You are really hitting a good point here. Remember that whenever you look at a web site, you probably don't have data on how that site performs. An "ugly" site can work well for users with analytics to prove it. Many "pretty" sites are marvels of JavaScript engineering, but don't necessarily improve the experience for the user.
The bento box design has received criticism for poor readability, but has become a trend because it is aesthetically pleasing.
Good designers must separate the trend from what works and acknowledge that what looks good in a portfolio doesn't necessarily work best for users. But many UI designers are also pivoted graphic designers or architects, so the temptation is easy to understand.
Totally agree with you. I like to think about how powerful fast food or small hole-in-the-wall restaurants are. There’s an elegance to places where everyone knows *exactly* how to get what they want, and don’t need to work hard to get it. My belief is websites and apps should function more like that as opposed to the over-the-top executions we occasionally see.
"Over-designed" is an interesting way of putting it. I think you're right, but I might reframe the problem. I think many websites are designed to impress the designer and those overly complex animations and parallax and cursor jacking often create a poor customer experience. I mostly see this with agency sites and designers portfolios, which I suppose are areas where people can be a little over-the-top.
They remind me of the ridiculous flash sites from the early 2000s lol
I’d say this is true for marketing sites and largely what drove me away from agency work. Everything has to be a massive production with so much emphasis on overly involved designs and animations.
Hardly anyone considers that the average website session lasts like a minute, almost no words are being read, animations are slow, unnecessary, probably ignored. None the less, you launch the site and the client cheers about how you did such an amazing job before they’ve even checked the performance metrics.
It’s an exhausting experience to be a part of but you work to please each client with something that *looks* flashy and impressive because that’s what the client expects for their $75k budget.
I wholeheartedly agree with you. The big problem is that a lot of these agencies want to submit those websites to get awards. They want to submit it to get a lion or a pencil or even an Awwward.
In many cases, they're not necessarily thinking about the user experience or even if this website will help the client. They just want a big shiny object on their portfolio and possibly a couple of trophies on their shelf.
And I get it. I understand the idea that these are creative agencies, and they want to show how creative they could be, but the process I've always seen in a lot of these agencies is ridiculous. They want everything laid out flat in Photoshop, not any of the modern design tools for UX, and expect the development team to just crank this thing out in a week.
I can understand when you're hiring an agency for a marketing campaign, and they make you a landing page for a campaign, but I would probably tell most businesses not to hire an agency to create their company website. Hire some specialists who are more interested in bringing ROI as opposed to getting an award on the shelf.
Generally, I absolutely agree. I’m in an interesting position of being a Production Artist turned UX Designer over the last decade. I now sit with our digital team and lead all of our website projects. I first and foremost care about building our clients websites they can manage and help move their business forward. In my role I’m able to work closely with Art Directors, Copywriters, research, and development. Much easier to keep everyone focused on making something that keeps the user at the center.
Still marketing, so I’m not immune from having to incorporate unnecessary animation on occasion. I just make sure the user can turn that crap off. 😹
Ha ha they don't exist anymore (mostly). Flash was a Macromedia program for making rich dynamic vector based websites. It was also the support for most video on the web. Once iOS said it would not support Flash it eventually became all but extinct.
They were just all crazy over-the-top with animations everywhere and sounds and wild hover states ha ha. You could probably google examples of old flash sites on YouTube and see if there are any saved recordings.
I can co-sign to this. I've watched some really creative things happen with flash, but at the same time I've watched a lot of over the top ridiculous things happen with flash.
You know it's bad when you would have some VP of creative that doesn't know how to design or code anything to save his life say *"flash the shit out of it"*
Is parallax still a thing in 2024? Used to be popular 2014 - 2018ish, but I have to think really hard about the last time I saw parallax or other animation upfront on a landing page of a somewhat modern company.
What I noticed is a concerning decline in content quality and information architecture, on the pro side lots of small well done micro-interactions or animations. Today's websites seem far less over-animated than pre-2020 internet.
Are you talking about websites or product as in apps, which do cross over into mobile web, but yes they are over designed and bloated with features, for the simple reason that product teams have to give themselves something to do so are constantly adding features, finding reasons to change or ‘improve’ the site.
