Updated: Feb 13, 2024 By: Dessign Team
In the vast digital world, there's a plethora of websites, some are a treat to the eyes, and then there are those that make you cringe. Today, I'll be guiding you through the latter. We're not just talking about any bad websites, but the worst 10 popular ones with dreadful design. If you're a web designer or someone who appreciates good design, brace yourself.
Why do these websites fail to impress? It's not just about the aesthetics, but also about functionality and user experience. Factors like poor UI, unmatching colors, slow loading speed, and outdated design elements contribute to their downfall.
Yes, a website that was the best in the 2010s might not hold up today.
Design rules are ever-evolving, and keeping up with them is crucial. So, let's dive in and explore what not to do when designing a website.
Common Mistakes in Website Design
As a veteran blogger and website designer, I've seen the best and the worst. And trust me, some website designs are unquestionably horrendous. But why do these sites fail so miserably? Let's dissect the issue.
Poor Usability tops the list. An example of poor usability surfaces from our exploration of WebMD's Website where cluttered design and problematic navigation stand out. Equally noteworthy, it's not mobile-friendly, which is a colossal mistake since more than half of global website traffic originates from mobile devices.
Next, Clashing Colors and Text. These aesthetics could turn a potentially pleasing website into a vibrant wreck. The World's Worst Website is a vivid example of such issues, proudly embracing atrocious design elements such as blinking text and garish color schemes.
But how do we avoid these pitfalls? It's vital to plan around your brand's characteristics, mission, and target audience. Choose colors and shapes that encapsulate these dynamics. Tools like Colorhunt can help you identify a well-matching color palette.
Moreover, peer at your competition. Analyzing good website design from leaders in your industry isn't just inspiration — it's a developmental strategy. Make your design uniquely appealing in comparison.
Constant learning and adaptation is key in website design. What may have worked five years ago may not be effective now. So, always stay updated with design trends, usability tests, and customer feedback.
The Importance of User Experience
When it comes to website design, user experience tops the chart as a fundamental aspect. It's not just about stacking images and text together with beautiful backgrounds. The idea is to create an environment where visitors can enjoy seamless navigation and interaction. Following are a number of considerations pivotal to delivering outstanding user experience:
Navigation
A website's navigational structure plays a significant role in the user experience. If users struggle to locate information, they're likely to bounce, seeking out a more user-friendly alternative. An efficient webpage layout, bolstered by a clear hierarchy of content, can eliminate unnecessary elements and reduce visual clutter.
Emphasize on presenting the most relevant and essential content to users, prioritizing what's important to them. Visual cues such as headings, subheadings and white space can aid in creating a cohesive visual flow and guide users effectively.
Page Speed
Next up to critique is the website's speed. Remember, slow-loading pages lead to a poor browsing experience. If a user were to visit your website and the content took forever to load, expect them to leave instantly. Below is an insight on how page loading speed can affect a website's bounce rate:
| Page Loading Speed | Bounce Rate |
|---|---|
| 1-3 seconds | 32% |
| 1-5 seconds | 90% |
| 1-6 seconds | 106% |
| 1-10 seconds | 123% |
Evidently, websites with loading times exceeding 3 seconds can witness a considerable increase in bounce rates. It becomes a matter of utmost importance to optimize loading times and avoid losing potential visitors.
Mobile Responsiveness
In the present digital era, mobile-first design isn't a luxury, it's a necessity. 52.2% of the global web traffic comes from mobile devices, henceforth making it a key web design requirement. Websites that are not optimized for mobile users are likely to lose a significant chunk of their audience. Elements such as text, images, and navigation buttons need to be optimized to ensure a responsive website that caters to users on every device.
Excessive Pop-Ups or Ads
Every user desires a smooth, uninterrupted browsing experience. Oversaturating a website with pop-ups or ads can potentially lead to increased user dissatisfaction and bounce rates. While pop-ups can serve critical functions like email sign-ups or important announcement, moderation is key. Balance the use of ads while maintaining a clean, user-friendly environment, ensuring the main content takes precedence.
