MISTAKES MADE IN WEB DESIGN

May 5
11:16

2008

Keith McGregor

Keith McGregor

  • Share this article on Facebook
  • Share this article on Twitter
  • Share this article on Linkedin

Going through the web for the last year, there is list of what the biggest web design mistakes can happen. Some mistakes aren’t actually design mistakes in the classical sense --- ugly graphics, bad navigation, etc. Here is a list of the biggest mistakes made in web design:

mediaimage
  • Believing people care about you and your web site.

When someone sees your badly designed site,MISTAKES MADE IN WEB DESIGN Articles they are laughing at you. Why? You designed your web site for your needs, not their needs. It gets worse. After they stop laughing, they’re going to go one of your competitors’ sites and buy something there!

  • A man from Mars can’t figure out what your web site is about in less than 4 seconds.

You should be able to look at the home page of any site and figure out what the site is about within four seconds. If you can’t your site has failed.

What is this site about? Who knows? Who is going to care enough to stay around and find out?

  • Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability and table less CSS website design.

There is nothing wrong with any of the above except they’re being touted by… guess who?... people who offer web design specialising in… guess what?... Web Standards, Usability, and table less CSS. These are simply tools. Remember, nobody gets excited about the tool used to build a house (“please tell me what brand of hammers you used!”). People get excited about how the house looks and performs.

Web Standards are something that can make your site search engine friendly, reduce bandwidth, etc.

Below are some more common mistakes.

  • Improper Navigations

All web navigation must answer the questions:

Where am I? Where have I been? Where can I go next? Where’s the Home Page?

Navigation must be simple and consistent.

  • Too much material on one page

It’s very easy to keep adding material to your home page until it gets out of control. Smaller business sites are especially susceptible because they fear they’ll miss a sale.

With so much content vying for attention it’s initially impossible for the eye to settle on one thing. People get confused and people leave. Pages with lots of disparate material means you have failed to organize your site properly –Probably a combination of not planning your site and poor navigation. Most folks don’t like to scroll at all.

We suggest before designing a new website, please keep above points in mind.