Does an ugly design turn you away from a site?

[Shortie]

Whenever I go to a site, I nearly always see a well-laid-out site where the colours work and it is easy and simple to navigate. Unfortunately, not every site is like this and there will be times that we come across sites that have a bad design and can be an instant turnaway.

When you visit a site that has an 'ugly' design, does this turn you away from the site or do you manage? Do you give feedback to the site owner to help them improve their design?

 

[Darth Cognus]

There's two reasons I actually like it a bit ugly. One is that there's room to improve and I have something to do by offering some pretty easy means. The other is that the ugly is part of the charm and I'm attracted to small communities with a very homebrew nature. I'd rather something a bit gnarly than something clean, bland and utterly typical: that, paired with nothing interesting is what turns me away. But I'm also weird and this shouldn't really be representative of good practice.

 

[Ravenfreak]

Yeah if the theme doesn't look that great, or it hurts my eyes I might not join the community. Also if the layout is disorganized, it could drive me away from joining a forum as well.

 

[Shortie]

Yeah if the theme doesn't look that great, or it hurts my eyes I might not join the community. Also if the layout is disorganized, it could drive me away from joining a forum as well.

This is one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to any site or forum and that is the layout. I have always been someone that likes to see a clean layout that is easy to navigate and looks great and I will admit that I have on many occasions turned off sites that have had lazy organization.

 

[zoldos]

If I'm on a site (a forum) and it has a horrific design and bad coloring, I tend to not return. I've been on forums where you couldn't even see the text font, things overlapped, and the colors were all wrong. That's a no go for me.

 

[Kyng]

Maybe - but, honestly, it's pretty low down the list of turn-offs for me.

For example: I'd much rather have an ugly design, than a beautiful design that I cannot see at all, because it's locked behind a "You must be logged in to view the board" message. And I'd rather have an ugly design but lots of good content, than a pretty design with no content.

 

[zoldos]

Maybe - but, honestly, it's pretty low down the list of turn-offs for me.

For example: I'd much rather have an ugly design, than a beautiful design that I cannot see at all, because it's locked behind a "You must be logged in to view the board" message. And I'd rather have an ugly design but lots of good content, than a pretty design with no content.

I see your point. I guess for me, if a forum looks like complete crap, I'll take that as the Admin doesn't care about their site, so why should I?

 

[Shortie]

If I'm on a site (a forum) and it has a horrific design and bad coloring, I tend to not return. I've been on forums where you couldn't even see the text font, things overlapped, and the colors were all wrong. That's a no go for me.

Bad colouring is something I have seen in the past and it can be a turn-off for sure.

The overlapping and the ignorance towards the issues is something else that I find puts me off a site too.

Maybe - but, honestly, it's pretty low down the list of turn-offs for me.

For example: I'd much rather have an ugly design, than a beautiful design that I cannot see at all, because it's locked behind a "You must be logged in to view the board" message. And I'd rather have an ugly design but lots of good content, than a pretty design with no content.

You have a good point here. I have seen many forums that have looked great but have lacked in content making them great to look at but not so good when it comes to being active.

The "You must be logged in to view the board" message has always been a pet-peeve of mine, if I can't see what the forum has to offer then I'm turning away.

 

[Smokey]

Yes, if it's hard to read the text or the colors don't mesh well and are distracting I tend to not stay on a site for too long. Especially if they don't offer an alternative more attractive style/theme to switch to.

 

[zoldos]

Bad colouring is something I have seen in the past and it can be a turn-off for sure.

The overlapping and the ignorance towards the issues is something else that I find puts me off a site too.

 

[Cory]

If the site has bad contrast, random colors that don't sink well with one another, a layout that is all over the place, or just a general half-assed theme then I will probably turn away from the forum almost immediately.