Name: If websites work, do they still need to look pretty?
Uploaded: 2025-08-28T09:17:25.000Z
Duration: 9 min 18 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

This website has stayed like this for the past 30 years, but lots and lots of people still use it.

Adverbs of degree

If we used a basket to carry everyone who visited Craigslist just over the last month, the basket would have to expand to fit the entire population of New York City.

Adverbs of manner

Clearly, the website works, but how is that the case when its design looks like it's stuck in 1995?

There seems to be a phenomenon in the current state of the internet.

On the one hand, big tech companies spend billions of dollars creating minimal, aesthetically pleasing, interactive websites.

Their goal is to attract users, so that means catching up to their taste.

On the other hand, we have what we call the IDGAF zone.

Websites that seem to dismiss design trends, but still are widely used around the world because of their functionality.

So then this made me wonder, if websites are functional, do they still need to look pretty?

And more importantly, if I wanted to build a website myself, what should I actually care about?

So to find out why Craigslist's design still looks like this after 30 years, I started with the founder, Craig.

Right now, our site hasn't changed much in appearance in 30 years.

Well, we've heard from a lot of designers who want fancy, and fancy may not be the answer for a lot of things.

Fancy is not the right answer for a lot of things, especially for this site.

Craigslist isn't trying to prove anything.

It simply sits here and says, I'll put food on your table, I'll help you find the table to put the food on, then I'll help you find the house to put the table in to put the food on.

When it comes to buying and selling things, this website gets the job done.

Craig literally just wanted to make a list, so he did.

You may have seen this no-BS philosophy pop up on other websites, Reddit, before its redesign, Hacker News, Wikipedia.

The point of all of these websites is the content itself, not the visual design.

Okay, websites don't need to look pretty if they're functionally sound.

What happened to those design principles that are taught by all of these gurus?

Companies spend the money because they have to.

They know that in here, we're programmed to act on aesthetics.

In the world of product design, you might have heard the saying, form follows function.

This roughly means the appearance of an object should be determined by its purpose.

This spoon curves right here to hold soup, and extends out here so that your fingers can wrap around and hold it, like this.

These scissors have two loops so that you can hold it and use it with one hand.

It was an architect who came up with this phrase.

He designed this building, a stark contrast from some other buildings around that time.

Although website designers have taken this to another level, where they say, you cannot add aesthetic elements unless it serves a functional purpose.

The problem is, that's not entirely true.

Research has shown that humans' judgment of a website's utility is actually influenced by how it looks.

This is known as the aesthetic usability effect.

One day, I tried to upgrade to the pro version, with the fancy silicone tips and the noise reduction feature.

When I first bought them, I put them in my ears and walked around with that classic post-consumerism glow.

But after one hour, my ears throbbed in dull pain as they turned into the color of cherry tomatoes.

I gave the AirPod Pros one chance, then another, then another, until I decided that the ROI of pain was not worth it.

So I had to go back to the store, return the Pros, and keep these non-fancy, non-noise reducing AirPods.

But that's fine by me, because that means no more eternal pain.

Clearly, the AirPod Pros had usability issues for my ears.

If they were cheaper, less sexy looking earbuds, would I have given them so many chances?

Turns out, I was a victim to the aesthetic usability effect.

When users have a positive emotional response to visual design, they're more tolerant to small usability issues.

We see this in both physical and virtual design.

For two equally functional sites, people prefer the pretty one.

For two equally non-functional websites, we give the pretty one a second chance.

A good visual experience is not icing on the cake, it's a necessity.

This brings me to wonder, why are we drawn to beauty?

I mean, from an evolutionary perspective, it's simple, it helps us survive.

For example, we're drawn to symmetrical things, because a symmetrical body, a symmetrical face, means good health, means good genes, means survival.

Matt Ridley, a science writer, once wrote, Every behavior is the product of an instinct trained by experience.

Our instinct to prefer beautiful things led to our behavior of infinitely scrolling on these visually appealing websites.

It kind of is, because an evolutionary point of view doesn't paint the whole picture.

What Japanese websites portray as a well-designed interface might not be the same for a website catered towards the American audience or an Indian audience.

For instance, there's a reason why Yahoo looks different for different countries.

Beauty is catered to the standards of the local audience.

I'm curious, what type of websites do you find beautiful?

What does this mean to us if we want to build websites?

Do we need to spend the time to make them look pretty?

As a rule of thumb, aesthetics won't do much if the website is not usable.

Having designed my fair share of software and websites, this rings true every time.

What problems are the users struggling with?

Well-informed design decisions are backed up by research, by metrics.

For example, if you're trying to build a shopping website, try to find five, six people.

Find those people and have them test your website out.

Can they complete a complete purchase flow without issues?

In other words, can they get from point A to point B?

Once you know you've built a functional website, then you can transition into aesthetics.

But what if I just don't have artistic vision?

Okay, some people may be disposed to creative traits, but you don't need to be Picasso to make cohesive websites.

Of course, like all laws, they can be broken.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

If websites work, do they still need to look pretty?

perception

phenomenon

instinct

reveal