The advantage of "ugly" over "pretty"

I'm not a fan of ugly. But, I am a fan of bare-bones design such as my http://www.avatar-gallery.com

 

I believe in minimalistic design. I can't stand all these Photoshop created templates that consists of 100's of bits and pieces that are stitched together using tables... and takes ages to dowload on dail-up connections.

You don't need lots of graphics, shadows, emobossing or the like, to have a good and nice looking site.

 

In my experience, it depends.

If your site is targeted to a professional audience, such as photographers, designers, web developers, or artists, then the site must look professional. If the targeted audience, in their field of interest, is accustomed seeing well-designed magazines, brochures, product ads, or other related web sites, then your web site must have the same kind of appearance to meet their expectations.

On the other hand, if your web site is targeted to a more general, non-professional topic, and not selling a product, such as a site for people interested in pet care, car buying advice, SEO techniques, or insurance advice, then the site is not expected to have a flashy professional design. In fact, a flashy design can be a turn-off as it appears to be a shallow hard-sell technique [example: car manufacturer's web sites]. A clean, straightforward, functional design projects more honesty and credibility.

In summary, your web site design should match the kind of topic being presented and meet the expectations of the type of visitors you'll attract. A web site with a lot of sizzle but little substance won't work. A site with a lot of substance and little sizzle usually works very well.

 

imagine a site featured beauty products with black as background and dark blue for the right and left menu..

 

Thats a pretty brash statement to say considering you aren't the person behind the site. In fact, I think you are wrong not only in saying that it has nothing to do with the way its designed, but also that the success is because of the subject matter. I interviewed Markus for my blog and its clear to me that its a combination of many different factors, and hard work, that got him where he is today.

However, there is a whole other dimension to this. Ugly vs Pretty is a very hollow analysis of web design. What is more important is eye movement, clickthrough rates, and ultimately conversions. Most of the "ugly" designs, including PlentyofFish are layed out pretty smartly.

One of the reasons a lot of sites fail when it comes to design is because the people who set the site up have ADD. If you can't explain the reason and location of every link on each page of your site, you've got a problem. Here is an example that I see often. Someone comes to me asking how they can increase their e-mail newsletter sign-ups. I take a look at their site and they have a tiny little link buried in their navigation menu. If they would strategically place an on-page sign up on every single page of their site, along with convincing ad-copy they could see their registrations fly through the roof.

Its not an issue of drop shadows vs black borders, its an issue of how they are placed. If you don't understand the bare basics of graphic design, you are going to have a hell of a time with this stuff. Which is why I think "ugly" ends up defaulting as a good earner. Its not that the design is ugly, but that its layed out in a way where things like Adsense match eye movement.

 

Not always true. Ugly can sometimes be better, in terms of CTR etc. Check out one of my blog posts

3 Ugly But Amazingly Successful Sites

 

Completely agree - Bevel and Emboss is the worst!