The Surprising Truth About Ugly Websites (they perform better)

http://www.sitepronews.com/archives/2006/mar/27prt.html

by nickb • 19 years ago

18 21 19 years ago

pg3• 19 years ago

This guy is confused. There are a lot of ugly sites that perform badly too. In fact, the average ugly site probably does a lot worse than the average nice one.

I think what he means to say is that (a) simplicity is so important that simple and ugly works better than beautiful and complex, and (b) if you have enough drawing power by other means, you can get away with bad design.

brlewis• 19 years ago

Right on. Another factor is the content of the site. This is something I only recently realized.

I always used craigslist's success in spite of ugliness as my reason for not thinking hard about style. But people expect classifieds to be ugly. People don't expect the place where they put their photos to be ugly. I've contracted a designer.

Kelevra2• 19 years ago

He quite explicitly says that ugliness (quite apart from simplicity) actually has some advantages, like earning the trust of a certain class of users.

It's fine to disagree, but to suggest that he's "confused" when he's stated that so clearly is kind of condescending.

I think he may be right, and I think the "ugly == trustworthy" idea is also lent credence by the hideous ads in small newspapers, in "Coupon Clipper" type mass-mailings, ugly signs for small local businesses, etc.

pg3• 19 years ago

He has made up this elaborate theory that ugly sites sell because they're ugly, when Occam's razor says they sell despite being ugly. Thinking that muddy can accurately be called confusion.

webwright• 19 years ago

Here's a meatspace comparison. You talk to two salespeople. One is plain looking in plain clothes that could be bought at Target (or some equivalent box store). The other has a similar message, but is stunningly beautiful and wearing amazing designer clothes. Do you trust one more than the other (assuming all other factors are equal)? How many people would walk into a car dealership and approach the salesperson who was most attractive?

I think some "pretty" design smells like salesmanship to the savvy consumer, and this is reinforced by the fact that many of the most valuable sites (Craigslist, Amazon, Google, Ebay, Gmail, Del.icio.us, Reddit) aren't pretty to look at.

This isn't about usability and it isn't about simplicity. It's about the spectrum of ugly ranging to beauty and whether people have a bias against pretty/slick design (I think that a lot of people do).

emfle• 19 years ago

Yes, I trust the beautiful one more, and I also consider her more intelligent. Not consciously of course, but it's definitely there. It is a somewhat disturbing fact that most people do this, although many won't admit it. See Robert Cialdini's book "Influence - the Psychology of Persuasion".

I don't know whether or if this translates to design though.

jamiequint• 19 years ago

I agree. There is probably an element of survivorship bias; plenty of poorly designed sites don't last long enough to become part of a statistic.

acgourley3• 19 years ago

At one point Ebay wasn't so ugly, it was more par for the course. While it was rocketing to popularity it had a simple and clean design (iirc). Of course, since then it did two things wrong:

1) never kept up with current design expectations 2) never really refactored despite a feature influx.

asdflkj• 19 years ago

I think everything went exactly right. Most people who use Ebay know it like the back of their hand, simply from experience. Gradually adding new stuff isn't stressful for users, compared to a redesign, and rocking the boat is the last thing Ebay wants to do, considering that their only advantage over competitors or potential competitors at this point is momentum.

acgourley3• 19 years ago

So they are being conservative because they can only cash in on their momentum due to being so conservative...?

mynameishere• 19 years ago

When "pretty" equals "childish", ugly will of course always win.

tx• 19 years ago

I disagree with him. Professional looking web site is yet another step higher in delivery of "quality feel" your business may either project to customers or not.

I am inclined to think that craigslist, ebay an plentyoffish are rather exceptions. Every single one of them has very significant reasons to explain their success. So significant that design got irrelevant.

Certainly there is more to succes than a pretty looking HTML/CSS, but saying that ugliness sells is just wrong.

samson• 19 years ago

In some ways I feel compelled to agree with his point, even though almost every thought in my mind goes contrary to that.

People trust the Wall street journal which has a fixutre of using Times Roman for most of their articles. I think it would advantagous at least intially for some sites to jump on that where their content depends on trust that the site has not yet acquired on their own. Ugliness (if you want to call it that) may work over a bubbly fonty web 2.0 site.

