
Ask HN: What in wix/square space do dislike most? - mebr
If you have have built a website or tried to with Wix or Squarespace what did you find most annoying?<p>I&#x27;ve been working on a new product to build websites, and I&#x27;m going to start the second iteration of development. Your answer can help a lot.<p>I&#x27;m mostly interested in targeting the market for simple website builders for the non-tech-savvy. Hence the mention of these two services that I think own a large part of this market.
======
trcollinson
The problem I have with it, and I would imagine a good percentage of people
who frequent Hacker News, is that I know how to build websites, and Wix,
Squarespace, etc. just slow me down more than speed me up. Some of this may be
psychological. But I feel like no matter what was built, this would be the
case.

For example, my son was required to use one of these builders to make a site
for his English class over the weekend. He wanted to connect up a simple link
in the homepage to an about me page. Simple, in a static website this would be
an <a> with appropriate href and such. But with a site builder you had to know
which box to go to. You had to have already made the about me page so that the
site builder knew how to link up. Etc etc etc. A task that takes me 3 seconds
took 10 minutes.

Additionally, as someone who works for companies for a living, I get calls
from potential clients that say "I want my Squarespace to do X, Y, and Z, and
Squarespace doesn't let me do it. Can you make it do it?" Well, no. I can
build you a site that does that, but I can't make Squarespace do something it
doesn't do.

These site builders aren't bad at all. Non-technical people use them
successfully all of the time. But I am definitely not your target audience.

~~~
mebr
Thank you for the insightful comment. I'm not sure you're not my target
audience. In summary I gather you find the extremely rigid system of these
builder inconvenient. I guess you had to consult the docs to figure our how to
create that link for your son, and a good chunk of that 10 minutes was spent
on this. Am I correct?

I'm thinking if my builder can make a software engineer build website quicker
with a high level of abstraction that's exclusively mutual with others being
able to do so. I've been researching intuitive interfaces, as my hypothesis is
that the interface is the bottleneck. Thank you again for your comment, it is
helpful!

------
urlaunched
Both are good if you want a quick start & temporary solution or as a landing
page for your all. But in a long run it is better to have a custom website.

~~~
mebr
I have heard this opinion from some other people as well. I'm wondering what
are the particular needs that call for a custom website vs. staying with
wix/squarespace or another similar service?

~~~
urlaunched
I would say custom design, branding, and also heard that wix/squarespace are
ranked lower in terms of SEO.

~~~
mebr
This definitely resonates with some people who have left such services and
hired a web designer.

