Don’t worry if you are a novice in web design or you’re struggling to make your websites look stunning while still usable because there are core adjustments that when made will yield the results that you are looking for. Web Design Mistakes to Avoid can help you create a more user-friendly and visually appealing website.
It is important to remember that an outstanding website is not solely reliant on having every single feature. It also has to do with the way the content has been arranged in an appealing and an effective manner. Web Design Mistakes to Avoid ensures that your website design needs to include clear prompts for action that tell the visitor what to do and assists them to effortlessly navigate to their destination.
Continue Reading To Learn About 10 Common Web Design Mistakes, And Ways You Can Avoid Them.
1. Logo That’s Too Big And Pixelated
A very pivotal part of a website is having the logo appearing at the very top. The logo is the image that defines the business that will cut across all forms of media. However, placing a logo at the top of a website usually has the concern of being overly exaggerated in its sizing.
Increasing the size of the logo may result in crucial information that is vitally positioned at the top of a page, being pushed beneath the first view fold. It is never ideal for a first time visitor to have key content below the fold considering the fact that you only have seconds to convert them to a potential client.
Whenever a visitor reaches a website, the first thing they should see is the most crucial information. It is understandable if you really love a particular logo you came up with, but it can be so tempting to make it much larger than the design allows. To get a sense of the correct range of logo sizes, look at the best performances and compare what their logo sizes are with how you are sizing the logos.
The image of a site’s logo set at the top of a website is one of the first things a visitor to a site will see. With a poor quality image, it can greatly damage the reputation of the business. The logo is one the core elements to a businesses identity, and if the image is of poor quality, that can put doubt in a customers mind about the quality of the business.Web Design Mistakes to Avoid include making sure the logo is sized appropriately First impressions matter.
2. Choice Of Fonts And Font Sizes
As you may have experienced, sometimes the choice of fonts and knowledge on how to use them can determine the visual appeal of the website you are designing. Occasionally, it is not within your power to make these decisions because the brand or client you are working with has previously established the brand guidelines.Web Design Mistakes to Avoid include ignoring brand guidelines and not carefully choosing fonts that align with the brand’s tone and industry.
When selecting fonts, doing some research on what is industry appropriate can be very helpful in terms of understanding what will look fine and what will make sense. For instance, a retirement village website probably wouldn’t feature a graffiti styled font.
Having a different family style type of the header and the body/paragraph text is paramount for hierarchy and readability. The body/paragraph text should be designed in a way that promotes easy reading because it will be the basis of the content.
Consistent application of various font sizes aids in the readability and the hierarchy of a certain website’s information.
It’s common to apply from three to six fonts within a website and, depending on its magnitude, it can use them in different sizes. The header’s size is usually the most prominent, sub header is the second largest in size or weight, while body and paragraph text are the smallest.
3.Large Amounts Of Text And Overuse Of Centered Text
Centered texts, when overused, can be alarming and chaotic to read. Based off experience, I can tell that they are hard to follow, which is the primary reason why books, magazines, blogs and newspapers have all adopted the left side aligned attribute.
A great way to manage your body text is by primarily applying the left aligned attribute while employing subheadings to break your content into chewable pieces.
If there is no reason for subheadings, break your text up into paragraphs with adequate spacing so it’s easier for the reader to navigate through large amounts of text. In an ideal world, long texts wouldn’t exist, nevertheless, in some cases, they are unavoidable.Web Design Mistakes to Avoid include overwhelming your visitors with large blocks of text without proper paragraph spacing or breaks.Web Design Mistakes to Avoid include overwhelming your visitors with large blocks of text without proper paragraph spacing or breaks.
4. Long Line Lengths
Line length refers to the number of characters that fit in a single line of text. One of the common errors is to set the paragraph text line length too long. It is harder to read, and it doesn’t look good on a website anyway.
5. Number Of Buttons And Inconsistencies
The use of buttons is one of the basic elements which enable one to walk through a website.
The above elements enhance the overall aesthetic of the site – and so does maintaining the size, style, and colour of your buttons.an essential practice to steer clear of Web Design Mistakes to Avoid,while Rocketspark gives you independent button editing tools for the mobile and desktop versions of a website which means you will never have to sacrifice good design.
When buttons all look alike, they become visual hooks of consistency and make every call-to-action more lucid.
Every webpage should have only a reasonable amount of buttons for actions that need to be performed. By including too many buttons on a webpage, it becomes overwhelming for the user in terms of deciding where to go first.
It’s favorable to use as little text as possible on a button to ensure that the call-to-action is explicit. With reference to the text, “Contact me now about your enquiry”, a better option would be a more direct and shorter phrase like, “Get in contact”.
6. Impersonal Stock Images/Bad Photography
Content of most websites heavily rely on photographs. Stunning designs without accompanying equally acceptable photography will only lead to low visual and emotional scores of the website.
