Bad website design examples, and what each one costs

Key takeaways

The bad website design examples that cost small businesses most are ordinary, not dramatic: pale text, a homepage slider, an eleven-item menu, a button that looks like a heading, a contact form with no labels. Each one loses a slice of visitors. Most cost a few hours to fix, not a new website.

• Pale grey text: found on 83.9% of top home pages (WebAIM, 2026).
• A rotating slider: most visitors see only the first slide.
• An eleven-item menu: visitors take longer to choose and give up more often.
• A form without labels: 51% of top home pages have one.

What makes a website design bad?

A website design is bad when it makes visitors work harder than they need to: to read, to find, to trust or to act. Bad design is not the same as old-fashioned or plain. A simple, dated-looking site that answers questions clearly often outperforms a stylish one that hides them.

• The most common business website design mistakes
• Dated website design: the signs buyers notice

Example 1: the elegant grey text

Light grey body text on white looks refined in a design mock-up and is tiring to read on a phone in daylight. WebAIM's 2026 report found low-contrast text on 83.9% of the top million home pages. The fix is a darker grey or black that meets WCAG's 4.5:1 ratio, usually a one-line change to the site's styles.

• Colour contrast on websites: why grey text loses readers

Example 2: the homepage slider

A rotating slider with five messages looks like a way to say everything. In practice most visitors see the first slide, the rest rotate past unread, and the movement pulls attention away from the call to action. Replace it with one clear headline, one image and one button.

• Carousels on mobile websites: keep, fix or remove?

Example 3: the menu that lists everything

A menu with eleven top-level items, including 'Solutions', 'Sectors', 'Insights' and 'Resources', forces visitors to read and compare every label. Hick's Law, described by Nielsen Norman Group, says decision time rises with the number of choices. Cut to the five to seven pages buyers actually look for, named in their words.

• How many menu items should a website have?

Example 4: the button that is not a button

Flat text links styled like headings, or ghost buttons with a thin outline over a photo, are easy to miss. Nielsen Norman Group's research on clickable elements shows people rely on visual cues such as shape, colour and contrast to spot what they can click. A solid, high-contrast button with a clear label fixes it.

• Button design: why visitors miss your website buttons

Example 5: the phone number in the footer

A trades or clinic site that hides its phone number at the bottom of the page makes the most common action the hardest one. Put the number, or a WhatsApp link, in the header on every page, and make it tappable on mobile.

• Where to put contact details on your website

Example 6: the form with vanishing labels

Fields that show 'Name' and 'Email' as grey placeholder text, which disappears as soon as you start typing, leave people unsure what they were filling in and fail people using screen readers. WebAIM found missing form labels on 51% of top home pages in 2026. Add a visible label above each field.

• Form labels vs placeholder text: which should you use?

Example 7: the video that plays itself

A full-screen video that starts with sound on arrival startles people in offices and on trains, slows the page and pushes the headline down. Use a still image with a play button, or a short muted clip that visitors can pause, as WCAG requires for moving content.

• Autoplay video and sound on websites: why to avoid it

Example 8: the template nobody changed

A theme demo with the stock hero image, the placeholder icons and the same layout as every competitor tells visitors nothing about you. Swap in real photos, your own words and your own proof before you change any colours.

• Website template mistakes that make a business look generic

What do these examples cost together?

Each example loses a share of visitors, and the losses stack. Illustratively, if a site with 1,500 visits a month converts at 1.2% (18 enquiries) and fixing these faults lifts it to 1.8% (27 enquiries), that is nine more enquiries a month from the same traffic. Fixes like these typically cost £500–£3,000 in the UK market.

• How much does it cost to fix bad website design?

What does this look like in practice?

A pattern we see: a site has four or five of these examples at once, and the owner assumes the answer is a new website. Working through them one at a time on the existing site often turns out to be the faster, cheaper first step, and shows what a redesign genuinely needs to solve.

• See client work
• Website Design & Development for UK businesses
• Website design review: score your own site in 30 minutes

Bad design quick-fix list

• Darken body text to pass 4.5:1 contrast.
• Replace the slider with one headline and one button.
• Cut the menu to five to seven plain labels.
• Make buttons solid and high contrast.
• Move the phone number into the header.
• Add visible labels to every form field.
• Stop autoplay video and sound.
• Replace template placeholders with real content.

Next step

Open your homepage on your phone and count how many of these eight examples you can find.