The case for boring design -- why predictable converts better than clever
There is a site we built in 2021 that I would not put in a design portfolio. Standard header with the logo on the left and navigation on the right. Hero with a clear headline and a single CTA button. Services section laid out in a three-column grid. A short about section. A contact form. Nothing surprising anywhere.
That site has the highest enquiry-to-visitor rate of any site we have built. It consistently outperforms everything with more visual interest, more originality, more design investment.
Why predictable works
The web has trained people to expect certain patterns. Navigation at the top. Logo links to home. Clickable buttons look like buttons. Contact information somewhere in the footer. When you break these patterns, you are asking the visitor to spend cognitive energy figuring out how your site works before they can figure out whether they want your product.
Most visitors on a business website are not there to experience design. They are there to answer a specific question: can this company help me, and should I contact them. Every design decision that delays or complicates the answer to that question is costing conversions.
Clever navigation menus, unconventional scroll experiences, text-as-texture backgrounds, subverted grid layouts -- these are interesting to designers and irritating to someone who arrived from a Google search and wants to find your phone number.
What "boring" actually means in practice
Boring design is not the absence of thought. It is the application of thought toward legibility and speed of comprehension rather than toward novelty.
A boring design still has clear visual hierarchy. It still uses whitespace deliberately. It still has a considered colour palette. It just does these things in service of the visitor's task, not in service of the designer's portfolio.
The businesses that most need to understand this are the ones hiring their first agency. They want the site to "stand out." Standing out in a way that reduces enquiries is not standing out in a good way.
We now have an explicit conversation with new clients at the start of design work. What is this site for? If the answer is "to get enquiries," the design will be informed by what converts. If the answer is "to build brand perception," there is more latitude. Usually the answer is both, but enquiries come first.