There are tons of mistakes website designers make while designing the websites. Everything from common mistakes to deadly oversights, these mistakes sometimes lead to major issues. Designing a website can be an overwhelming task even if you are an experienced designer. It happens to all of us. We are only humans. But if we are aware of such oversights, we try to avoid them. Therefore, we decided to list the most common designing mistakes designers often make.
Mistake 1: Crowded and Overdone Pages
Negative space or white space often is the most important part of a website. These spaces help the users differentiate between different elements. Adequate white spaces should be used to avoid clumsy and crowded webpages. White space between paragraphs, lines, characters, page elements and even the header and footer play extremely important role in the overall design of the webpage. In addition, adding too many elements on a single page often confuse the visitor and lead to increased bounce rate. Therefore, it is extremely important to keep everything in account and only add the required and necessary elements to avoid overdoing.
Mistake 2: Search Box
Like white spaces, search box is another important element of a website. The website is like an archive of information. You always should offer an option to your visitors to find the information easily and without wasting a lot of time and efforts. Often times, web designers overlook the importance of search boxes and thus either avoid adding them on every page or simply add them only once. Search box needs to be present on every page of the website to help users find anything, anytime on the website. You can either add them in the header right in the navigation menu or in the footer section.
Mistake 3: Poor Readability
Of course a good website needs to grab the user attention but the visitors should be able to read the content present on the website. However, web designers are often unable to understand this concept. Certain websites use the most peculiar font families and styles that usually lead to poor readability. Don’t make reading the content a pain for your users. Use common yet effective fonts to catch their eye.
Mistake 4: Poor Navigation
Navigation within the website should be extremely easy and effective. You wouldn’t want to leave your users in the middle of nowhere. Always add back buttons to help them navigate back to their previous pages to make the navigation simpler. Web designers need to understand that it should be consistent and intuitive. There are a wide range of options available for making the navigation easy for your users such as media, hyperlinks, text and much more. Dead links should be avoided since it encourages user confusion. It is important to structure and organize the navigation of the website in cycle and use textual descriptions to every type of links. If you are using images, always add alternative description to avoid any confusion.
Mistake 5: Broken links
Please avoid bad links! Bad links add negative image to any website. Nobody wants to click on a page only to lead to a “404” error page. Always test your website and every link available on it before making it alive. Also add a “contact us” link in the footer or header section for your users to allow them to contact you quickly and hassle free.
Mistake 6: Using bold colors
Unless your website is dark, try to avoid bold and harsh colors. Sometimes the use of these colors makes your site a chore to see. You wouldn’t want to do anything to navigate your visitors away from your site. A designer should be familiar with color theory and be able to use it properly. Also, there are many online tools available that can be used to choose the best possible color combinations.
Mistake 7: Borrowing becomes often
Today where plenty of things are available in open source forms such as libraries, frameworks etc. borrowing becomes a regular routine. Try to be unique and creative. Instead of using something that other designer has already implemented, it is always a bright idea to come up with something unique.
Mistake 8: Violating design conventions
As a designer it becomes a responsibility to create and build design standards-compliant sites to bring the best results. Following design conventions is the key to successful web design. A good website is the one that not only grabs the attention of the visitors but also encourages them to come back on your site. A website is supposed to offer effortless navigation, straightforward information, and every element on the website does exactly what it is supposed to do.
Keep it simple, interesting and usable. Website design is supposed to impress users, not making them navigate away from your website. Avoid common mistakes improve your skills as well as bring out the best in your website.
Author Bio:
Emma Watson is a senior web developer cum Writer. She is associated with Wordsuccor. Wordsuccor is providing Services to Convert PSD to Wordpress, HTML to Wordpress and Wordpress eCommerce Development. In her spare time she writes on topics related to JavaScript, WordPress, and Web Design. You can learn more by following Wordsuccor on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin.