{"id":11955,"date":"2018-01-15T09:46:03","date_gmt":"2018-01-15T09:46:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.agconsult.com\/en\/web-design-trends-bad-for-your-website\/"},"modified":"2018-01-15T09:46:03","modified_gmt":"2018-01-15T09:46:03","slug":"web-design-trends-bad-for-your-website","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.agconsult.com\/en\/usability-blog\/web-design-trends-bad-for-your-website\/","title":{"rendered":"Web design trends: bad for your website?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It’s that time of year again: we’re being spammed with the newest design and UX trends. People love writing those articles. And apparently, people like reading them too. But do you realize that most trends don’t make any difference? That they won’t help you sell more? On the contrary: they might actually damage your leads and sales.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n\n

The nonsense people publish under the pretext of ‘new trends’… It makes me itch, every year. Especially when it comes to UX and web design, because a lot of those trends go against the core principle of UX and usability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Core principle of interface design: intuitiveness<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When we talk about interface design for websites, there’s only 1 thing that matters: make something your target group can use without any effort<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Something that is so easy to use that your users simply forget there even is an interface. Recognizability<\/strong> is key here. Check out this article on affordance to find out more<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A website is not made just to look at<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Which does not mean looks are irrelevant. On the contrary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And of course, your website can be beautiful. We even recommend this as usability people. Because when your visitors think something is beautiful, they are more forgiving towards small usability issues. This is called the Aesthetic-Usability Effect<\/a>. Which helps to explain at least in part the success of companies like Apple, in my opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But you have to realize that in the end, a website is not made just to look at.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A website exists to be used.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that’s where it often goes wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A website is made to be used. Not just to look at. Content beats form.<\/div>\n\n\n\n

There are still many designers, web agencies and marketers who believe that web design should be visually impressive. Or that, at the very least, it should stand out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in that quest for visually impressive or unique design, we tend to forget about the core principle: instant usability<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that’s a shame. Because whichever way you look at it, in the end, your website is made to seduce visitors and to sell<\/strong>. Directly or indirectly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An example: which Carglass homepage leads to more appointments?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Which of these 2 homepage versions works best? Good to know: ‘making an appointment’ is the number 1 top task. Over 65% of the visitors come to the Carglass website<\/a> to make an appointment. That’s what we learned from our top task survey<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Which<\/a>
Which version of the Carglass homepage leads to more appointments?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So, what do you think?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I show this example at conferences, over 95% of the people usually vote for the version with very little copy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because it’s visually more appealing and at first sight, seems to have more focus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The actual users disagree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The more content-rich version results in more appointments<\/strong>. Because the copy answers the most important questions and doubts the visitors have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do we know what their doubts and fears are? We found out by doing the in-depth user research we always do<\/a> before we come up with conversion optimization ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n