists in the world today.

So for a few moments, take a break from your daily routine, have a laugh and enjoy these funny cartoons.

Feel free to leave your comments and suggestions below as well as any related stories of your own…

Saving a buck

Hard to please

 

Years…

Can you relate to these situations? Please share your funny stories and comments below…

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What’s the Best Music for Designing to?

Madonna once said that music makes the rebel and the bourgeoisie come together. I find it difficult to believe that either of these demographics would spend much time listening to pop from the year 2000, but who am I to argue with Madonna?

Now, for the young rebels out there, Madonna was our… ummm… Beyonce, maybe? I’m not good at these comparisons.

In any case, Madonna did not say that music is a huge part of the web design process, but she should have. Not on the front-end, thank God. Anyone who autoplays music on their site should be forced to browse with Netscape Navigator for a year, per infraction. But creatives of all kinds, the world over, use music to help them create. Whether they use it to lighten the mood during tedious tasks, to occupy the parts of their brain that aren’t busy, or take direct inspiration from it, music is there, helping synapses make connections.

We thought it would be fun to ask our community what music they listen to. To keep some semblance of organization, we’re going to do this with a series of polls. However, no one on this Earth has the time or resources it would take to make a comprehensive music genre survey, so this will understandably be limited. We’re also going to heavily favor the kinds of music that people typically use to help them concentrate.

Can’t find an option you like? Go blow up the comment section with your genre choices.

Lyrics or no lyrics?

Our first poll is going to be pretty all-encompassing. Simply put, do you like your work music to have words in it, or not? Some people simply can’t concentrate at all if the music has any lyrics, whereas others treat all music as a sort of extra-pleasant white noise.

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The Classical Poll

Classical music is often treated as one genre by people who aren’t that into it. Dig past the surface, and you could say that every major composer developed their own genre. Some of them developed more than one, and nearly all of them experimented with what their friends came up with.

Ride of the Valkyries by Wagner is almost the quintessential “epic moment music”. Beethoven wrote massive epic symphonies, too (quite a few, in fact), but some of his most recognizable tunes are piano pieces for quieter moments, such as Fur Elise, and Moonlight Sonata. Many will recognize Tchaikovsky’s most famous work as the soundtrack to fairy tales and cartoons, while Debussy is known for his more sedate orchestral works.

So what’s your classical poison?

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The Pop Poll

From cheesy, naïve love ballads, to the literal song-and-dance routines of boy bands, pop is designed to appeal to as many of us as possible. So… it’s no surprise that it does appeal to most of us. I mostly listen to metal and techno of various kinds, but even I can’t help but love some now-classic ’90s pop from my youth. However, I still don’t have a favorite Backstreet boy, and even if I do like some of their songs, I refuse to learn their names.

Going back further, we have Michael and Madonna, the indisputable king and queen of the genre (sorry Cher). Bringing it back to the present, Divas rule the scene, with Beyonce and Lady Gaga each having a fan base that would make some cult leaders green with envy. Look, I’m not saying either one is leading a cult, but if they did, they’d have so many people signing up.

So if you’re in the mood to have your ears soothed by the familiar while you make websites, which would you go for?

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The Pre-rock Poll

Before Rock ‘n’ Roll, we had… well we had a lot. But the musical styles that were most popular right before the the introduction of rock include Jazz, Blues, Country, and Big Band. Heck, the Beatles made albums that were almost entirely Country. Beyond that, I have to admit that I am not particularly familiar with the subgenres here, nor any of the legendary musicians of these musical styles. This is largely why they got grouped together.

If you’re in the mood from something out of another time, or just something from the rural U.S., what’s your pick?

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The Rock Poll

This is not the greatest music blog post in the world. This is just a tribute. To call yourself a lover of rock doesn’t really narrow it down, much. Rock has more subgenres than several other styles of music combined, and half of them are just metal subgenres. But, if you think of it in terms of your mood, it’s a little easier.

Wanna listen to something angry? Metal always has your back. Ditto grunge. Want something romantic and sappy? Soft rock probably has something for you. Want to hear the legends scream their way to greatness? Classic rock now technically includes everything from the ’90s on backwards, so there’s a lot there. Listening to something but you have no idea what to call it? It probably fits into “alternative rock”.

So what’s your mood?

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The Electronica Poll

Ah, electronica. As a young whippersnapper in the ‘90s, we just called it “techno”, and we liked it that way! Oh, don’t hurt me Disco fans, you know I’m kidding. Mostly.

But yeah, we have Disco, and we have all the dance music that came post ‘90s. Then there’s more experimental instrumental stuff like Trance, which was brought to the mainstream, and my attention, by the late Robert Miles. Rest in peace. Then there’s Chillout, a decidedly slower, more sedate form of electronica, often instrumental, which is supposed to help you do what it says on the label.

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The Hip-hop Poll

I’ll admit, hip-hop is a genre about which I could be much better educated, though I do rather like most of what I’ve been exposed to. The most popular genres seem to have sprung from the classic days of rap.

There’s Gangsta Rap, for when you need motivation to get your hustle on. There’s Conscious Rap for those who want to spend their day contemplating social issues, and wireframing. Then there’s Battle Rap, where people insult each other a lot. Hey, it can be funny. Lastly, I’m including Instrumental Hip-hop, which can be quite relaxing, actually.

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So that’s everything I have space for, and then some. I am now expecting some actual music experts to go nuts in 3…2…1…

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