User Experience isn't just about the appeal, it's about how comfortable your visitors feel interacting. Your website may have a stunning design, but if the end user can't easily navigate or interact with it, conversion rates will invariably remain low. Balancing aesthetics with functionality remains the key to achieving a successful website design.
Bad Websites (So You Don’t Make The Same Mistake)
Throughout the years, I've seen some websites that fail to impress due to factors such as poor user interface (UI), mismatched colors, and slow loading speed. By showing and discussing a few of these poorly designed websites, I aim to shed some light on the common design mistakes as well as impart useful tips to avoid them.
Examples of Bad Websites
1. Craigslist
Believe it or not, Craigslist with its plain and outdated design, has earned its place amongst the worst websites. The site is crammed with content but suffers from limited navigation and search options. To avoid this, always include clear CTAs and intuitive navigation elements throughout your website.
2. Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
The corporate website of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. lacks modern design aesthetics and features that today's users have come to expect. The monotonous typography and primitive design can be off-putting. Website designs should always stay current with modern design trends like responsive design, scalable vector graphics (SVG), and modern CSS.
3. Yale School of Art
The Yale School of Art website can be best described as a chaotic collage of clickable content, almost resembling a digital doodle pad. Remember, confusion is the last thing you want your users to experience. Always aim for clean, organized, and user-friendly design.
4. Dollar Tree
With it's heavy use of garish green and cluttered layout, Dollar Tree can be overwhelming for visitors. Good website design complements the brand's color scheme and personality without overwhelming the audience.
5. Agents of America
AgentsofAmerica.org is an insurance association dedicated to the personal and professional growth of its members, who are insurance agents and brokers, and their agencies. It aims to be the number one resource for connecting insurance agents with other agents, industry professionals, and provides support and guidance on professional liability risk management, errors & omission risk management, loss prevention & loss control, and insurance agency revenue building
6. Exelon
Excessive use of Flash and PDFs in modern web designs tend to repel users. Exelon's web page is a prime example of this bad design practice. Avoid platforms that are no longer supported or could potentially expose your visitors to security risks.
7. Vortex Technology
Poor use of color and typography can drastically diminish a user's interest. Vortex Technology's website suffers from bad typography and mismatched color schemes. Maintain a consistent color palette and easy readability to enhance user experience.
8. Ling's Cars
While Ling's Cars is definitely a memorable website, it's not necessarily for the right reasons. A website should not only catch the user's attention, but maintain their interest with quality content and user-friendly design.
9. Bella De Soto
Too much information can put off users. Bella De Soto's website proves this with its endless scroll of information. The design needs to be balanced and clean ensuring easy navigation for users.
10. Paul Graham
Paul Graham websites was not updated since 1990, it looks old with bad design and not mobile friendly layout.
By presenting these examples of poorly designed websites, I hope to provide some warnings and lessons. Remember, a good website design has the right blend of aesthetics, usability, and user-experience.
It's a work of art that truly represents the brand and resonates well with the target audience. The rules and trends of website design are constantly evolving, requiring designers like you to perpetually learn, adapt, and innovate.
Poor Content Strategy
Jumping right into one of the essential factors that can cause a website to fail, we have the troublesome issue of a Poor Content Strategy. It's an often overlooked aspect yet it can make or break a website's success.
Explore the gardening world of the High School Sports in Mississippi website, for instance. Its design is archaic, and one could argue that the designers have not yet discovered the concept of responsive templates. The color scheme could be a secret homage to the Confederates, but it surely makes an intense impression on the viewer.
The page layout is overcrowded, with content seemingly dropped without reason. When you're trying to dive deeper into the content, you find it all arranged in downloadable PDF files instead of interactive separate pages.
As far as we can observe, they could benefit from adopting a WordPress magazine theme/template to create a more streamlined and up-to-date look.
Next up, we have Berkshire Hathway. The initial impression involves confusion caused by items appearing to be navigation tools that instead open new tabs when clicked. Broken links lead to blank pages. While the site includes images and GIFs, they only somewhat relate to the site’s goal: to sell rights to their film.
