Is bad design killing your good content?
The Good Sh*ft—Vol. 07 June 2025
Welcome back to The Good Sh*ft—your snappy, actionable hit of brand, website, and UX wisdom designed to power-up your brand, website and business.
Small shifts. Big wins.
You're trying. Working so dang hard. You’ve written the captions, built the website, polished the pitch deck, finessed your offer.
You’re in Canva, Notion, Figma—pushing pixels, testing templates, that close to makin’ it pop.
But even after all that effort?
It still feels kind of… off.
If your content isn’t converting—or it’s getting lost—the problem might not be the content. It might be the design.
Because even the clearest or cleverest message can be ignored if it’s the design just doesn’t hit.
Design shapes how people experience your content—whether they trust it, understand it, and stick around long enough to act.
Take Exhibit A 👆
Good text-background contrast, striking colour.
But, no clear hierarchy, long yawn-y heading, unorganised body copy and a bland CTA on a lacklustre button.
Before properly engaging, many people would stroll (or scroll) right on by. Missing the mark and missing the moment to connect.
Now, see Exhibit B 👆
On first glance, do they seem much different? Same striking colour and text-background contrast, twinning fonts, button style and general format.
BUT:
A snappy heading to stop the scroll, organised content to keep them hooked—and a charismatic CTA on a high contrast, click-worthy button.
And look. It may not be up for any design awards. But it has the components needed to nudge people to stop, and stick.
And happily, just a few powerful small shifts can help your content land waaay better.
Power Moves
🍉 Calls to action
Your CTA shouldn’t hide in the corner. Use High-contrast buttons, clear, active language, and place them where your audience needs them. (Hint: often more than once).
🔍 Spacing & Scannability
People often scan first, then choose to read. Help them out. Break it up by organising chunky paragraphs into an easy flow.
☀️ Scale & Contrast
If it’s hard to read, it’s easy to ignore. Balance heading to body copy to help them hook in. For easy-on-the-eye reading 1.5–2x the size is a good guide.
Key move: Use high text-background contrast. Read about contrast and accessibility.
Those precious seconds?
Make them count.
Yes, good design can make you look (very) good.
It’s also trust. Engagement, delight, sales, and it’s experience—that can directly impact conversion.
Missing the mark can mean missing the moment so make them count with design that attracts, guides and delivers in a way that sticks.
Because when it all hits, your audience truly gets it—and they’ll more likely want in too.
Small shifts. Big wins. Strategic design to make your content work harder (so you don’t have to).
First published June 2025.
