Web designers told us what site features annoy them most (and what to do instead)

March 12, 2021

Written by Carolyn Proctor. This article originally appeared in Washington Business Journal.

It’s rough being a web designer, having to navigate so many poorly designed corporate websites in their professional and personal lives. Too busy. Too complex. Outdated information. Broken links.

But that’s their job, after all, knowing what works and what doesn’t for the best user experience.

They’re here to help, and so are we.

So we gave them a chance to vent — to tell us about all the outdated, unnecessary and just annoying features they stumble upon in their daily deep internet dives. Not only that, but also what works.

Here are the things they want to see gone from your websites, and why:

• Drop-down menus. Sure, they still have a use on some retail sites, but visitors shouldn’t need to fool around with these just trying to navigate your page. “The text is too small to read comfortably, and the menu blocks content on the page so if it was an accidental hover, now the user is blocked from reading pertinent information,” said Emily Robillard, a web and graphic designer for Allen Wayne. Just use icons and images people can click on to navigate gradually deeper into the site, she suggested, rather than try to shove all the information at people at once.

• Sidebar navigation on secondary pages. Robillard called this a “completely unnecessary” feature that instantly shows the age of your site, when used in combination with a main navigation menu. Clients still ask for it to be added in, she said, but she thinks that's just because it’s what they’re used to. Robillard will always suggest other shortcut options that are unique to the client and industry. “Having a solution created for each company makes the clients much happier because they no longer have a ‘cookie-cutter’ website and aren’t following any trends. Rather, they have a custom shortcut designed and built to match their brand and a feature that is more interesting than the sidebar navigation,” she said in Montrose prepares for grand reopening.

• Dated content. Sounds obvious, right? But we can all attest to seeing company websites where the last press release or CEO blog entry was from years ago. Makes one instantly wonder, “Hold on, does this company still exist?” Randy Cook, creative director for Ellipse Design, said it also “sends a loud message that their website is not important or relevant.” He speculated they may not have enough staff to keep it current, but it’s always a bad look. “Never put your customer on the defensive, instead, provide tips/tools to help them understand the importance of their brand online,” he said.

• Pop-up windows. Shayda Windle, owner of SW Creative Services, really hates these. Don’t we all, though? “I’m normally there for research purposes or to purchase a specific product or service. I’m almost always in a rush and 99% of the time, click the X and get on with what I’m looking for,” she said. And she does get clients who want to add these anyway, for instance to capture email addresses of their site users. She urges them to add an exit pop-up instead of on entry, making it much less annoying.

• Site maps and “Home” buttons. Adding a “Home” button at the top of your page is just kind of outdated, said Jeff Roberts, partner and creative director at Moire Marketing Partners, adding that the page will look cleaner with less clutter anyway. “Today, the user knows they can always click on the logo to return to the homepage. So why have it?” The same could be said for the old site map link, traditionally placed at the bottom footer of a web page, in days of yore. Again, it should be superfluous. “A well designed navigation should easily lead the user to their designation,” said Roberts.

And just to balance it out, here are some features our experts applaud when they spot them:

• Employee bios and photos. Many companies have an “About us” page, but often it doesn’t tell you much about the individual people. Robillard suggested including staff bios with headshots as a way to really humanize your company and let people make a more personal connection. “If there are any personal details in the bio (I like tea more than coffee, I’m a Harry Potter fan, I don’t like country music etc.) it continues to make personal connections and attract clients with similar personalities as the company, which makes for longer client relationships,” she said. (And as you can see, she is indeed a Harry Potter fan.)

• Live chat. According to Cook, adding a live chat feature is proven to increase conversion and time spent on your site. It’s easy to see how it can serve as a “greeter” to assist customers right away, instead of letting people hunt for answers and potentially give up.

• Customer reviews. Windle said every company should include these now. “We rely on others honest opinions and experiences with a product or service before making a purchase decision,” she said. So your choice is, do you let them dig up whatever they can find on other sites about you, or do you save them that step and provide some nice reviews on your own site?

• Augmented reality. If you have the budget for it, high-quality augmented or virtual reality interactive features are a far better experience than the old Flash graphics ever were (and Flash was discontinued in December 2020, FYI). Windle said, “Giving customers the ability to see a product in their own home before purchasing can greatly reduce returns and exchanges, inevitably leading to huge cost savings.”

• Search features. Roberts is a fan of adding searchability to your site, so long as it’s easy to find and targeted to your audience. For example, he said, “According to analytics, the most searched on the a law firm’s site are the attorneys. A search-first approach, like a ‘find an attorney’ search field on the homepage would be very beneficial to the user.”

C@nt@ct Us

The one website feature controversial enough to warrant special attention? The contact form.

Some love it, some hate it — even among the experts. Robillard stood in the not-too-fond camp.

“I find bare contact forms — without any other possibility of contacting the company — to be very cold and impersonal. It sends a message that the company isn’t interested in making a personal connection until you pass through their funnel. There’s also no guarantee the contact form is going to a real person, or that the user will ever get a response,” she said.

But Cook from Ellipse said the contact form could actually be a good thing, if kept simple and efficient.

“Always make the connection with your customer as simple as possible — i.e., less clicks, less time. Contact forms are useful to help guide the customer to the appropriate contact, if done with a minimum of fields to complete,” he said. Windle is also pro-contact form, and uses one on her own website, finding it’s led to less spam.

Jeff Roberts is partner and creative director at Moiré Marketing Partners.

Roberts, meanwhile, could fall on either side of the fence depending on how the form is built.

“I'm not a big fan of form only over phone or email. It looks to me that you’re avoiding personal interaction. However, do I love a good contact form,” he said, adding that including extra features like check boxes can get you better results. But when it comes down to it, he still doesn’t think it’s enough. “The more contact information the better. Address, phone numbers, emails, social media links, chat boxes — anything to show the user you’re here to help,” he said.

$1,000-$500,000 

That’s the very rough range of costs to build a new website, from a simple one-pager to the most complex corporate site, according to our experts.