An expert website designer learns over time to avoid the mistakes that a website visitor loathes and develops awareness about the design flaws. A flawless web design is rare, and even the most successful websites have designing errors here and there. If you are know about these mistakes you can easily create accessible and useful website. Let’s take a look at those mistakes that are an absolute “NO,” when it comes to website design.
Lack of Legibility
Have you ever faced difficulty in making sense of the text on a website, and scrunched your eyes in an effort to understand the content. That is a website’s legibility, which measures of how easy it is to distinguish one letter from another in a particular typeface. Unfit font family, color and small font size creates legibility problems and this is one of the mistake that simply need to be avoided. Problems such as small or even a lack of contrast between the background and text create legibility issues, which have a bearing on the overall website design and the popularity of the website.Lack of readability in website content smacks of unprofessionalism. A negative opinion of your website can lead to significant loss of face characterized by your online reputation taking a big hit. There are many factors that control a website’s readability such as typefaces, letter spacing, line-height and more. Most these are can be easily fixed by understanding how typeface works and appropriate use of them. For example : Georgia will work better with in a corporate website which create a sense of authority and Helvetica in a portfolio website that represent modernism and creativity. However, that does not mean you cannot mix and match and there is set rule for it. As a designer it is your job to decide and choose the appropriate font for the website.
Related
- Typography Tuesday: Legibility
- The Readability Test Tool
- Choosing your typeface: Serif or Sans Serif
- Legible Text In Web Design
- Legibility And Readability In Typographic Design
Improper use of Flash
“What! You have heard that before?” Well, you are going to hear it again and again, because many designers cannot seem to get Flash right. More than giving the web page better interactivity, certain Flash designs actually annoy website visitors. The focus is on making pages move or peppering visitors with extravagant Flash animation that has nothing but irritant value and takes the visitor’s attention away from the purpose of the website. A cardinal sin that some website designers tend to make is using flash for navigation; most visitors do not like such navigability and prefer a navigation menu that is static and very predictable. The reason many web designers try to avoid because it client deepened and not cross browser compatible such as browsers for iPhone, iPad. Now that everyone is trying to embrace HTM5 and CSS3 your best bet is stay away from flash. However, If you must use flash try to make it simple, minimal and for love of god DO NOT AUTOPLAY the music.
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Little or No Contact Information
This is a no brainier. There are some websites that have absolutely no contact information or any other company information that allows visitors to get in touch with the company. Even if there is some contact info, it is hidden in the depths of the website somewhere that a visitor has look for five minutes. This is something that should be a key element of any website and be prominently displayed on a website. Designers can very well be accused and convicted of criminal negligence if they ignore this fundamental requirement. Contact information encourages credibility. The absence of any contact information in a website arises doubt. You should have this important info in the footer section of the website or in a contact us page that is easily accessible.
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- Creating a Usable Contact Form
- Example of Useful Contact Us Pages
- Web Form Design: Modern Solutions and Creative Ideas
Browser Issues
This is also a mistake that keeps cropping up time and time again even though both website developers and designers are well aware of the need for cross browser compatibility. A website absolutely needs to offer the same kind of visual and functional experience across all browsers. There was a time when IE was the preferred browser, but today browsers such as Safari, Firefox, Opera and many others are making their presence felt. So the website needs to look and act the same on all browsers. By not ensuring that the design meets the accepted standards of compatibility, you are actually ignoring the needs of the website visitors who will ignore the site, if it is unable to meet their standards. While Internet Explorer does not support CSS3 properties like drop-shadow, box-shadow, rounded corner there are many javaScripts and alternative solutions for that. When can only hope for a day when everyone in the world will start using HTML5 and CSS3 supported browser. Since that is not going to happen any soon as a designer your are responsible for making the website look same in all the browser.
Related
As can be imagined, these mistakes are not something that can be ignored and if designers do, they do so at their own risk. Also, these are by no means the be all and end all of designing mistakes that website visitors absolutely loathe. There are many more, but having a look at these will help you get an idea of the direction in which the wind blows.
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