Never Make These Web Design Mistakes

A great deal of designers are concerned with 'what to do' to make their web pages aesthetically pleasing and user friendly. Depending on your point of view, a sense of 'what to do' can derive from procuring an idea of 'what not to do.' The following will outline web designing taboos:

Seeking Without Finding

Having a search engine is an excellent option for a web site; the user employs the search box in order to find information relating to specific words or a phrase rather than perusing through the entire site attempting to find exactly what they are looking for. A problem may arise if the search box is too specifically set not allowing for typos, misspellings, plurals, or other alterations.

Another issue spawns from search results being 'ranked' according to the occurrence of the search words or phrase rather than the document's importance. Make it easy for your users to find what they are looking for (especially if they are attempting to find your products and services).

PDF Can Be B-A-D

Web browsers are very fickle and can easily become impatient. PDF files take some time to load and are not entirely user friendly (oftentimes problems arise with printing and navigating through the files). PDF's are recommended for very large documents and as an option for printout in supplement to the same information being chunked on a page (with subheadings, very succinct summary, etc.).

Familiarity

Excellent web designers will tell you that optimally, you want the user to have their own personalized experience within your site. This may mean having them 'sign in' as a member or manipulating the layout in order for it to remember the user's past activity. A browser may want to return to a previous resourceful page or not want to waste time returning to pages that did suit their initial intentions. This can be aided by simply changing the color of past links visited.

Pesky Text Writing for the web should be done very differently than writing for print. Web browsers do not want to be confronted with a big block of text. It is much more difficult to read from a computer screen, so chunking up the information and providing visual information such as pictures, charts, and other illustrations will make a web page more pleasing to a viewer. Divide the information using headings, subheadings, bullets, and bold font.

Provide Choices

Depending on the layout and amount of information on a page, the font may be quite small. Many sites do not provide the user with the option to enlarge the font (this is especially unfortunate for older viewers). It is fine to have a 'fixed' font size uniform throughout your site, but give the user the option of making the font larger if it will be more conducive to a pleasurable experience.

Don't Get Confused for an Advertisement

Web browsers have conditioned their eyes to weave around ads. A lot of sites pay money to advertise on other sites, but unless it is highly relevant to the reason why the user is on the page initially, the ad will not even be looked upon. It is suggested not to have any content or images on your site resemble an advertisement (banners, flashing images, pop-ups, animation).

Be Consistent

Web navigation can be very intimidating. Users like to feel in control of the web site in which they are participating, so making things consistent will enforce the user's confidence. The more times visitors successfully navigate through your site, the more they will become comfortable with it and return.

Being different is good- most times. Users will build an expectation of your site based on other sites (especially those of the same industry), so deviating from the pack too much will create a poor sense of understanding in the user. It is suggested to make your mark of differentiation with providing excellent product and services, not with your site.

Too Many Windows

While navigating through a site, users may get confused by multiple windows opening (especially in reference to the back button). Do not make the user experience anymore convoluted than it has to be. Create an index for your site off the homepage, so users can see all of the different options available. Installing links that 'automatically' open another page will clutter the user's screen and concentration.

Leave No Question Unanswered

A lot of web businesses do not make a conversion because the visitor does not feel that all of their questions have been answered. A big mistake is not including prices for your products and services on your site. Leaving that information a secret makes the customers frustrated and suspicious. Customers want to feel as if they have accomplished what they have set out to do from the start. It would be a losing situation for both parties if a potential customer visited a site looking to make a purchase and they did not because they did not obtain enough information about the purchase.