Three website features you should ditch in 2023
It’s 2023, not 2010
The internet moves fast. And unfortunately, a lot of websites are stuck in 2010.
It’s mind-boggling to think that YouTube didn’t exist until 2005, Netflix didn’t expand its streaming service to Canada until 2010, and a majority of adults in the US didn’t adopt online banking until 2013.
Because it moves so fast, with a trained eye you can look at almost any website and guess when it was developed.
Or, alternatively, if your website designer doesn’t keep pace with the latest trends and best practices, you can figure out when they developed their skills.
So here’s a three terrible practices that got their start in 2010, and just won’t go away for some reason.
Embedded social media feeds
We know why this happens:
You want your website to have ‘fresh’ updated content, but you’re not sure if you have the time to post on your site regularly.
And you want people to follow you on Facebook.
So you figure, this solves both problems: There’s always something new on your site, and people will see your Facebook feed, Tweets, or Instagram posts, and maybe they’ll follow you there.
No they wont.
And your page won’t look good with fresh content – it will look dated and have a poor user experience.
Nobody wants to scroll through your tweets on a website. Precisely zero people want to do that.
Scrap the social media feed.
Definitely include links to your social media, either in your main menu or your footer – people will navigate to your site to find your channels if they can’t otherwise locate you.
But nobody – literally nobody – wants to consume your social media on your website.
Sliders or carousels
We could write a whole blog post about why sliders are awful.
In fact, someone actually made a whole website about it: https://shouldiuseacarousel.com/
Here’s the short version:
- Test after test shows that they hurt your click rate and annoy users
- There are major issues for users with accessibility challenges
They became super popular in 2010, and they won’t go away.
The main reason is simple: people want to put more ‘stuff’ on their homepage, and this lets them get away with it. But that’s an issue with a lack of focus in your organization.
Don’t make your visitors annoyed and unfocused simply because your team can’t decide what goes on the home page. Make the hard choices.
Photo or video galleries
If you’ve got these on your website and you aren’t a photographer or videographer showing off your work, contact us now and get a quote for a redesign.
These were common before social media took off – but websites are not the place to showcase dozens of photos sorted into galleries.
Not only does this make your site look dated and out-of-touch, but it will hurt your website load time, which in turn will cost you website visitors and search rankings on websites like Google.
If you’re a business, non-profit, or political campaign, choose a handful of great photos and show them off prominently on your website, but do not set up a page just to showcase photos.
Put your photos and videos on social media channels, where they belong.
BONUS: Get ahead of the game and get rid of your sidebar
Website design increasingly is about getting rid of clutter, and sidebars are the newest thing on the chopping block.
Your website will look cleaner and easier on the eyes with nothing taking up the edge of the screen.
It wouldn’t be fair to say this makes your website look stuck in 2010, but in a few years’ time, we’re certain the sidebar will look very dated.
