Top 10 mistakes to avoid in web design

We come across thousands of websites on the internet – some are really well designed and some are just not worth looking at. When it comes to web design you don’t have to be a genius to create a good web design. However, if you follow some golden rules you can create great looking user friendly websites.  A web designer who is inexperienced in his field will often make a series of mistakes.  Here is the web designers top ten list of mistakes:

Is it technology for technology’s sake

Everyone loves new toys so they can keep up with the Jones’s, but a website is not a playing field. What visitors are interested in is the content on your site not whether you are using the very latest top of the range technology to illustrate something simple. No matter how much flashy technology you use to explain something, simple is always best and that is what your visitors want, simplicity. If your website has lots of flashy imagery and plugins they are required to download to view content they will just simply go to another website.

Page layout using frames

Don’t even go down that route. Using frames is dodge city for a designer as they are easy for the designer which is why they are used so often. Frames offer more disadvantage over advantages and at the end of the day you want to keep the ‘customer’ happy not Mr designer. When using frames certain things start to happen which will drive away visitors, the back button becomes unreliable and bookmarking the current page then coming back to it takes you to another frameset.  Scrolling also behaves poorly as users don’t know what they are supposed to scroll.  Overall verdict using frames just confuses visitors.

Animation, scrolling and blinking – what is that all about

There is nothing more distracting than moving images on a website. Mr designer may have spent weeks working on getting it right and thinks it is the bees’ knees, but visitors will just turn away. Visitors want to be able to easily read the content on your website and take it in. They will not be impressed with bouncing balls and flash fading in and out.

Those colours just don’t go

If you don’t know you have a choice of using 256 different colours for text and background. What this doesn’t mean is you use every single one of those colours on your website because you will just end up with mix and match. Be careful with colour combinations. Choose simple colours that are easy on the eye and combinations that contrast well together.  For example dark text on a light background is easier on the eye than light text on a dark background.

Where have I ended up

It must be clear which pages belong on which website either in the browser window or on the web page itself. The reason for this is simple.  It helps visitors who have come to your pages without landing on the homepage first.  For the website to be in sync, all pages should have a link back to the home page.
Yawn yawn, this scrolling never ends
If you come across a page that has loads of screens of content then avoid them at no cost. Scroll bars are only worth having if at the bottom of the page there is something of interest to your visitor. If you are unable to split up the page then have content and navigation options visible on the page.

Directions please

You will know your way around your site like the back of your hand, but your visitors will not so keep this in mind before you design a website which is over complicated. Ensure your web site is clear and concise and has a structure in place so the visitor can easily find their way around.  Menu bars should be in place on every page as well as a site map and search function.

Non-standard link colours

Protocol for link colours has always been blue for non visited links and purple for visited links.  Stick with these colours and don’t invent your own link colours.  Visitors will just get confused.

Will this download ever finish

Every second is precious. If your website takes too long to load up people will just go somewhere else and never come back.  People get impatient waiting and it is no fun looking at a blank screen struggling to load up content. Solution, try and speed up download times. At the design stage ask Mr designer to look at reducing images per page as well as the size of the image.

Content is king

Need we say more.  There is nothing more humiliating for a website to advertise an event that has already passed or is displaying a product that is sold out. Regularly reviewing website content keeps it fresh.  Check your pages regularly and identify the ones that need amending ad do it as soon as possible.

So there you have it, top ten web design mistakes.  By following these ten tips Mr designer will be on his way to creating fabulous and appealing websites which your visitors will find easy to use and will just keep on coming back again and again.