Can ChatGPT design a website?

One of the top questions people are asking around website design at the moment is “Can ChatGPT design a website?”.

We all have stories to share about ChatGPT fails. Some have even made the news. Like that time someone tried to create a Willy Wonka experience in Scotland and all of the images used to sell tickets were AI-generated and reflected a reality that was very far from what the images promised.

I recently used AI to help me write a proposal for a pitch. I asked it to tailor the biographies I had for our team members, to make them more relevant for the brief. What it gave back to me was a biography for a brand new team member called David. There’s now even a term for this: “ChatGPT hallucinations”. It’s when it generates a response that is either factually incorrect or nonsensical, even if it sounds plausible.

This is one of the big issues still facing AI. It isn’t perfect and it cannot be trusted. You still need human input to ensure that the overall output is accurate, relevant and what you’re looking for.

So turning to what many people are asking – can ChatGPT design a website? (or AI in general). The short answer is that it could produce a very basic result, but it won’t be high quality and may not even be fully functional. I’m obviously invested in the answer, as we design and develop websites, but we also use AI to support development work. From experience, there are still too many limitations preventing AI from producing a complete website from start to finish:

• It doesn’t fully understand accessibility. While not every website must meet WCAG 2.1 or 2.2 AA standards, it should still meet basic accessibility requirements, something AI often fails to achieve
• It won’t deliver a good user experience
• It may focus on visual design without considering how all elements work together
• It doesn’t understand your audience or positioning
• It’s likely to introduce security flaws.

Interestingly, and probably not unrelated, two other top questions people are asking about website design right now are:

• How much does it cost for a website designer?
• How can I design my own website?

Website design has evolved significantly over the past decade. You can try designing your own site using builders or platforms like Wix and Squarespace, but these have limitations. If you decide to move away from them in the future, you’ll have to start again from scratch. What seems like a low-cost option at first can end up costing more in the long run if you invest in a platform and later need to design and build the site all over again because you’ve hit a wall with how far the platform can take your website.

We understand that budgets are crucial for businesses, especially for those just starting out who need to be careful with their spend. Hiring a website design agency or commissioning a new website doesn’t have to be expensive. For example, we have developed a way to design and build a bespoke, accessible, and sustainable website while keeping it affordable. Of course, “affordable” is relative, so for full transparency, a website like this starts at £3k + VAT. Many other agencies offering a like-for-like website that meets these requirements would start at least double that figure, but with the right partner, it doesn’t need to be that high.

When planning a website design or build, focus on your brief and goals rather than cutting corners or spending time on approaches that won’t deliver the results you want. While AI might appear to offer cheaper shortcuts, your competitors may be using the same tools. This will make it even harder to stand out at a time when online visibility is more important than ever.

So circling back to the question we began with, if we are looking at what someone really means when asking can ChatGPT design a website, the answer is… no.