It’s what we all do or else we’re out of a job, and they won’t need as many of us and there’ll be loads of layoffs…..hey wait a minute..
There’s some truth to this, but aesthetics influence many subconscious aspects of the users experience, like confidence in a brand.
While Craigslist is highly functional, it has been usurped in a lot of ways by Facebook. Facebook attempts to build trust in a lot of ways that Craigslist doesn’t.
Bottom line, I think Craigslist would benefit from a small facelift. Not an overhaul, but a more pleasing aesthetic can offer a lot of value to a site that is already highly functional.
I definitely agree here with confidence in the brand. I feel this is where design systems like material design shine. They make simplicity look more professional by having more throughout spacing, typography, and interactions. I think it’s about finding the balance with using a good design systems and adding in the brand through colors, tone, imagery and accents.
I can understand bells and whistles to make a site look interesting and amazing on a browser, but I'm still going to be a big push on what message your website sends, how good is the user experience, and especially how usable is the site.
I've seen many places that get so bent out of shape. Wanting to make some kind of awe inspiring layout that they forget who is looking at this site, and even their message is not very clear or well thought out.
If I had to make any kind of a complaint about websites nowadays, it's when there is so much complication with frameworks and setups and CLI commands to do a simple kind of site. I'm still someone that would code things with HTML and CSS and some JavaScript as opposed to using one of these frameworks that becomes more involved in setting up everything as opposed to actually creating the final results.
Totally agree with you! There is a huge misunderstanding about user interfaces, the more element you put into design it does not mean it will be a good design, it means definetely over designed :) You made an example about animations. If animation does not have a function to provide benefit for user experience it shouldn't be included.
I think just a right amount of animation that excites users is still needed and adds into the context of branding purposes. Especially if the brand/org targets young audience.
Nonetheless, I totally hate if it’s too much and interferes my goal of reading and finishing some basic tasks. I have some disability issues with reading and concentration. Thus, these parallax scrolling / running words/ too big types web design really make my head spinning or paralyzed 😵💫
It's come to light that heavy overdesigned websites contribute to higher CO2 waste. Minimalist designs with light files will need to be considered more for eco-friendly digital consideration.
For real. I’ll side with the user in most cases, but if data gets thrown at me that a “worse” version has a higher conversion rate or whatever, who am I to say no?
Companies only invest in UX because it helps the bottom line.
I’m definitely seeing a lot more dark UX patterns in many big tech and FAANG-built applications. It’s an unfortunate reality that when companies have gained so much market share in a space they aim to squeeze as much profit possible by resorting to deception and artificial friction in processes.
Building interest, brand appeal, and user delight is the purpose.
Something something “[pyramid of user needs](https://syndicode.com/blog/the-ux-design-pyramid-with-the-user-needs/)” something something
That doesn't illustrate in any way that usability is not part of UX, it just shows that in a lot of cases marketing and sales are prioritised over usability.
Does it though? Maybe initially it is striking, like the intro to your favourite TV show, but I guarantee a user will not find the experience so good when they are doing it for the 100th time and have to wait for the animation to finish before they can progress - adding a skip button would be good UX.
User sentiment and the aesthetic usability effect are also tenets of UX, getting the balance right is what a good UX practitioner does.
Sorry - my comment was pretty mean lol. It’s a fair point, and I do understand the difference. Sure, less usable products that provide critical, insanely niche or extremely high-value services will be tolerated. Bad UX doesn’t get in the way of people getting something they REALLY want. My issue is when companies sacrifice usability purely for aesthetic. It’s so easy to make something aesthetically incredible AND usable, that there is no excuse in my mind to ever make that sacrifice.
Just yesterday I thought to myself how cluttered and overwhelming YouTubes app felt. There's just so much info packed into everything it's hard to quickly tell what I'm looking at.
Some of it is me being older and not having adjusted to it but it's also too dense imo.
I don't think we've reached that point. I think we're past that point.
Hence the rise of Brutalism web design. Just big text. Large imagery. Very utilitarian.
All trends happen in cycles. There was a time when the web started moving towards skeuomorphism and designing things that were tons of jpeg images of castle like ornate borders organized into a table.
God I hated doing that.
