Portals: Badly Designed ... By Design?
By Cory Kleinschmidt - December 1999

Anyone who's seen a portal wouldn't think of considering them high art. Usually, the extent of design with portals consists of endless blocks of text, some nicely formatted; others, just plain old, boring text.

From the portals' standpoint, though, they're not trying to be on the cutting edge of Web design. If you want cutting edge, try CoolHomepages.com, a handy gallery of the hottest-looking sites on the Web. No, portals are going under the assumption that users want fast-loading pages with the minimum of bells and whistles. That means few images, no gaudy Java applets, no Flash animation (no matter how pretty or ubiquitous it is!) and no complex dynamic HTML interfaces. After all, broadband -- high-speed internet connections -- are just now getting off the ground with digital subscriber lines and cable modems. Most users plod along on 28.8K or 56K modems, hardly adequate for bandwidth-intensive pages.

Portals are also betting that what users want is INFORMATION more than anything else. While this is probably a correct assumption, it seems that while other sites (news, entertainment, etc.) are getting with the times and creating more visually appealing sites, portals are still bogged down in bland designs; which begs some questions: Are portals badly designed by design? Are they just behind the times? Or, do they know something we don't? Granted, many of the portals' pages are customizable by the user, but there are basic frameworks that the customizable pages have in common with the default pages.

To examine this question, here's a brief examination of the major web portals' designs:

ALTAVISTA
Before its October relaunch, AltaVista was still sporting an outdated interface and poor design. Now, it's got a sleeker body, although it's still kind of bland. This "neoportal" is looking modern at last, thanks to its color scheme, which is nice on the eyes. I have a sneaking suspicion that AltaVista's new, compact look will be closely mimicked by other portals when they redesign their stale looks. Already, fellow Trafficker Andrew Goodman has ruminated on the similarity of MSN's new look with AltaVista's, which debuted first. (See his in-depth review of the new AltaVista here).
Design Rating: 2.5 stars out of 3.

AOL
The layout is clunky, but everything you need to master the Web is here. AOL's use of graphics is generally well-done, the colors are good and it really is good-looking, but the presence of too many ads near the top is distracting.
Design Rating: 2 stars out of 3.

EXCITE
Poor, poor Excite. Oh how unfair Traffick is to you. It's sad but true; we're not huge Excite fans, in case you haven't noticed. However, many users are fiercely loyal to Excite and must like something about its appearance. To me, the site's layout is atrocious, with content modules spread out everywhere and no sense of unity. The colors are tired, and the ads masquerading as text-link features are unwelcome.
Design Rating: 1.5 stars out of 3.

GO NETWORK
Can't MegaDisney do better than this? The company reportedly lost $1 billion in 1999 but mustn't have spent a dime of that on graphic designers. Please, somebody alert Disney to the hideous black bar running horizontally at the top of go.com. And what's with the purplish colors on the left-hand side? To be fair, the layout here is not bad at all, which makes it easy for uses to find where they're going.
Design Rating: 1.5 stars.

GO2NET
Yes, I know that Go2Net has some great content, but I still can't get past the fact that it seems as if GNET slapped up its design without giving any thought to layout or color. Some sites pack in too much content per pixel (see Excite); others, too little, (Go2Net). There's plenty of unused space at the top, fellas! I'd recommend a complete overhaul to ring in Y2K.
Design Rating: 1.5 stars out of 3.

LYCOS
Another site with great content and services that suffers from anemic design. Both the color scheme and layout are pitiful. Wasted space everywhere! The same bad logo it's had for years! That silly mascot! Methinks Lycos's design is still informed by mid-'90s design aesthetics and is in dire need of help.
Design Rating: 1 star out of 3.

MSN
Though I'm reluctant to actually recommend a Microsoft product, the newly relaunched MSN is very impressive both from a design and layout standpoint. The content is easily accessible, thanks to a smart layout, and the color scheme is thoroughly modern. And there's lots of dividing lines to denote different sections. Nice!
Design Rating: 2.5 stars out of 3.

NETSCAPE
This nearly forgotten portal was in a bad way until its recent redesign. And to think: All it took to get this patient off life support was a face-lift! I'm still not crazy about the green hues that are Netscape's hallmark, but the new layout and graphics are a welcome change. Before the new design, Netscape didn't really look much like a portal; now it's a contender for best design, even though at last check it was acting up on Internet Explorer 5.0. (Coincidence or not?) Design Rating: 2.5 stars out of 3.

SNAP
I'm not sure what to think of Snap. I can't tell if I like it or not! The first thing that comes to mind with Snap is its splashes of red, a color that no other portal uses much. That makes it stand out visually, if nothing else. And I do like how it's layed out: over multiple pages and united by a system of tabs. So, it's not spectacular but is successful in a subtle fashion. Also, Snap is the first portal we know to offer a more advanced version of its site with dynamic HTML navigations and high-speed video features.
Design Rating: 2 stars out of 3.

YAHOO
Hands-down the most emulated design in the short history of the Web, (with its centered logo flanked by navigation buttons) Yahoo defined the look of a successful Web site in 1995 -- and then rested on its laurels for the next 5 years. Still, there's no denying Yahoo's user-friendliness. It's the most widely used portal for a reason. It's not flashy, but it does get the job done better than any other portal.
Design Rating: 2 stars out of 3.

So, the question of whether portals are badly designed by design is perhaps the wrong question. In their quests to appeal to the maximum number of people possible, portals choose to make their designs simple and uncluttered. This is an admirable strategy to be sure -- and has made understanding the conventions of Web navigation simpler -- but now that the Web audience and browser technology are maturing, perhaps it's time for portals to begin using snazzier graphics and more sophisticated navigation systems. Or, at least offer better-looking alternatives for those users like me who want portals to get with the times!