The use of stock imagery provides a solution to adding quality photographs to a website in a situation where money or time does not allow for custom photography to be done. which is one of Web Design Mistakes to Avoid when striving for originality,Stock photographs have a reputation for being ‘stock’ but now there are some excellent New Zealand based commercial image banks that offer truly distinctive, high-quality images shot by the best photographers from throughout the country.
The stock photo that you are using ought to relate to the feelings and emotions you intended to evoke in your audience while simultaneously enhancing your brand story. For instance, if your design work involves a travel company, don’t just settle for a ‘travel picture’ – consider style, composition, grade, props’ accents & style, and all the other elements so that they fit with your design. Also, some designers prefer to have the freedom of changing colors & grades in image files to fit a brand.*
Of all images for your website, custom photographs will definitely be in the number one spot – if you are not a photographer and don’t own the right tools to take high quality pictures, hiring a photographer is a solid investment, and in the long term, the benefits will outweigh this expense.making it one of Web Design Mistakes to Avoid when relying solely on stock imagery. True, the expense of setting up the site at first will be higher, but over the long term, the investment will have made sense.
You have the freedom to engineer whatever outcome you want which makes custom photography an ideal choice for creating personal and engaging websites.
*Picky is New Zealand’s most recent stock photography marketplace that specializes in authentic, high-quality, crafted imagery by New Zealand’s top photographers.
7. Not Using Hierarchy
Hierarchy is the arrangement of your content and visual pieces from the most prioritised to the least one. For a practical example, you can approach any website. The logo and the menu are placed at the top, right – next to a main image and the text describing what the website is about. This gives them an idea of the business in order for them to decide if they want to keep viewing.
Hierarchy is a ey concept in which a user utilizes the content of the website. Typically, when the user visits your website, you have a few precious minutes to prove the value of why they should stay. This is where using headers to categorize information and maintaining new colours and style is important to guide the viewers through the website.one of Web Design Mistakes to Avoid if not implemented properly.
A common drawback in web design is overlooking the major pieces of content which can lead to overwhelming the user with a ton of text and images and making the website far less effective.
8. Incorrectly Spacing c
Properly spacing C content on your website can, more times than not, be as valuable as the content itself.
The absence of proper spacing may prove detrimental, regardless of how great the product or content a business is selling is, even if you have meaningful material that contributes to the business.
Spacing helps organize the content such that it aids in increasing the hierarchy and contrast between the diverse pieces of information incorporated in a website. Proper spacing can actually increase readability by 20 percent.
There is no harm in incorporating spacing as a fundamental principle in the design of your website. It is usually known as negative space or white space. Negative space refers to the portions of a page that are devoid of content. An image’s negative space can also signify the part of a picture that lies outside the subject’s focus.making it one of Web Design Mistakes to Avoid if overlooked.
Creating space on a page actually helps draw attention to what’s important. Space is necessary to have a focal point. Your content requires positive breathing space.
9. Leaving The Mobile Experience As An Afterthought
When building a website, creatives make the blunder of paying attention to the layout of the desktop version, and treating the mobile version with disregard.
In the current climate, more than 50% of people will view your site on their smartphone. So from the outset, the design and functionality of your mobile experience has to be accounted for, otherwise, you are simply ignoring the bulk of your website traffic.which is one of Website Design Mistakes you must avoid. More on how Rocketspark’s mobile tailoring tools could help you is here.
From a practical aspect, ensuring that mobile and desktop design is evenly balanced right from the beginning of the project will ensure maximum usability of the site across all devices.
10. Using Image Backgrounds Incorrectly
Choosing background images for a webpage is a crucial step in optimizing the user’s experience on your site.
They are not just for aesthetics – they evoke feelings and convey messages that are much more profound than plain text.
Grave errors stem not only from the selection of inappropriate images in the header and stack backgrounds and footer graphics but also from how the images are used.
While using background images, ensure that there is adequate contrast with the content above. It is difficult to read text which is set against complex background images especially if the images are busy.
As pointed out above regarding spacing issues, it may be a good approach to include negative space wherever background images are included so that the content can be read effectively.
If you are having challenges selecting the perfect image to occupy a stack background or a page header, try a single color, partial blur effect, or a gradient that is in line with the theme of your webpage.
Emphasis and clarity of your written work can greatly benefit from blocks of color. For example, one color solid backgrounds are effective on mobile where sometimes images don’t work as well, so it’s also important to keep that in mind.
Conclusion
There are several web design mistakes that can hinder your website from a mark of style and great functionality. A few of them are placement of logo, type of font used, spacing, and mobile friendliness. All these components should be considered to make your website appealing to users. One goals of this article is to provide you with guides and suggestions which can help you avoid the common web design mistakes that will affect the usability and engagement of your site. In one move, these actions will not only beautify your website but also make it easy to use, thus your customers will appreciate it the first time they visit.