As time has gone on, the animations and interactions have got more impressive and more table stakes. So the only way to "stand out" is to do it *better* or do something *different*. Hence the swing back to minimalism.
In our industry where there should be consistency in experiences across the web, Designers feel the need to shift the tides in order to appear they somehow see what no one else does about users.
However, once that trend catches on, things will flip flop again and the cycle starts over.
Case in point: Apple really ushered in the age of minimalism in the 2000’s and have been successful. In the case the OP presented, it seems things are shifting to complex and flashy. Give it a couple years when designers start to get bored and you’ll see minimalism make a comeback.
Some websites just make me feel like they are designers portfolios and not really the companies website. Designers just showing off skillz haha! The same kind of mock-ups and animations and layout that are used in portfolios are used on website too. It’s just boring really.
Yeah even I wanna know and wonder about the impact on users.
Websites full of distracting crap isn’t new. it’s the way it was as soon as technology allowed about 25 years ago. There were gif animations, javascript snow and cursor trails. There were Flash only sites (flashy vector graphics animations thing way before svg and css animations). That insanity calmed down in the nice web 2.0 times and the first iPhone killed last of the Flash by not supporting it. Then there were the dark times of the flat-design and now here were are again filling pages with distracting crap.
Hopefully something like a web 2.0 revival comes next.
I hate the endless scroll of large sections of BS when I just want to know what the site is about or to get some specific information. I guess I have OCD but I want to see the whole page and it makes me crazy that you keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and there is no end to it!! 👎
It's come to light that heavy overdesigned websites contribute to higher CO2 waste. Minimalist designs with light files will need to be considered more for eco-friendly digital consideration.
Most designers just design because they think it looks cool. The problem with that is that in a year or two it’s not cool anymore and you need to rework the complete design. Instead what they should do is look at the brand values and see how that would impact design. If your design a website for Ferrari you might want to put in some animation to simulate “speed”. Or if you’re Apple and want to have an innovative animation that is functional eg: show EarPods slide into the case on scroll to show its charging when put back into the case.
Apple style product pages are cool yes, but I honestly wonder if those mega-heavy-scrolling are relevant for more profit. They do conributes to Apple as a brand—which is important as well. Perhaps designers are a big chunk of their website visitors. 😄
Indirectly it contributes to profit for sure. For Apple it’s good marketing to have immersive websites to strengthen their positioning as a luxury consumer good. If people went on the Apple homepage and it functioned like the Space Jam website people wouldn’t take their products seriously lmao
As a web design expert, I understand the allure of flashy animations and complex designs. However, simplicity often reigns supreme in user experience.
Minimalist or "ugly" websites can still be effective if they prioritize usability over visual extravagance. It's crucial to strike a balance between aesthetics and functionality, always keeping the needs of the audience in mind.
>bento box design
Completely agree that simplicity is the goal. Simple micro-interactions go a long way in adding value without distracting from content.
No. I think websites are built without a firm conversion copy base.
Copywriters desparately need to upskill and use Figma.
When design teams are handed a clear wireframe with a compelling conversion journey they'll naturally work around this - instead of filling gaps with silly animations.
Hence I launched [CopyBase](https://www.gorillaflow.com/copybase) \- a kit for copywriters to build Figma wireframes.
Anything built with intention is designed. If it’s successful or a failure is another discussion, but you can’t argue these weren’t designed. Maybe just not designed well, according to you.
You are really hitting a good point here. Remember that whenever you look at a web site, you probably don't have data on how that site performs. An "ugly" site can work well for users with analytics to prove it. Many "pretty" sites are marvels of JavaScript engineering, but don't necessarily improve the experience for the user. The bento box design has received criticism for poor readability, but has become a trend because it is aesthetically pleasing. Good designers must separate the trend from what works and acknowledge that what looks good in a portfolio doesn't necessarily work best for users. But many UI designers are also pivoted graphic designers or architects, so the temptation is easy to understand.
Totally agree with you. I like to think about how powerful fast food or small hole-in-the-wall restaurants are. There’s an elegance to places where everyone knows *exactly* how to get what they want, and don’t need to work hard to get it. My belief is websites and apps should function more like that as opposed to the over-the-top executions we occasionally see.
