At some point, designers tend to forget that just having an attractive website is not enough to drive visitors. Due to which, they often commit mistakes on the process and are likely to ignore them. This creates a bad impact to the site either in the short-run or the long-run. There are countless web design mistakes, which should be taken in account, but the following 15 web design mistakes are pretty common and should be avoided at any cost:
15 Common Web Design Mistakes
#1: Using PDF formats for web pages
PDF format is meant for different purposes like printing and presentation. It should not be used for designing web pages. The web content which is made on PDF file first of all loads too damn slowly. Next, the browser controls gets eliminated. Plus, the users cannot copy and paste the web content in a perfect alignment. If you feel like having a PDF format on your website, you can simply give a download link to the PDF content file, rather than publishing it online.
#2: External links opening in another tab or window
Many web designers have the misconception that by opening a new tab or a window for the links should let the visitor hang around on their website too. The fact is totally the opposite, as users get irritated upon seeing this filthy trick. If you attempt to do the same thing with your websites, days will be not far when you will have no visitors.
#3: Using the same color for visited links
By not changing the colors of your website’s visited links, you confuse your site visitors. Users need to know which links they have opened and which links are still unvisited.
#4: Flash, flash and flash
Flash is now history. But still many web designers incorporate flash when designing web pages. First of all flash is not search engine supported and that it is also not a user-friendly web design element. It takes a bunch of time to load the flash content and users also have to install the flash plug-in for the flash animations to work.
#5: JavaScript links
JavaScript is another counterpart of flash. It may be user friendly to some extent because of its wide usability features and access but when it comes to search engines, you are helpless!
#6: Dynamic URL
Dynamic URL’s are auto generated URL’s by softwares and CMS. They include sets of symbols, digits, alphabets and other things. This is not at all a search-engine friendly feature. Your users may also get confused. So always prefer a static URL over a dynamic URL.
(Examples)
Dynamic URL: http://www.example.com/id=12345&123
Static URL: http://www.example.com/mens–shoes.html
#7: Usage of drop-down menus
A drop down menu is a slow loader and plus it is not user-friendly in some cases. The links should be made purely out of text and all the navigations should be displayed on a single bar/line rather than using drop-down menus.
#8: Pages that look like Ads
I have seen many people designing websites as such they are creating an Ad-centric content. By adding a big bunch colors and other similar Ad elements in your web design, you will eventually see your web page as an advertisement. Avoid this at any cost, since this hurts down the usability the most.
#9: Displaying multiple versions of a website
You must have seen many websites showing multiple versions of the web content on their index pages. Likely options are: HTML and Flash. Never ever do this while designing your website. Prefer only a single option!
#10: Only IE allowed
There are thousands of websites still running in the 21st century which advises the user to open that website in Internet Explorer. Oh come’ on days have gone when we used to have IE on our computers. However there are still some old fellows who use IE but you should never suggest your users what to do. Do the level best from your side rather than forcing your site visitors.
#11: Using FrontPage and other similar programs
FrontPage may appear easier to design a website, but at the same time you have to deal with the browser incompatibility issues. So always use clean static HTML as the first and the last priority.
#12: Vertical scroll-bar content
Users hate to scroll the vertical bar to read the remaining part of the content. Fit your web design in such a way that it doesn’t find the need of a vertical bar.
#13: Same title and description for every web page
You might have seen people using same title and description content on every page of their websites. This is the biggest lack from SEO point of view. You shouldn’t risk your online business by committing this mistake when designing your own website.
#14: Background music (without user control)
It was years back when people used to love the background music on the websites. Now, users will switch to another website if they find such thing on your website. If you still want to give a presentable feel to your website by adding background music to it, just don’t forget to give the control to your users to switch it off.
#15: Using fancy fonts for content
Never use fancy fonts for writing the content of your website. Always go for the standard like Times New Roman or Arial.
These were the biggest 15 common web design mistakes that I’ve ever come across in my entire life. Never attempt to ignore these mistakes, they cost really BIG!
Author Bio: Kenneth Sytian is an entrepreneur based in the Philippines. He’s the owner of Sytian Productions, a web design company, and G33k Solutions, web development startup.