I’ve seen a lot of websites over the years. Some are beautiful, some are functional but boring, and some are just straight up bad.
There are certain things that will instantly kill a user’s experience, no matter how “cool” the design might look. Some of these overlap, but they all point to one thing: if you ignore user experience, your site is going to suffer.
Here are 10 things that can absolutely ruin a website:
1. Autoplaying Audio or Video
If I land on your website and audio starts blasting automatically, I’m immediately out.
It’s probably the worst thing you can ever do from a user experience standpoint. Imagine someone browsing late at night, volume up, and suddenly music starts playing at full blast. Not ideal, not professional, not necessary.
If users want to watch a video or hear audio, they’ll click play. Give them control.
2. Forced Scroll Effects and Transitions
You know those websites where you can’t scroll normally because you’re forced to watch some dramatic animation? Or when scrolling makes a section slide left and right like a presentation deck? It might look pretty in theory, but it’s awful in practice. Users should never have to wait for your design to finish performing before they can continue browsing.
Design should support the experience, not control it.
3. Pages Overloaded With Photos and Videos
There’s a difference between visually rich and completely overloaded. I’ve seen pages packed with huge videos, background videos, image galleries, sliders, animations, you name it.
Guess what happens? The page takes forever to load.
Video-heavy pages are especially bad when they aren’t optimized properly. Keep it simple, use visuals intentionally. More media does not automatically equal better design.
4. No Images at All
On the flip side, I’ve seen websites with zero imagery. Just walls of text. This is especially painful on restaurant sites. No photos of the food, no logo, no visuals. Just text.
Some websites absolutely need imagery to build trust and credibility. Visuals help tell the story and break up content. Without them, the site feels lifeless.
5. Too Many Fonts
Using more than 3 or 4 fonts on a single website is usually overkill and it almost always ends up looking chaotic. Typography should feel cohesive. When every section has a different font style, it starts to look amateur and disorganized. Simplicity wins almost every time.
6. A Desktop Layout on Mobile
It’s rare nowadays, but it still happens. You open a site on your phone and it shows the full desktop version. You have to pinch, zoom, and scroll sideways just to read a sentence.
That’s an immediate red flag. If your website isn’t responsive, you’re losing people instantly.
7. Poor Mobile Optimization in General
Even if a site technically adjusts to mobile, that doesn’t mean it’s optimized—buttons are too small, text is cramped, sections are out of order, navigation is confusing.
Mobile design isn’t just about shrinking things down. It’s about restructuring the layout so it actually works on smaller screens.
8. Popups Everywhere
One popup asking for an email? Fine. Three popups in 10 seconds, plus a chat widget, plus a banner, plus a spinning discount wheel? Absolutely not.
Overwhelming users with popups makes a site feel spammy and desperate. And if the popup is hard to close? That’s even worse. There’s nothing more frustrating than hunting for the tiny “X” in the corner.
Some eCommerce sites are especially guilty of this. (*Cough cough* Temu *cough cough.*)
9. Mismatching or Clashing Colors
Color choices matter more than people think. When colors clash or don’t align with the brand, the entire site feels off.
Neon text on harsh backgrounds, inconsistent button colors, or random color changes throughout the page make a site look unprofessional fast. A strong, cohesive color palette makes everything feel intentional.
10. Cheesy Stock Photos
You know the ones—the fake handshake, the overly enthusiastic call center rep with a headset, the group of business people laughing at a laptop for no reason.
Cheesy stock photos instantly make a site feel generic and outdated. If you’re going to use stock imagery, choose carefully. Authentic visuals make a huge difference in how professional a brand feels.
Final Thoughts
At the end of the day, most of these issues come down to one thing: user experience.
If your design choices make things harder, slower, or more annoying for users, they’re not good choices. A great website should feel smooth, intuitive, and easy to use. When in doubt, simplify. Respect your users’ time.
And please, for the love of God, don’t autoplay music.