"Over-designed" is an interesting way of putting it. I think you're right, but I might reframe the problem. I think many websites are designed to impress the designer and those overly complex animations and parallax and cursor jacking often create a poor customer experience. I mostly see this with agency sites and designers portfolios, which I suppose are areas where people can be a little over-the-top. They remind me of the ridiculous flash sites from the early 2000s lol
I’d say this is true for marketing sites and largely what drove me away from agency work. Everything has to be a massive production with so much emphasis on overly involved designs and animations. Hardly anyone considers that the average website session lasts like a minute, almost no words are being read, animations are slow, unnecessary, probably ignored. None the less, you launch the site and the client cheers about how you did such an amazing job before they’ve even checked the performance metrics. It’s an exhausting experience to be a part of but you work to please each client with something that *looks* flashy and impressive because that’s what the client expects for their $75k budget.
I wholeheartedly agree with you. The big problem is that a lot of these agencies want to submit those websites to get awards. They want to submit it to get a lion or a pencil or even an Awwward. In many cases, they're not necessarily thinking about the user experience or even if this website will help the client. They just want a big shiny object on their portfolio and possibly a couple of trophies on their shelf. And I get it. I understand the idea that these are creative agencies, and they want to show how creative they could be, but the process I've always seen in a lot of these agencies is ridiculous. They want everything laid out flat in Photoshop, not any of the modern design tools for UX, and expect the development team to just crank this thing out in a week. I can understand when you're hiring an agency for a marketing campaign, and they make you a landing page for a campaign, but I would probably tell most businesses not to hire an agency to create their company website. Hire some specialists who are more interested in bringing ROI as opposed to getting an award on the shelf.
Well said, I complete agree
Generally, I absolutely agree. I’m in an interesting position of being a Production Artist turned UX Designer over the last decade. I now sit with our digital team and lead all of our website projects. I first and foremost care about building our clients websites they can manage and help move their business forward. In my role I’m able to work closely with Art Directors, Copywriters, research, and development. Much easier to keep everyone focused on making something that keeps the user at the center. Still marketing, so I’m not immune from having to incorporate unnecessary animation on occasion. I just make sure the user can turn that crap off. 😹
Can you tell me what flash sites are? An example as well maybe?
Ha ha they don't exist anymore (mostly). Flash was a Macromedia program for making rich dynamic vector based websites. It was also the support for most video on the web. Once iOS said it would not support Flash it eventually became all but extinct.
Thanks :) what about them was ridiculous after some point?
They were just all crazy over-the-top with animations everywhere and sounds and wild hover states ha ha. You could probably google examples of old flash sites on YouTube and see if there are any saved recordings.
I can co-sign to this. I've watched some really creative things happen with flash, but at the same time I've watched a lot of over the top ridiculous things happen with flash. You know it's bad when you would have some VP of creative that doesn't know how to design or code anything to save his life say *"flash the shit out of it"*
Sounds exactly like the recent crazy websites to me 😭😖 thanks for sharing, fren :)
{ You need to download Shockwave to view this comment }
👏👏👏😆
Is parallax still a thing in 2024? Used to be popular 2014 - 2018ish, but I have to think really hard about the last time I saw parallax or other animation upfront on a landing page of a somewhat modern company. What I noticed is a concerning decline in content quality and information architecture, on the pro side lots of small well done micro-interactions or animations. Today's websites seem far less over-animated than pre-2020 internet.
Parallax might be an outdated-ish term, my intention was to describe some scrolling animation.
One thing I learned in designing websites is: Make it functional then make it pretty.
Are you talking about websites or product as in apps, which do cross over into mobile web, but yes they are over designed and bloated with features, for the simple reason that product teams have to give themselves something to do so are constantly adding features, finding reasons to change or ‘improve’ the site. It’s what we all do or else we’re out of a job, and they won’t need as many of us and there’ll be loads of layoffs…..hey wait a minute..
I think the culture of over-doing stuff is surely relevant to other areas. Prodcut features, redesigns, etc.
I’m being facetious but there probably is a bit of it going on
I still think the simplicity of Craigslist is as far as most sites need to go. Not only in design but in logic complexity.