At the same time I agree with brlewis expectations idea of the user. If I wanted to put my photos anywhere it would be a disney like bubbly, fonty like site.

But all this is just a view on what works initially (or on first glance), afterwards it still up to the site to retain and grow their user base. And thats based on content not ugliness or beauty.

acgourley3• 19 years ago

Ugly and conservative are not the same thing, in fairness to the WSJ.

mechanical_fish• 19 years ago

Besides being ugly, what do PlentyOfFish, Ebay, Craigslist and MySpace have in common? They are sites which are built entirely around user-created content - the more of it, the better.

Ugly works well for these sites because it's inviting. There is no shame in posting blurry pictures, poorly spelled prose, or badly edited movies on an ugly site. After all, ugly is the norm there.

It's kind of embarrassing to see your own clunky prose and ugly photos stuck in the middle of a beautifully designed page. Unless, of course, you are a troll or a vandal, but what site wants to attract those?

Would you feel comfortable holding a yard sale in an upscale mall, a few steps from the Apple Store? Probably not. The junk from your basement would look pretty shabby by comparison. The clientele is all wrong. People might laugh at you. You would feel better - and maybe have better sales - if you set up shop at the flea market, or on a street corner. PlentyOfFish, eBay, and Craigslist are in the flea market business.

Of course, if you're trying to sell your legal services, attract paying subscribers, or encourage your users to contribute only the highest-quality content, ugly is probably the wrong design for your site.

cx01• 19 years ago

"It's kind of embarrassing to see your own clunky prose and ugly photos stuck in the middle of a beautifully designed page."

Good point, but one could argue that ugly people post their photos on POF not because the site is ugly, but because there are lots of ugly people on POF and therefore the standards are just lower.

tipjoy• 19 years ago

In the end of this article, the author states that "In Conclusion X It's Not Necessarily Ugliness That Sells." He then goes on to plea with people to consider their usability over their aesthetic design. This seems a somewhat weak ending given the rest of the article, however reasonable this conclusion may be.

Furthermore, to quote myself: "...one of my favorite anecdotes from Blink is the tale of the identical ice cream: the same ice cream was wrapped in two different packages, one plain, the other fancy, and taken around to the public for taste tests. People actually reported that the ice cream in the 'fancier' package _tasted_ better. What's great about this story is that it's an excellent way to explain to someone the value of beauty to usability. Given two functionally identical products, users will believe that one is _easier to use_ simply by virtue of it being aesthetically pleasing. I once saw a presentation at a UPA (Usability Professionals Assoc) Conference where a study showed just that - a product with identical information architecture was run through two usability tests: one where the product had a rudimentary look and feel, and one where the look and feel had been touched up by a graphic designer. User data showed that people felt the prettier version was easier for them to use, even though it took them the same time to complete tasks in both versions. Now, as an interaction designer myself, I would hope this argument is never used to dismiss the importance of interaction design and information architecture. We can't use aesthetics to 'put lipstick on the pig,' as one of my coworkers is fond of saying. But if you've taken the time to make a really usable product which meets a user need, imagine how much people will love it if you ALSO make it beautiful. That, for me, is the definition of a "delightful experience." " (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38839)

Goladus• 19 years ago

I think this guy also just has weird ideas about what's ugly. I don't think plentyoffish is ugly. It's not gorgeous, but it's far from ugly.

There is definitely a point when certain kinds of beauty become uninviting to certain kinds of people. It's like room with furniture so fancy that one feels uncomfortable, like an intruder, just by sitting on it. But I don't really think his argument conveyed how that happens with websites.

eusman• 19 years ago

it's like comparing a good comedian actor vs a good looking actor. e.g. Danny Devito vs Brad Pitt. You just cant.

Both make money, both are famous. But for different reasons. But there are cases of beautiful/comedians that don't perform equally well.

So, you can't say that un ugly looking site will perform better. Usually ugly sites don't function well. The whole thing is about flow/simplicity/usability.

Uglyness is so relative and differs to all individuals.

For example, would you consider not painting your Ferrari's carbon fiber indoors and pedals uglyness? The point is that beauty some times cannot serve the purpose needed or it just has different variables. And in this case, you wouldn't show the beauty of what this car is made of if you went with the paint!

The Surprising Truth About Ugly Websites (they perform better)

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