In design, less is more

Yesterday I was looking online for a set of new tyres for my car.  I came across an entry in one of the online directories – Dave McCann Tyres. The description was encouraging, so I clicked on the link to their website – www.davemccanntyres.com

I was not prepared for what came after. I don’t even know where to begin describing my experience. I was greeted by blazing music, fire engine red background and an annoying Flash intro. The intro consisted of  pictures of sports cars that flashed on top of red background and messages – “No 1. tyre company” and “all leading brands”.

There was not one single image of a tyre, no logos of tyre manufactures…but many extras in a form of flashing dashes, lines and symbols of cars moving in all directions in the background . I was mesmerised by this psychodelic display and waited with bated breath for the next installment.

From bad to worse…

After the intro was finished, the site exploded into a cacophony of annoying music and background swishing sounds, which came on automatically after the intro was finished. Imagine trying to search for the tyres on the quiet while  at work….  Just that part would probably make a vast majority of clients run for cover, never to return. What was worse, it took me a good while to figure out how to switch the music off.

After a while I realised that clicking on a speaker in the extreme left hand corner, next to the company logo, would do the trick. I bet not many people would spend time trying to figure it out, most visitors would simply abandon the site, especially that even switching the music off, would not switch off the sounds – there were still swishing noises and beeps that intensified as you moved the mouse.

The more the merrier? I don’t think so…

The mouse pointer was a chapter all in itself. It was  a racing car with lights on, that followed my every move, obstructed the menus and after the initial 3 second fascination, started to be really annoying.

But this was not all, here is the rest:

• confusing sliders that opened top and bottom and displayed unrelated content…
• large picture of a red Porsche that dominated the screen
• the red background which screamed danger… In my mind good tyres are associated with safety, this site was anything but safe…
• the text was impossibly small and hard to read (white on red)
• every element of the screen did something – the mirrors on thePorsche flashed, there were bolts of electrical charge exploding from the most improbable places
• and there was “more…”  that lead to nowhere

The site was obviously not finished, which was not immediately obvious. Opening one of the sliders revealed the following text - ”authoring tool for producing high-impact Web experiences. Whether you are creating animated logos, Web site navigation controls, long-form animations, entire Flash Web sites, or Web applications, Macromedia Flash MX is the professional standard authoring tool for producing high-impact Web experiences. …

The site looked like some kind of  ”a revenge of a boy-racer who has just learnt how to do Flash”…

Website Traffic

Site is designed entirely in Flash. Page rank n/a, Alexa rank – the site did not even feature in Alexa index and I am not surprised.

What surprises me is that the management of a serious company advertises this link. Dave McCann Tyres is not just some backyard operation. There is the General Manager and a Sales Director and several other members of staff. Someone has obviously approved this. I wonder how many customers they lost because of their website.

What is the moral of this story?

I firmly believe that in design less is more.  The design should never overpower the content, but  emphasise it. It is better to have no website at all than to unleash to the world a website that creates a totally wrong impression of your business.

Before you embark on a design or sign off one, put yourself in the shoes of the people who are going to be using your site. Who are they? Why do they visit your site? What do they expect to find there?

Don’t make me think

I strongly recommend a book by Steve Krug – Don’t Make Me Think! The book shows you, with pictures and humor how to make your Websites user -friendly.

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