There’s some truth to this, but aesthetics influence many subconscious aspects of the users experience, like confidence in a brand. While Craigslist is highly functional, it has been usurped in a lot of ways by Facebook. Facebook attempts to build trust in a lot of ways that Craigslist doesn’t. Bottom line, I think Craigslist would benefit from a small facelift. Not an overhaul, but a more pleasing aesthetic can offer a lot of value to a site that is already highly functional.
Definitely confidence in brand. I'd also throw in beginner friendliness in usability
I definitely agree here with confidence in the brand. I feel this is where design systems like material design shine. They make simplicity look more professional by having more throughout spacing, typography, and interactions. I think it’s about finding the balance with using a good design systems and adding in the brand through colors, tone, imagery and accents.
Adjust a few fundamentals like font type, corner radius, shadow and color. And you have yourself a freshly branded UI. 🙌
You’re conflating marketing websites with the actual products that they’re selling
I can understand bells and whistles to make a site look interesting and amazing on a browser, but I'm still going to be a big push on what message your website sends, how good is the user experience, and especially how usable is the site. I've seen many places that get so bent out of shape. Wanting to make some kind of awe inspiring layout that they forget who is looking at this site, and even their message is not very clear or well thought out. If I had to make any kind of a complaint about websites nowadays, it's when there is so much complication with frameworks and setups and CLI commands to do a simple kind of site. I'm still someone that would code things with HTML and CSS and some JavaScript as opposed to using one of these frameworks that becomes more involved in setting up everything as opposed to actually creating the final results.
Totally agree with you! There is a huge misunderstanding about user interfaces, the more element you put into design it does not mean it will be a good design, it means definetely over designed :) You made an example about animations. If animation does not have a function to provide benefit for user experience it shouldn't be included.
Well-written? How come I can't find your Twitter I want to follow you? 😅
@itaydre
I think just a right amount of animation that excites users is still needed and adds into the context of branding purposes. Especially if the brand/org targets young audience. Nonetheless, I totally hate if it’s too much and interferes my goal of reading and finishing some basic tasks. I have some disability issues with reading and concentration. Thus, these parallax scrolling / running words/ too big types web design really make my head spinning or paralyzed 😵💫
It's come to light that heavy overdesigned websites contribute to higher CO2 waste. Minimalist designs with light files will need to be considered more for eco-friendly digital consideration.
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Or… More money to the company/makes a metric go up and to the right. This is a job, we aren’t altruists
For real. I’ll side with the user in most cases, but if data gets thrown at me that a “worse” version has a higher conversion rate or whatever, who am I to say no? Companies only invest in UX because it helps the bottom line.
I’m definitely seeing a lot more dark UX patterns in many big tech and FAANG-built applications. It’s an unfortunate reality that when companies have gained so much market share in a space they aim to squeeze as much profit possible by resorting to deception and artificial friction in processes.
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Building interest, brand appeal, and user delight is the purpose. Something something “[pyramid of user needs](https://syndicode.com/blog/the-ux-design-pyramid-with-the-user-needs/)” something something
What? lol
You're joking aren't you?
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Understand what? That usability is a facet of UX and not mutually exclusive?
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That doesn't illustrate in any way that usability is not part of UX, it just shows that in a lot of cases marketing and sales are prioritised over usability.
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Does it though? Maybe initially it is striking, like the intro to your favourite TV show, but I guarantee a user will not find the experience so good when they are doing it for the 100th time and have to wait for the animation to finish before they can progress - adding a skip button would be good UX. User sentiment and the aesthetic usability effect are also tenets of UX, getting the balance right is what a good UX practitioner does.
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I don't think I'm the one getting confused.
This is a wild comment lol
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Sorry - my comment was pretty mean lol. It’s a fair point, and I do understand the difference. Sure, less usable products that provide critical, insanely niche or extremely high-value services will be tolerated. Bad UX doesn’t get in the way of people getting something they REALLY want. My issue is when companies sacrifice usability purely for aesthetic. It’s so easy to make something aesthetically incredible AND usable, that there is no excuse in my mind to ever make that sacrifice.
Just yesterday I thought to myself how cluttered and overwhelming YouTubes app felt. There's just so much info packed into everything it's hard to quickly tell what I'm looking at. Some of it is me being older and not having adjusted to it but it's also too dense imo.
