Despite growing technology and innovative web design techniques, too many sites are still poorly designed, according to a new report.

The article in the International Herald Tribune gives five reasons why many websites are still ugly to look at and difficult to navigate.

Top of the list is the difficulty in adapting websites to different mediums. Sites can now be viewed on laptops, PCs, Macs and even mobile phones, meaning that what works on one might not work on another.

The article also suggests that too many websites still overuse Flash animations, which can start to irritate users and cause them to move on.

Web designers should also steer clear of overcrowding their pages by putting too many links onto one page.

Chanuki Seresinhe, co-founder of Design Science Office, told the paper: "I don't understand why people think that putting everything on the page will attract more clicks. It just confuses users."

The article's final bugbear is the difficulty of printing from many websites, which tend to overload their screens with information across several pages, causing reams of printing.

Search engine Yahoo recently revealed that it would be redesigning its website.