Many visually appealing websites often prioritize design aesthetics over functionality and user experience, which can lead to a feeling of “brittleness” when interacting with them. This issue arises from several factors:
Heavy Use of JavaScript and Animations: To create a dynamic and engaging user experience, designers may rely on extensive JavaScript and animations. While visually striking, these elements can compromise speed and performance, resulting in lag or glitches that detract from the overall experience.
Complex Layouts and Features: A desire for intricate layouts and innovative features can lead to complicated underlying code structures. If not properly optimized, these can introduce bugs, hinder loading times, and make websites difficult to navigate on different devices or browsers.
Lack of Responsive Design: Some beautiful websites are not fully responsive or adaptable to various screen sizes. This lack of adaptability can cause issues on mobile devices, where a significant portion of web traffic originates, leading to a less cohesive user experience.
Inadequate Testing and Maintenance: The pursuit of aesthetic perfection can sometimes overshadow the need for thorough testing and ongoing maintenance. Without rigorous testing across different platforms and devices, issues such as broken links, unresponsive buttons, or poor performance while rendering interactive components can arise.
Resource-Intensive Media: The use of high-resolution images, videos, and other media increases loading times and can make a site feel sluggish, especially on slower internet connections or older hardware. Optimization may be overlooked in the quest to maintain visual quality.
SEO and Accessibility Overlooked: In some cases, important aspects such as search engine optimization (SEO) and accessibility for users with disabilities are neglected in favor of design. This oversight can limit a website’s usability and reach.
Technical Debt: Continually adding new features and design elements without addressing underlying issues can accumulate technical debt, further exacerbating the feeling of brittleness.

To mitigate these issues, a balanced approach should be adopted, integrating both aesthetic elements and strong functional performance. Prioritizing responsive design, optimizing code and media, performing comprehensive testing, and considering accessibility can lead to beautiful websites that are both engaging and robust.