Look at the top 25 websites and you might think that ugly design causes success.
Maybe it does.
Sites without a strongly defined visual aesthetic seem to foster feelings of community. It’s as if amateurish design says “there is no priesthood here, all can contribute.” This seems especially true for Craigslist and Wikipedia.
MySpace is famously hideous, and Facebook isn’t much better. You could say Twitter has no design at all since so many users experience it through third party apps like Twitterfon.
So when does design matter? Well, it’s about user expectations. We want Apple stuff to look beautiful. We want the New York Times to look authoritative. We want Star Trek to be shiny.
For media that we only consume we want polish and branding. For media that we co-create we want design that says mi casa es su casa.
Caveats
I said web design is dead. When it comes to hardware, operating systems, and installed software, we want flawless, seamless, intuitive, beautiful design that’s also invisible. A tall order, but one that Apple strives for (try to imagine the iPhone with the Apple logo on the home button). This is because devices and software are doors, not destinations. They should feel so good that they become an extension of the user.
Does this mean Craigslist should do no UI work? Not at all. Craigslist could do a lot of subtle things with typography, usability, search, and image upload quality. However they would have to roll out changes in small increments or risk breaking the “muscle memory” of their huge user base.
Notes
- The recent Wired article about Craigslist that got me thinking about this makes an important point. For sites like Craigslist, Wikipedia, Google, Twitter, and others, the most important user experience issues are spam, abuse, security, reliability, and speed. Once the design is “good enough” working on design quickly reaches the point of diminishing returns.
- Design’s relative unimportance is a bitter pill for web designers. Maybe that’s why designers occasionally do mockups of a “good” Craigslist.