The layout is cluttered, and multiple ads contribute to the experience's overall discomfort. Ensuring adequate whitespace is maintained can alleviate this sense of overwhelm. Too much negative space above the “fold”, or very little when scrolling, combined with small font size, has a significant impact on the readability of the site.
These are prime examples of what happens when there's a failure to strategically plan around the brand's mission and appeal to its target audience. Through thoughtful content strategy, user-friendly navigation, and clutter-free design, all websites can avoid these pitfalls. These are some lessons we can take from these mistakes. But more examples of these issues exist out there.
Lack of Accessibility
Website accessibility isn't just about making sure a site is navigable for those with impairments. It's an essential aspect of a user-friendly experience for everyone. Tricky navigation and broken tabs can turn users away. Lack of accessibility is another common pitfall in website design that I've identified.
Looking at examples like CNN and Yahoo, it's clear that a number of factors affect accessibility. One of these is readability, or in other words, how easy it is for users to process the information on your site.
Small font sizes and inappropriate use of whitespace can greatly compromise readability. Yahoo, for instance, suffers from this issue – too much negative space above the fold combined with insufficient space as you scroll make it less readable.
| Website | Issue | Impact |
|---|---|---|
| Yahoo | Inappropriate Whitespace | Decrease in readability |
Excessive ads contribute to a feeling of clutter, further detracting from the user experience. This can lead to a sense of “claustrophobia”, leading users to ditch your site in favor of a less crowded one.
Next, we consider load time. Slow load times are a website's enemy. Over half of mobile website visitors exit a site if it takes more than three seconds to load. CNN, like Yahoo is designed to showcase a wide variety of content. But more isn't always merrier when it comes to speed.
| Key Statistic | Detail |
|---|---|
| 53.25% | Mobile users exit site if load time is over three seconds |
Poor navigation is another area where some websites fail. Some sites have navigation items that open up new tabs when clicked, some of which are broken, further disrupting the user experience. Accessibility relies heavily on providing an intuitive interface for visitors. If they're busy struggling with navigating your site, they might just choose to leave.
Designing with accessibility in mind is more than a best practice these days – it's a must if you want to attract and keep users on your site. It'll take continued effort and commitment, of course, to ensure every aspect of your site is accessible and user-friendly. But trust me, it's absolutely worth it.
Security Vulnerabilities
Talking about dreadful design, it's not just about the visual appeal, but also about the security of a website. Many popular websites fall into the trap of neglecting this critical factor. A compromised security system, in the modern digital world, is as bad as having a website that looks like an old wiki page.
Several instances have proven that even the most complex or visually stunning websites can have substantial security flaws. These can result in harmful cyber attacks, leading to data breaches or malware episodes. It's a significant problem leading to trust issues among users, and unfortunately, these errors often go unnoticed until it's too late.
Take Empire Metal Products for example. The site may have an explosive design, but what about security layers protecting information exchange? Similarly, IR United leaves visitors confused, not only with its simplistic design but also with its lack of secure navigation.
Often, this vulnerability is due to outdated security practices or lack of understanding of modern security measures. Failing to update security features in line with current needs and threats can make a website an easy target for nefarious activities.
But it's not just about hardcore security protocols. Consider the user-friendly aspect of security too. A boxy layout or hard-to-read text like on Plains All American can actually be seen as a security issue. If users can't navigate properly due to design flaws, they might inadvertently click on malicious links disguised as legitimate content.
Cluttered Design and Confusing Layouts
In my journey researching poorly designed websites, I stumbled on brands that have seemingly been trapped in a time capsule. One such brand is Paper Source. Being around since 1983 does not excuse them from featuring an outdated layout overburdened with text boxes, images, and CTAs. It's a perfect storm that might repel customers, who'll likely consider the brand and its products old-fashioned, opting instead for something fresher or more contemporary.
Remember, in a visual environment awash with vibrant, catchy graphics, it's easy to equate an archaic webpage with an outdated brand. Let's take a moment to digest the fact that this graphical gaffe extends to their improper use of a confusing double CTA above the logo. Rookie errors such as these can leave customers bewildered, pushing them towards simpler websites.
