If you think it will get messy than it probably will. Every family is different. Maybe bins below, rather than open, would help but its really whether you can or want to enforce standards on the kids.

If you have children and plan on using it for their storage, then it will be messy! Especially during the winter! You could consider a closed cabinet front if you are concerned. I can partially see my mud room from 4 rooms away and gave the visible areas to the least messy person (me and the baby). Ours is a workhorse area - shoes, coats (everyone has more than one), video games, backpacks, car toys...you get the idea. During the warm months it is much neater. You have to have a place for all that stuff somewhere, and I do love my built-in more than a plain old closet.

The bench needs to be a lift-top trunk (with a safety latch so it doesn't slam on little hands). Inside, divide it so each kid has a place to throw their crocs and whatever else they shed at the back door. It will hide all the messy stuff.

Also open top storage bins (I love the ones from Lands' End) to hide mitts, hats, etc...

What do your kids' rooms look like? The rest of your house? If your house tends to be tidy (because its inhabitants tend to be tidy) then your nooks will be tidy too. If you are in an endless battle against household chaos, the nooks will become participants in that battle. In our household the compulsively tidy people happen to outnumber the messy ones, so tidiness wins out. (For some of us, tidiness is like breathing. We just pick up things without thinking about it) But the more kids you have the more likely your mudroom will tend toward chaos. But really, aren't cluttered mudroom nooks still an improvement over clutter without the nooks?