Web Jackalope

Widgets are excellent for adding unique functionality to a web site. However, as the we becomes more “widgetized”, it’s starting to add strain on the web browsing experience for our users. The more widgets we add to our web pages, the worse it makes the web.

Widget Blindness

Banner blindness was discovered in the late nineties, and it shocked many people that users weren’t actually focusing on ads when a website was teeming with ad banners. Yet 10 years later, the problem isn’t so much with banners (that problem will always be around), but with web designers and site owners going out of control with adding widgets to their pages.

A widget for everything

These days you can find a widget for just about anything. Literally. It seems that every community website or interactive website has a goal to create widgets for their users, and users in turn place all of them on their blogs or personal websites.

In theory, widgets are awesome additions to websites. They add relevant information and showcase what the community or blog is doing. It’s not like a stale ‘ol banner asking you to hit a target for a prize. However, the problem doesn’t lie with the widget makers. The problem lies with website owners who try to add too many to their layouts. Just like banner blindness, users are starting to not notice widgets. And even worse: Widget blindness might even turn visitors away from your site.

6 Reasons widgets are worse than banners

The negative effects of adding too many widgets to your layouts and pages can have an even worse effect than banners for multiple reason.

1. Slow loading pages

Typically banners are a fraction of the size of widgets. Depending on the type of banner you’re using, they’re typically smaller than the average widget. usually jpegs or animated gifs, and some like adsense use small javascript. Widgets on the other hand typically use larger javascript files or flash.

2. It only takes one bad widget…

While widgets will slow down the rendering of the page in the browser, a slow or unresponsive widget can drastically increase the page load time, if it even finishes loading at all. Popular blog TechCrunch had to remove widgets due to them crashing the site.

It only takes one unresponsive widget to bring a site to its knees. The more widgets you have on your site, the more places you rely on to keep your site’s speed and response times fast.

3. Widgets take attention away from the most important part: Content

You need to ask yourself a fundamental question: Why are users coming to your Web site? Is it because of the widgets in your sidebar? Hopefully, users are coming to your site because of the stellar content.

Content is still king on the web. However, when page has 28 widgets in the layout all begging for your attention, it takes the user’s focus away from the hard-worked content and places it on content that someone else has created.

4. They take up ad space

Most site owners want a part of their layout to be designated for ads. If you’re trying to sell ads, the best spots are above the fold. If you’ve got widgets everywhere, you’re taking up crucial ad space. There is only so much space in your layout that you can devote to things other than your content. Adding a bunch of widgets to your pages only makes less space for the ads that make you money.

5. They can frustrate users

If the page doesn’t load quickly (or at all), and is crowded with cheesy widgets, the user will be prone to leave the site quickly. Unappealing site designs add to the user experience, and bad experiences can turn users away. Overcrowding a site with widgets is an easy way to add to a negative site experience for a visitor.

6. Does anyone still look at them?!

Now that the initial hype of widgets has died down, there seems to be less interest in people looking at widgets. When MyBlogLog rose to popularity and were acquired by Yahoo!, it seemed that people couldn’t get enough of widgets. Now that nearly every online community or similar website offers widgets to their users, the space has become crowded and widgets are everywhere. People have developed widget blindness.

Note: The excitement certainly hasn’t died down for widget makers and web developers. Just the people use them on the web sites.

Widget self-control

There is a temptation to add every widget you come across to your website. There are plenty of great widgets out there, and the possibilities are endless.

So how do we know how many widgets are too many? That’s ultimately a personal decision, based on the type of site you have and how your audience interacts with your site. Widgets can be great compliments to your site. There is one hard-and-fast rule that I use when deciding whether or not to add or remove a widget on any of my sites.

As long as the widget is improving the user’s experience, keep it. Otherwise dump any widgets that don’t achieve that goal.

This method usually separates the separates the wheat from the chaff. The widgets have to “prove themselves” before they can stay on the site.

You can be very critical when deciding what stays and goes. Always remove the widget if you’re wavering between keeping or dropping it. If it’s not instantly clear as to why it’s still on your website, the widget probably isn’t worth it.

Photo by YanivG

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