There's a clear need for Paper Source to haul their online presence out of the dark ages. Reducing landing page clutter will go a long way in beautifying the site, breaking the user paralysis often associated with busy websites.
In another instance, cluttered layouts are rife amongst the worst 40 websites I've mentioned before. Overloading your site with information is a cardinal sin. You end up creating a maze that leaves users lost as they struggle to find pertinent information. It's a game they'll quickly tire of, bouncing off to more navigable sites.
To top it off, flashy graphics have also been egregiously misused. While animations may seem appealing, an overuse quickly overwhelms visitors, allowing the main content to be lost in a whirlwind of visual noise. Again, the customer's attention is key, and poor color contrast between the text and background makes for a jaw-gnashing reading experience.
In our mobile-first era, there's a shocking number of sites still snubbing smartphone users. Non-mobile-friendly design is taxingly frustrating, sidelining a large chunk of today's browser market. Similarly, hard-to-navigate sites pose their own headache, with hidden or confusing menus causing users significant UX distress.
As I delve deeper into the armies of poorly designed websites, remember: your users want clean layouts, simple navigation, and minimalist designs. Keep it clutter-free and user-focused to ensure your site remains engaging and effervescent.
Conclusion
Continuing our deep-dive into poorly designed websites, let's shift gears towards issues like whitespace misuse and slow loading times which directly impact the user experience.
Take for instance, a website that has a poor balance of whitespace or negative space. Overly cluttered or overly spaced regions can create an uncomfortable viewing experience, as seen on some of the sites we've previously discussed. It's like walking into a room packed with furniture or stepping into an echo-prone, desolate hall.
Neither extremes provide comfort, much like their website counterparts. Readability can rapidly decline, especially if smaller fonts are being used. A site loaded with ads adds more chaos, leaving visitors feeling confused and claustrophobic.
To appreciably improve the browsing experience, a diligent focus on whitespace management is required. Reducing the number of intrusive ads and providing ample space between text and graphics can enhance clarity and ease of navigation.
Switching gears, let's touch upon an oft-underestimated aspect – website load times. According to data from websitesetup.org, 53% of mobile website viewers abandon a site if it takes more than three seconds to load. Unfortunately, many of the sites included in our list of the top 40 worst websites suffer from this issue. Let's consider the facts.
| Average Load Time (seconds) | Type of Website |
|---|---|
| 10.3 | Desktop Website |
| 22.2 | Mobile Website |
The statistics clearly underline the severity of the issue, sometimes even the best of content and aesthetics can be overshadowed by a single factor – slow load time. Therefore, hastening your website's load time isn't just a nice to have, it's practically mandatory.
The problem of poor content strategy, accessibility, security vulnerabilities, and cluttered design are issues that need diligent attention too. It's not just about creating an attractive website, it's about cultivating an inviting, secure, and user-friendly digital space that reflects your brand effectively. Irrespective of your website's purpose, remember: a well-designed website is far more than just aesthetics; it's a vehicle for both brand expression and user satisfaction.
Let's continue exploring other critical factors that can make or break a website's design in our next segment. Stay tuned.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the issues discussed in the article?
The article discusses two major issues of poorly designed websites: misuse of whitespace and slow loading times. It emphasizes the significance of properly managing whitespace and controlling the number of ads for a better user experience.
How does whitespace misuse impact the user experience?
Misuse of whitespace, either by cluttering or over-spacing can lead to an uncomfortable viewing experience and significantly decrease readability. The article underlines the necessity of balance in whitespace usage for clarity and effortless navigation.
Why is a slow loading website problematic?
Website loading times greatly impact user experience. The article states that 53% of mobile website viewers will leave a site if it takes more than three seconds to load, highlighting the importance of optimizing load times.
What more does a well-designed website need to consider beyond aesthetics?
According to the article, a well-design website is not just about aesthetics. It needs to consider factors such as content strategy, accessibility, security, as well as adopting a minimalistic design. Future segments of the article series will delve deeper into these topics.
What are some of the characteristics of poorly designed websites?
Poorly designed websites often misuse whitespace, have slow loading times and are filled with intrusive ads. These factors lead to decreased readability, hindered navigation, and a frustrating user experience.
