Building a website is undoubtedly a daunting task, but the real challenge is in making it usable. Most of the designers forget this usability factor. They prioritize creativity over usability. What’s the result? The website designers land up making big mistakes, which affects the site’s functionality. Here, we will discuss 4 top website design mistakes, which should be avoided by the web designers.
No Search Box Within The Website
Your website should be like an archive of valuable information. Whether it is a blog or a corporate website, a ‘search box’ must be included in designing the user interface. If the visitor is unable to find something on your site, with the help of a ‘search box’ he/she will be able to find what they’re looking for. Many website designers make this crucial mistake of not incorporating the ‘search box’ within the site. What’s the result? Visitors to the site will get discouraged at not being able to find what they have anticipated to find once they entered the site; their interest in the site will wane and they would move on to some other web destination for the desired information. In other words, this would result in loss of a potential customer and a total loss to the business.
Poor readability
This is one of the most crucial elements of website design. Obviously, a good interface design is going to grab the attention of the visitors but the content or the text on the site should also be readable. Sometimes, designers use the most bizarre font size and style, which makes reading a pain. Web designers should aim to improve the visitor’s reading experience on the site by selecting the perfect font style and size, at par with the website’s theme, message and content. Using a Sans Serif font allows easy reading on the site. The designers should also note the color schemes that improve readability.
Cluttered Content Layout
Content plays a big role when it comes to website designing. Content drives traffic to a site and so it is very important to the website structure, as well. Some designers simply paste blocks of text on the web page totally neglecting the headings, sub-heads, paragraphs, keywords, etc. And the worst part is they put a bunch of links and blog posts, which are of no use to the users. As a result, the users get confused and that impacts navigation. The designers should make sure to use relevant and up-to-date content into sections, which visitors can identify with.
Bad Navigation
Navigation within a site must be seamless. Users must be able to find what they are looking for easily –preferably in 3 clicks. Although there is no standard for navigation within a site, it’s important to understand that the site navigation should be consistent and intuitive. Visual metaphors mustn’t be re-invented, text must be concise if it is used as navigation, hyperlinks must not stand out from the text’s body and dead links must have no place on a web page. Some designers sometimes have a link on the homepage, which links to the home page itself—this is even worse! The navigation structure must be organized in tandem with the website theme. No matter what, designers should always keep one thing on their mind while designing the websites—the user should be able to find what they want in less than three clicks or else they might leave straightaway.
If you’re into web designing, the above four design bloopers are surely going to help you avoid making design mistakes anymore and inspire you in designing flawless websites.
