Website functionality is a key part of driving traffic, gaining and retaining clients, and earning good reviews from customers. However, many people still create user-unfriendly websites like it’s 1995, using sloppy layouts, broken links, and yes, clip art.
This article will take a look at all the tools you will need to build your own mess of a website. Or if you desire an optimal website, this article will show you what mistakes to avoid.
1. Hire People Who Don’t Care
The first step in creating your dysfunctional website is to hire developers, web-designers, and coders who could care less about your product and/or cause. They are your aesthetic construction team, and if their apathy runs deep enough, you are sure to see many lousy web pages follow.
2. Incorporate Lots of Pop-up Windows
Pop-up ads are a surefire way to make your site look like a scam and scare away users. Be sure to incorporate pop-ups if you want to lose traffic and gain a reputation as an outdated and potentially dangerous site.
3. Organize Like a Dart-Throwing Monkey
Another great way to create a dysfunctional website is to design disorganized webpages. Place your most irrelevant text, photos, and videos at the top and sides of the webpage, because that is where people tend to look first. Then put your important content at the bottom of the page. Also, make sure to crowd out text and links with overlapping images and flash players.
4. Refuse to Check Spelling and Grammar
To host a dysfunctional website, be sure to never proof read anything. Proper grammar and spelling may lead to a coherent statement sneaking in, which could lead to someone returning to your website, or worse, bookmarking it.
5. Use Clip Art
Oh, the glory of pixels. There are few things that make serious users cringe as much as clip art. Be sure to use these in your site rather than relevant HD photos. Stay away from Flickr and Stock.xchng when you search for images to use for your dysfunctional site.
6. Use Broken or Looping Links
If your links work, then your site is functioning, which in the context of this article, is bad news. Instead, use links that act as refresh buttons or lead to blank pages.
7. Neglect the Use of Ecommerce Software
If your site sells a product, make sure to avoid using Miva Merchant ecommerce software, such as the shopping cart tool. Instead, provide a form and an address where your customers can mail cash or a money order (no checks please!). To make this aspect of the site more dysfunctional, neglect other ecommerce software like credit-card software or PayPal programs and forms. Miva Merchant ecommerce software such as these will enable your site to generate money, another functioning capability that you should avoid.
8. Never Update Your Website
A vital aspect in creating a dysfunctional website is to keep it outdated. Remember, Pluto is still a planet and Brontosaurus’s really did walk the earth. Keep it real…ly outdated, because no one is looking anyways.
In short, apathy and laziness are your two best friends when creating a dysfunctional website. Use pop-ups and clip art, and avoid ecommerce software, functional links, and relevant icons. Keep it clunky, crowded, and disorganized, and users will be sure to flee.
Dan Peel is a UCLA graduate with a degree in journalism and a passion for travel.