Here’s another of those issues that stirs up lots of opinions: web design. Is the ideal website one that’s attractive or creative? One that includes plenty of images, graphics, photos and videos? Or one that is nothing more than a plain, white page dominated by text?

As Internet marketers, our chief concern is usually not how a website looks for the sake of it. We want a website that sells, or at least gets the maximum number of visitors to take certain desired actions e.g. clicking on a link, opting in to a list, buying something, etc.

Well, in the direct response marketing world, the consensus seems to be that the simpler, more focused - and less complex and distracting - the design, the better.

But what about images? Does a picture tell a thousand words… or do a thousand words tell a thousand words?

Writing in Early To Rise, David Cross reports the findings of a number of eye-tracking tests conducted by Nielsen Norman Group. In these tests, people were asked to perform a variety of tasks on different websites, ranging from ‘open an account’ to ‘buy a black suit with a blue tie.’

While the subjects went about their business, hidden infrared cameras tracked their eye movements. This allowed the researchers to create ‘heat maps’ to depict which parts of each webpage drew the most attention.

The findings led to David Cross concluding that, when it comes to a webpage:

• Banners and ads - and anything that looks like them - are ignored, regardless of their location on a webpage.
• Images are ignored. Those surveyed paid little attention to images, except for looking at faces and private body parts.
• Study participants fixated on text.

According to Cross, for most websites the visual design and layout is secondary to its text content. As such, his advice is to:

1. Make it easy for web visitors to both skim-read and read your text. Break it up with headings, subheadings, bullet points and other such devices.
2. State the most important information in the first two paragraphs of text.
3. Begin with useful information that makes it easy for visitors to understand what you offer and to find what they’re looking for.

On the whole, I find this research - and David Cross’s conclusions and suggestions - compelling. And Cross makes a good point:

“Almost all the websites and e-mail promotions that took Agora Inc., the parent company of Early to Rise, to its first $100 million in online sales were about as un-designed as you could imagine. They were mainly all text and headlines. In fact, Agora’s websites looked - and still look - very similar to the longer direct-mail sales letters you receive in the mail. According to many Web designers, these sites shouldn’t work any more than a bumblebee should be able to fly (because it breaks every rule of aerodynamics). But fly it does.”

And we haven’t even addressed the value of text-heavy webpages for search engine optimization purposes!

However, I urge you not to dismiss the need for good web design. A well designed website does NOT necessarily mean a complex, image-intensive, Flash-driven website. A well designed website may well be one of those plain sites used by Agora Inc.

Good design actually supports the content and coaxes the visitor into performing a particular sequence of desired actions, such as: (1) Read headline, (2) Read sub headline, (3) Read opening paragraph, (4) Read sales copy, (5) Buy product!

Good design also ‘frames’ the content and encourages the visitor to stay on the page. Through a certain combination of colors, the positioning of certain elements, and even the inclusion of an image here and there, it encourages the visitor to perform those desired actions.

And even though minimal attention will seemingly be given to any images - or any other design elements for that matter - that doesn’t mean such images are not integral to creating an overall impression that gets the visitor taking the desired actions.

So while neither images, nor some exotic design, may help (and may actually hinder) website sales… let’s not think that design per se is unimportant or unnecessary.

Source: David Cross, “A Word Is Worth 1000 Pictures”, Early To Rise, October 10, 2008