iMedia Connection: Why Your Site Doesn't Need to be Pretty

An interesting article on making a page work for the intended visitor. While this article is focused on consumer type sites, the fact that users (most all users) prefer functionality to beauty is not a surprise. It is one onf the reasons I find so many Flash-only sites tedious.

I absolutely hate 'splash' screens (and - yes, I always click 'skip intro') cause they slow me up from getting to what I wanted to see... images, bios, clients etc... I am firmly not interested in some version of a 'commercial' playing for 45 seconds before I get in.

Time is so valuable that slowing the visitor down is costly... to her and you. The visitor bails. You can lose a potential client.

Of course to those who design with no apparent awareness of the web, its delicate balances of utilitarian/visual appeal, and the basic functions of web systems for creating relationships... that is a small price to pay to look really, uh... cool.

iMedia Connection: Why Your Site Doesn't Need to be Pretty: "This is a real story: A supermodel, who will remain unnamed, works as a spokesmodel for a consumer brand company. The consumer brand creates a website to promote and sell her product using the best practices learned from (literally) years of A/B testing. To put it bluntly, these guys test everything. Following the presentation to the supermodel, she tells the manufacturer that she hates the website that is promoting the product. It isn't pretty, she feels, and it doesn't match her idea of what customers expect from a product associated with her. She has her design person completely rework the site, costing time and money, and she comes up with a more attractive version. The company, which, as I mentioned, then tests just about everything that they do, tests her version of the site versus their original version.

Guess what? The poor supermodel's version gets crushed."