3 Well Intentioned Web Designs Gone Very Wrong

1.Barre Motion: Not Understanding What Users Come to Your Site For

My girlfriend and I went to this barre studio(yes, I tried barre and my thighs paid the price the next day) and later on, she wanted to go back, but had spent almost five minutes in the car trying to find their schedule. Incredible, right? Despite having done solid branding and integrating excellent imagery that convey the lifestyle they embody, they don’t serve up the information their desperate users need so much such as when their classes are held. In this example, the user has to go through a very ambiguous navigation and select studio followed by schedule to get the most important information for returning users. They would serve themselves well, but adding either an anchor link or call to action on their home page or by simply making it one of the options on the top navigation menu. Oh well…

2. IKEA: No Attention to Hierarchy

Don’t even know where to start here. IKEA’s layout is not only confusing, but more importantly, fails to guide users anywhere meaningful. Instead, you are bombarded with a myriad of options that most likely distract you from your original purpose of visiting the site. In particular, I noted the section on the right of the screenshot that lists their various planner tools has a link to all of their planning tools in the middle instead of the top or bottom. Rather than emphasizing this link, which would serve customers looking to plan their entire home or who is unsure of where to begin, they hide it right in the middle of a list. As most people know and have experienced, people are more likely to read what is in the beginning and end of a set of text while ignoring much of what’s in the middle. That said, IKEA’s website houses an exorbitant amount of information, so organizing all their pages is no easy feat. When compared to wayfarer.com, you will notice that IKEA didn’t use any iconography or hierarchy to distinguish between the pieces the items they want to emphasize or guide the users to and those that are of lesser importance.

3. Yale School of Art: What Happens When the Students in the Existentialism Class Design Your Site

Although this well intentioned wiki means well, it is a true eye sore. Not only does it have a very distracting background, inappropriate use of color, and poor navigation, but it doesn’t give you even the slightest idea of where to direct your attention. Particularly considering this is an art school website(I could maybe forgive an athletics department site), this is just unacceptable. To start, I would remove the noisy background image with something with a clear message with a gradient over it to leave room for a solid color navigation. Next, they should add a true navigation as oppose to a laundry list of links as well as some calls to actions.