Of all the ways to kill a website, clutter must have the highest kill count. Clutter is able to destroy a website so easily because it’s so sneaky. No web designer has ever purposely designed a cluttered site, it just kind of happens.
To put it bluntly, a cluttered site is an ugly site. A cluttered site is also painfully obvious as soon as the page loads.
How Clutter Happens
The reason clutter is so prevalent, is because of a lack of prioritizing. Far too often sites get bogged down with too much information. Obviously you want your visitors to be well informed, but you don’t need to throw every piece of information at them on every single page they visit. If you try to say everything, you wind up saying nothing.
Clutter doesn’t just happen in the layout of the pages. Navigation menus are notorious for being clutter magnets. Drop down menus that open into other drop down menus which also open into other drop down menus are satan’s gift to web design.
How to Prevent Clutter
As mentioned above, the best way to prevent clutter is to prioritize. Set a goal for each page and get rid of everything that doesn’t accomplish that goal. The goal could be to get the visitor’s email address, inform the visitor on a topic, get the visitor to call or a long list of other goals.
It’s not necessary for your visitors to have the ability to get to every page on your site from any page they’re currently on. If you have very niche and specific information, don’t be afraid to bury those pages with internal linking.
Why Clutter Kills
A recent study showed that 30% of people will immediately leave a website if they feel it is cluttered. So clutter eliminates 30% of your business, and will also make your bounce rate spike.
The visitors who are brave enough to stay are left to navigate a frustrating site. Without a minimalist design, the calls to action will be unknown and the visitor won’t find what they need.
At Create the Movement we use a clean minimalist inspired design for every website we launch. As a Tulsa web design firm, we pride ourselves on creating sites that are both aesthetically pleasing and conversion friendly.