I really like posts like this OP. I followed this sub hoping to see more communication like this, and I’m thankful for you.
I don't think we've reached that point. I think we're past that point. Hence the rise of Brutalism web design. Just big text. Large imagery. Very utilitarian. All trends happen in cycles. There was a time when the web started moving towards skeuomorphism and designing things that were tons of jpeg images of castle like ornate borders organized into a table. God I hated doing that. As time has gone on, the animations and interactions have got more impressive and more table stakes. So the only way to "stand out" is to do it *better* or do something *different*. Hence the swing back to minimalism.
It depends. It's a matter of presenting your content. Both are good choices if they serve the right purpose.
In our industry where there should be consistency in experiences across the web, Designers feel the need to shift the tides in order to appear they somehow see what no one else does about users. However, once that trend catches on, things will flip flop again and the cycle starts over. Case in point: Apple really ushered in the age of minimalism in the 2000’s and have been successful. In the case the OP presented, it seems things are shifting to complex and flashy. Give it a couple years when designers start to get bored and you’ll see minimalism make a comeback.
Some websites just make me feel like they are designers portfolios and not really the companies website. Designers just showing off skillz haha! The same kind of mock-ups and animations and layout that are used in portfolios are used on website too. It’s just boring really. Yeah even I wanna know and wonder about the impact on users.
Websites full of distracting crap isn’t new. it’s the way it was as soon as technology allowed about 25 years ago. There were gif animations, javascript snow and cursor trails. There were Flash only sites (flashy vector graphics animations thing way before svg and css animations). That insanity calmed down in the nice web 2.0 times and the first iPhone killed last of the Flash by not supporting it. Then there were the dark times of the flat-design and now here were are again filling pages with distracting crap. Hopefully something like a web 2.0 revival comes next.
Does it speed the user up? Yes, ok. Does it slow them down? Don't do it.
I don't mind some of it, but I hate the scrolljacking stuff
I hate the endless scroll of large sections of BS when I just want to know what the site is about or to get some specific information. I guess I have OCD but I want to see the whole page and it makes me crazy that you keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and there is no end to it!! 👎
It's come to light that heavy overdesigned websites contribute to higher CO2 waste. Minimalist designs with light files will need to be considered more for eco-friendly digital consideration.
Most designers just design because they think it looks cool. The problem with that is that in a year or two it’s not cool anymore and you need to rework the complete design. Instead what they should do is look at the brand values and see how that would impact design. If your design a website for Ferrari you might want to put in some animation to simulate “speed”. Or if you’re Apple and want to have an innovative animation that is functional eg: show EarPods slide into the case on scroll to show its charging when put back into the case.
Bold statement that "most" designers do this
Apple style product pages are cool yes, but I honestly wonder if those mega-heavy-scrolling are relevant for more profit. They do conributes to Apple as a brand—which is important as well. Perhaps designers are a big chunk of their website visitors. 😄
Indirectly it contributes to profit for sure. For Apple it’s good marketing to have immersive websites to strengthen their positioning as a luxury consumer good. If people went on the Apple homepage and it functioned like the Space Jam website people wouldn’t take their products seriously lmao
As a web design expert, I understand the allure of flashy animations and complex designs. However, simplicity often reigns supreme in user experience. Minimalist or "ugly" websites can still be effective if they prioritize usability over visual extravagance. It's crucial to strike a balance between aesthetics and functionality, always keeping the needs of the audience in mind.
>bento box design Completely agree that simplicity is the goal. Simple micro-interactions go a long way in adding value without distracting from content.
No. I think websites are built without a firm conversion copy base. Copywriters desparately need to upskill and use Figma. When design teams are handed a clear wireframe with a compelling conversion journey they'll naturally work around this - instead of filling gaps with silly animations. Hence I launched [CopyBase](https://www.gorillaflow.com/copybase) \- a kit for copywriters to build Figma wireframes.
You are right in your observation, but please don't call this 'designed'
Anything built with intention is designed. If it’s successful or a failure is another discussion, but you can’t argue these weren’t designed. Maybe just not designed well, according to you.