Do Ugly Sites Beat Pretty Sites?
By Anna Johnson on November 25th, 2008Seems like the folks at 37signals, a web application company based in Chicago, have caused a bit of a stir. In what seems to be a surprising move by a web 2.0 company with a snazzy web 2.0 style website… 37signals have declared The Drudge Report as one of the “best designed sites on the web.” Even though they also think it’s ugly.
Now, the 37signals define design to go beyond aesthetic qualities and into the areas of maintenance, cost, profitability, speed, and purpose, but according to their blog, they also regard the Drudge Report as “an aesthetic masterpiece.”
Can good design also be ugly, they ask? They say yes. I would tend to agree, although I don’t personally think design incorporates anything other than aesthetics and functionality. But although I don’t think design necessarily incorporates such elements as cost or profitability, I do think that ugly sites CAN EASILY beat pretty sites in terms of traffic and conversions… if they deliver more value to their visitors.
What’s more, in many cases, a nice looking website just gets in the way of delivering value… whereas an ugly, straight-to-the-point website can often deliver that value without delay.
But here are some other reasons why an ugly site can beat a pretty website, and why an ugly site can actually epitomize good design. 37signals list the following as reasons why The Drudge Report is one of the best designed sites on the web. I agree with them all. Plus, I have little doubt that if YOUR WEBSITE can score highly for similar reasons – which at the end of the day are all about delivering what visitors want – you’ll have a well designed website too, regardless of whether it’s ugly or pretty!
So here’s what 37signals say about The Drudge Report website:
1. It’s design is timeless. It has had the same design since 1997 and yet, somehow, it doesn’t look old.
2. It’s straightforward. 37signals point out that there “are no tricks, no sections, no deep linking, no special technology required. It’s all right there on one page.” Even if it’s a mess, it’s a straightforward mess.
3. It’s unique. If you took off the logo, you’d know you were still on The Drudge Report site. How many other websites can say the same thing?
4. It’s bold. It uses a huge headline to name the story of the moment.
5. It’s cluttered in a good way. The lack of obvious cohesion actually works in the site’s favour. It’s chaotic feel – like that of “a chaotic newsroom with the cutting room floor exposed” conveys excitement. I agree with this. Even though there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the organization of stories, I suspect that the ‘newsroom clutter’ delights the site’s readers and, if anything, makes them feel like kids in a big toy store. It doesn’t matter so much where they start, just navigating the site is a fun experience.
I’m tempted to say that not many sites could pull this off, but then again, if you REALLY understand your target market… and you know that they would actually enjoy this kind of environment… maybe you could.
6. It delivers on its promise. The promise is breaking news and that’s what the site delivers. Also, unlike conventional news sites that list ‘breaking news’ in a ‘breaking news’ bar, The Drudge Report pushes everything else aside to make its breaking news the main stories.
7. The site is easy to manage. So easy that it is, apparently, still entirely run by Matt Drudge full time, with help from an occasional part-time contributor.
8. The site is simple. The site offers headlines, not content, which makes for a simpler, more straightforward website.
9. It keeps people coming back. According to 37signals, The Drudge Report sends people away, but keeps them coming back. You wouldn’t think that a site that consists entirely of outbound links would draw people back… but it does. According to 37signals, the site:
“is designed to send you away to bring you back. The more often you hit his site to go somewhere else the more often you’ll return to go somewhere else again. You visit the Drudge Report more because you leave the Drudge Report more. This is one of the secrets to building traffic: The more you send people away the more they’ll come back.”
If you’re not convinced, take a look at Google Trends For Websites. The traffic for The Drudge Report has been consistent… and impressive.
10. It loads quickly. There are no delays in loading The Drudge Report.
11. It’s cheap to maintain. Since the site is one page, edited by hand, there’s simply no need for complex back-end software. 37signals estimates that Matt Drudge’s overhead is probably just a couple of thousand dollars per month.
12. It is just one page. It has a headline with three columns. And that’s it. Good design is often simple and a one-page website is pretty simple.
13. It makes over $1 million per year, based on published ad rates and traffic numbers. According to Google Trends For Websites the site has been getting about 1 million unique visitors per day for the past year. Not bad.
It may be tempting to respond to this list by saying “yeah, yeah, that’s all very well for The Drudge Report but my site… blah blah blah.”
But you’d be missing the point.
The point is that The Drudge Report delivers what its visitors and advertisers want, and it does so better than its competitors.
And that’s all you need to worry about for your website too: delivering what your prospects and customers want… whether it’s an ugly, one page, bare-bones site like The Drudge Report, or an enormous site with videos, widgets, interactivity and all the latest in web 2.0 wizardry.
Source: 37signals, “Why the Drudge Report is one of the best designed sites on the web,” November 19, 2008, Signal vs. Noise, The Drudge Report
November 25th, 2008 at 1:52 am
You are ignoring an ELEPHANT in the room. Drudge is a recognized “Brand” as it’s frequently mentioned by cable news pundits. But when visitors have never heard of you – and your site looks unprofessional in any way, your credibility and trust take a hit.
November 26th, 2008 at 5:00 am
Excellent point David. The underlying message, though, is delivering on visitors’ expectations. But having said that, it may well be that Drudge has helped its visitors to expect the site as-is, which would be a much more difficult feat for a new site.
October 30th, 2009 at 12:39 am
The Drudge Report must be one of the greatest sites ever created… I\’ve checked it daily for years, not becasue of its aesthetics, but because it rarely disappoints. When I check Drudge, I can be reasonably assured that I\’ve seen the most important news of the day without having to visit mulpitle sites. I also use http://www.repolitical.com for daily political news even though it actually looks worse than Drudge.