- Ugly sites outperform beautiful ones
- To make our sites uglier
- Pretty pages suck
- Ugly products sell better
- 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.
- 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.
- A tangible/intangible conflict
- Design expectations that miss the mark
- 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?![Bath Magic Tub Refinishing SInk Reglazing Tile Resurfacing](https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/cdn-origin/uploads/2017/08/Bath-Magic-Tub-Refinishing-SInk-Reglazing-Tile-Resurfacing.jpg)
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.![Visual Arts League](https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/cdn-origin/uploads/2017/08/Visual-Arts-League.jpg)
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.![Beautiful-but-useless](https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/cdn-origin/uploads/2017/08/Beautiful-but-useless.jpg)
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
![craigslist](https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/cdn-origin/uploads/2017/08/craigslist.jpg)
Drudge Report
![DRUDGE REPORT](https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/cdn-origin/uploads/2017/08/DRUDGE-REPORT.jpg)
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](https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/cdn-origin/uploads/2017/08/LINGsCARS.jpg)
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. [pullquote]Beauty is a subset of design[/pullquote] 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?
- It has a purpose and a plan
- It’s crafted around and serves your users
- It aligns with tangible /intangible presentation factors
- It’s iterative, continuing to evolve around users
- It isn’t a cute, clever or trendy art piece
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.Andrew McDermott
Andrew McDermott is the co-founder of HooktoWin.com. Want an unlimited supply of free leads for your freelance business? Download your copy of The Dragnet Method.
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