We’re not the only one’s saying that most websites suck. In fact there’s an online award dedicated to the worst website of the year. Some designers even pride themselves in getting listed in the running for this award.
Now if that’s not enough to convince you, Avinash Kaushik who spent a year studying websites and analytics for Google even says that Most Websites Suck. Avinash in a recent speech to some highly paid executives said the reason why Most Websites Suck is the decision on how to design and layout a website ultimately rests with the highest paid person – not the highest qualified.
This is a very important distinction to understand, the highest paid person may have great ideas, but if they are not based on proven facts, statistics and previous experience then they’re likely to fail. Ultimately the decision on whether a website design sucks or not should initially rest with the design, development and marketing team. The people who are employed to understand the market, understand the customer and leverage latest technology to achieve goals. But unfortunately in most cases this doesn’t happen.
If the decision can’t rest with these people, then the decision certainly shouldn’t go back up to these highly paid executives, some that have very little internet based knowledge. The reason being the executives will generally just look at the core statistics and choose the one with the best numbers. Now while at face value this makes sense, their not also assessing the SEO value, the brand value, the user experience and the WHY.
Let me explain, sometimes a design will get a stronger Return On Investment statistically but it may cause a negative market perception. So initially while the return is strong over time it will diminish as the negative market perception takes over.
This can’t be seen in statistics and this is where we end up with the websites that suck, because highly paid executives are making “money decisions” based on incomplete facts. If you really want to find out whether your website is good or bad then ask your visitors.
Surveying your visitors and soliciting direct feedback from them is the only way to work out whether your website sucks or not! Don’t let highly paid executives make the decisions, let the users!
Ok you can probably tell we get a little heated there towards the end, but we’re frustrated with seeing so many websites that suck…It’s time someone took a stand!
