A new study ranking 12 top mortgage lending sites found that many banks are falling short of a home buyer's needs, with overly complicated and impersonal sites deterring would-be mortgage shoppers from taking action.

Two large lenders performed the lowest for three core metrics: usability, engagement and conversion, research think-tank Change Sciences Group said Wednesday.

Bank of America's mortgage website was 14 percent less usable, 13 percent less engaging, and performed 18 percent worse on conversion than the top three sites in the data set. TD Bank's website, another low-scoring site, was 13 percent less usable, 8 percent less engaging, and performed 26 percent lower on conversion than top three sites, the research found.

"What we're seeing is that banks are missing the mark on creating a meaningful connection with home buyers. They're not letting their mortgage web sites frame the conversation that they want to have with prospects," says Pamela Pavliscak, a Change Sciences founder. "And they're not establishing enough of a rapport with prospects that would compel a prospect to pick up the phone or get started with an application online."

The new data is based on Change Sciences' Experience Cloud platform, which makes it possible to identify which sites consumers favor and why. The research analyze the website of 12 different banks: Bank of America, BB&T, Chase, Citigroup, ERA Mortgage, PNC Home Lending, PNC Mortgage, Quicken Loans, TD Bank, US Bank, and Wells Fargo.

Mortgage bankers, however may take some heart in the knowledge that mortgage websites tended to rank just slightly higher in usability than their consumer  banking counterparts — and better than credit card websites, as well.

The full research is available here.