Bad Website Practices Stress Visitors Out

We want our clients to raise a toast to us, and not drive them to drink! A poorly designed website will anger visitors and drive potential clients away. A recent study confirms that bad web design impacts us physically, and not in a good way. Poorly designed sites actually increase visitor’s blood pressure. Oof!

THE RESEARCH

Cyber Duck UX Agency in the UK intentionally created three poorly designed websites so they could study the effects on visitors. Their study divided 1,100 participants into groups and measured their blood pressure while they visited these sites. The project’s goal was to measure the participant’s physical response to common frustrating web design issues. None of the participants had known health issues, and all had normal blood pressure levels at the start of the study. Unfortunately, several had dangerously high blood pressure levels after visiting the websites with bad design issues.

WEB DESIGN ISSUES THAT STRESS PEOPLE OUT

Which web design issues caused the biggest spikes in blood pressure? These are the offenders in order from most stressful to least stress-inducing.

Slow loading pages (taking 8-10 seconds to load) caused an average increase in blood pressure of 21%.
Multiple pop-ups increased blood pressure by 20%.
Auto-play music also increased blood pressure by an average of 20%.
Broken pages (404 error) caused an 18% increase in blood pressure.
Auto-play videos increased blood pressure by 17%.
Non-clickable call to action buttons showed a 14% increase for participants levels.
Hard-to-read fonts caused a 13% increase.
Images not loading increased blood pressure by 12%.
Multiple image sliders only increased blood pressure levels by 10%.
Disorienting animations barely registered with participants, causing a mere 5% increase in blood pressure.

WHAT THIS MEANS TO YOU

Your customer should be one of your top priorities when designing your website. Don’t let the stress of a poorly designed website drive visitors away! WordPress is the best platform for crafting user-friendly websites, and WebWiskee makes it easy to quickly launch your online business while avoiding the pitfalls listed above. What are you waiting for? Take your shot!