Professional web presence is a necessity to establish credibility, foster client relationships and gain new customers. Developing a web site on these lines can be challenging but the real challenge lies in making it usable and user friendly. Most web designers tend to prioritize the creativity aspect over practicality and usability, leading to errors and mistakes. Therefore, you need to be aware of common web design mistakes that may impact the entire process. Making a conscious effort to avoid these errors is an important step in ensuring that your web site is attractive, user-friendly and thereby successful.
Below are some of the common web design mistakes and suggestions on how these mistakes can be avoided or corrected.
Lack of call to action
The user’s experience with a good web site guides them on what to do, where to go and how to feel. This is referred to as ‘Call to Action’ or CTA; and gets visitors to focus on their next step. To achieve this, the web site needs to use content that describes the value of your products or services, along with compelling phrases that prompts action. It is not necessary to be creative with call to action wording. Lack of this type of clear language and content may not create a successful web site.
Text is not legible
Usually a lot of work goes into writing the right text for the web site but if it is not legible it is detrimental. There are several factors that make web site text difficult to read. It can be poor contrast between the text color, the background, tiny font size, usage of multiple fonts that confuses and tires the readers (recommended usage is 1-2 fonts per page) or cramping too many words on a single page. It is also important to use distinctly different font sizes for the headings, sub-headings and text. This makes the pages’ scan-friendly and the content easier to digest. Having very little difference between heading and text font size can make it look very text-heavy and difficult to read. Avoid these text pitfalls and ensure the text is neat and legible. As more and more people start consuming web content on mobile phones and tablets, how legible the text is on various devices becomes increasingly important.
Style is not coherent
The design of the web site needs to have a comprehensive message, style and overall coherence. A ‘mix-and-match’ design is not conducive. A web site’s style should be determined by its purpose whether it is a travel blog, a photography portfolio, a kitchen accessories store or a consulting service. Each of these web sites need to generate a different type of interaction with the audience and therefore requires a different design approach. Once you define the design, it is good to be creative with the look but you need to ensure consistency is maintained.
Difficult to navigate
A good web site needs to be simple and with an intuitive navigation flow. If it is not simple enough for the site visitors to figure out how to browse through it easily, you are going to lose traffic. This can be avoided by having a clear site structure such as number of pages, the page order, movement of visitors from one place to another, and so on. This should happen prior to web design.
Not mobile friendly
Smart phones now account for more than half of the global web usage which is why it is important for a web site to be optimized for mobile viewing. A regular web site accessed on the phone or tablet will not be clear. Mobile browsing is a different experience compared to full screen browsing and customers should be able to enjoy and experience both. Furthermore, recent technology makes it easy to have a mobile-friendly web site as well as customize and optimize it to guarantee the best user experience on all platforms.
Unfriendly screen resolution
An example of this issue is of web sites that need to be scrolled horizontally. This is not considered a modern web design. A good web site should be developed to fit most screen sizes. Using a responsive layout is a good idea because it allows the website to respond to the screen resolution and arrange the content accordingly.
Cluttered pages and white space
Designs which are cluttered and busy with the lack of whitespace makes the page crowded and illegible. Many designers do not realize the importance of whitespace. Design creativity should not overtake the purpose of the site. Whitespace is easy for the eyes and necessary for the actual message to get highlighted better.
Poor pictures or excessive use of images
Images are a powerful medium to illustrate, reinforce or portray a message about the brand, company or product. If the images cannot perform these tasks or there is no connection between your web site’s purpose and the images used, they should be removed. To ensure you get maximum out of your site images, use high-quality files and optimize them to fit your site design.
Search box and contact information difficult to find
The web is like an archive of information and everyone wants easy and quick access, whether it is a trademark web site, a corporate web site or merely a blog. When a visitor is looking to find something within the web site, a search box is the easiest way to do so and it needs to be easy to locate. One of the main goals of a web site is to attract and convert visitors into customers. If potential clients need to get in touch with you easily, the contact information should ideally be displayed prominently in the header and footer or on a dedicated contact page as this is a clear call to action (CTA). Contact information, terms of service, etc., are also elements that search engines look for on a website to determine a site’s credibility.
Complicated registration forms
If your web site has or needs the option to register, the forms should be simple and easy. This is dependent on how much information you need from the user. If web sites make most registration fields mandatory and the user needs to complete numerous validations, it can be a tedious task and result in drop outs. Customers use a web site to acquire information and not vice versa.
Weak SEO
While there is no fixed formula to obtain high search engine rankings, an optimum mix of keywords, meta descriptions, title tags are helpful in making the web site rank better. However, with dynamic and ever changing search engine algorithms, a site is valued based on much more.
Testing
This is an important step which can give you an idea of what the user will experience. Testing is related to whether web pages can be viewed only on a certain browser, whether the design layout is consistent on all browsers and so on. Usually, developers will have a checklist for this.
One major fact that we can gather from the above information is the necessity to keep things simple. A simple design and features are likely to make the web site successful and user friendly. Also, make a conscious effort to avoid the above common mistakes and make it mandatory to complete the necessary checks, testing and background work. If as a business owner you are not equipped to do so, you should consider hiring a creative partner or web design professionals.
CEO, Flying Cow Design
Attended University of Auckland
Lives in San Francisco Bay Area
