Visitors click on a site looking for information that they want to find quickly. If greeted by a page with a poorly designed layout, chunks of unformatted text, an obscure navigation system, carelessly thrown in pictures and flooded with links and drop down menus they will leave and make it a point never to come back.
Designing a website is an art by itself. So all you web designers out there – novices, amateurs, experts and aspirants – take a quick look at these common designing faux pas….
Lack of SEO – The main purpose of creating a website is to reach out to your target audience. But all painstaking efforts will go in vain if it cannot be tracked by the internet search engines. Search engine visibility is the most important criteria that determines web traffic. Search engines identify a website by the titles given to their web pages. So it is essential to give each page of your site a short and apt title to make it search engine friendly.
Complicated navigation system – A site which doesn’t have a simple and well constructed navigation system will turn visitors away.
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A visitor on his first visit to your site should be able to understand the structure of the site and know where to find the information he is looking for and should be able to get there with as few clicks as possible. A site map and an effective search tool serve as navigation aids.
Haphazard layout - Web contents when not organized properly hinder the usability of a website by making visitors feel uncomfortable. The design template of all the pages in the site should be consistent, have a suitable colour scheme that enhances readability and keep the focus of visitors on the content by reducing distractions.
Links should be easily identifiable and a clicked link should change colour so that visitors aren’t caught in a loop of scanning pages which have already been viewed. The link text should be brief and provide clarity to the visitors on what they can expect the web page to contain.
The homepage which gives visitors the first impression of the site should be clutter free, present the essence of your site and should be easily accessible from all other pages of the site with a link.
Improper presentation of information – Content that isn’t crisp and relevant will fail to grab the attention of the visitor. When a visitor scans the content of a website for the first time, he should be able to figure out what a site is all about. The content should be presented in a manner that facilitates readability and not as large blocks of boring text. It is important to use short paragraphs, include sub headings and highlight keywords. Be certain that the links and content don’t have spelling or grammatical errors.
Tawdry fonts – A website with its content in snazzy fonts in garish colours, will appear unprofessional. Extra large fonts which appear to be screaming for attention are an eyesore, while extra small fonts which look like ants resting on a web page, force people to squint to read the content. Creative fonts can be used for headlines or captions consisting of only a few words but for the rest of the content choose a subtle font of reasonable size that enhances visibility.
Excessive use of images – Strewing a website with images will create a negative impression of your site among visitors. Images should be used only to illustrate the content or to supplement the text. The loading time of a web page can be slowed down drastically, if images are not optimized for the web.
Going overboard with graphics – The allure of creative visual and sound effects begin to wear thin on the visitors’ patience much too soon. Page elements that are always on the move such as marquees, blinking text and animation effects have an overpowering effect. Moreover, most animation templates take time to load thereby delaying the access to information. Keep their use minimal if not entirely unavoidable.
Irking pop-ups – Pop-ups are plain annoying. The last thing visitors want when viewing their content is a jack-in-the-box that springs out of nowhere, obscuring a portion of the page. Through most browsers are now equipped with pop-up blockers, it still isn’t possible to restrict them completely. As most visitors want to have nothing to do with pop-ups, it would be apt to avoid their usage.
Stale content – Once visitors have amassed the information they need from your site, they won’t be back unless you provide them with fresh content. To increase website traffic, keep your site regularly updated. Keep the content dated so that visitors know when information has been added or modified. Remember to archive the outdated content.
Misleading the visitor – When a visitor reaches your website, he definitely wouldn’t entertain being blinded by banner and text ads, clicking through a maze of links and sifting through a trash load of irrelevant content only to realize that he has been walking around in circles.
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Don’t trick your visitor into clicking on ads or doing things he isn’t interested in, as this only affects your credibility. Get to the point and guide the visitor straight to what he is looking for, without wasting his time.
Displeasing visitors with a blast of music -Visitors are likely to get startled by music which loads on its own. If an audio file needs to be played, the visitor must be given the control of playing and stopping it as per his requirements.
Thumbnails too small to serve their purpose – When the image gallery has a lot of images, thumbnails serve the purpose of giving the viewer an idea of what the main image looks like. Remember to avoid making them too small. Keep in mind that the average visitor may not have the time to browse through the entire gallery and would like to be helped by appropriately sized thumbnails in choosing the content he would like to take a better look at.
Opening new browser windows – When a link is clicked, the web page should open in the same browser window and not a new one. Each time a new browser window opens up, it disables the use of the ‘back’ button thereby alienating the visitor from the site.
Inconvenient scroll bars – Making visitors scroll down indefinitely to go through the content is surely going to turn them away. Horizontal scroll bars which make visitors keep clicking to the left and right, back and forth, are bound to leave visitors irate. The most valuable material should be placed on the top of the page so that it is noticed by all visitors.
Unnecessary registration – Most visitors get exasperated when they have to submit their email addresses and other details before being permitted to access information. A visitor should always be asked for his consent before subscribing to free newsletters, promotional offers and updates.
Incompatibility with browsers – A poorly coded site won’t be compatible with all browsers and will make the site look mediocre. Check to see if it works perfectly in different browsers. Also check the site on a regular basis for missing pages and broken links.