Resources - Top Ten Website Design Mistakes

This list could run into the hundreds, if it wasn’t called ‘Top Ten’. The fact is that the vast majority of sites on the internet fail in more ways than you can count. Here is Realsworks list of the biggest mistakes a webmaster can make. Just by avoiding these top ten, your website will probably be leagues above the competition.


1. Not planning your site

Start out with a clear vision of what the website needs to achieve.

• Generate sales?
• Encourage enquiries?
• Gain newsletter subscribers?
• Obtain information from your audience?
• Encourage them to tell a friend?

2. Failing to put contact information in a clear location

Even if your goal is not to have your visitors contact you by phone, the mere presence of your number will reassure them. Your telephone number or at the very least a ‘Contact Us’ button should be at the top of every page in a prominent position. At the bottom of every page, ensure there is email or contact links, with strong calls to action. Such as ‘Click here to contact us’ or ‘Call now’, etc.

3. Broken links

If you have buttons or links on your webpage they must link to the resources promised, this includes external resources on sites that you are affiliated with. If the page no longer exists, remove the link straight away. It is incredibly annoying for your visitors to be clicking links that no longer lead anywhere. The last thing you want to do if you are a business is to annoy your potential customers before they have even made contact with you.


4. Outdated information

It is incredible that some small businesses miss even the simplest of details such as wrong telephone numbers. If any information changes or any of you site content becomes inaccurate or out of date, you must update it or remove it. Having your visitors view incorrect information sets a very negative image of your company as a whole.

5. Too many font styles and colours

For the armature it is very easy to loose yourself in new found artistic flare. Just because you have hundreds of fonts and millions of colours at your finger tips, doesn’t mean you have to use them all. Keep to a simple colour pallet of complementary colours. See Colour Schemes. The colours and fonts you use must remain consistent throughout the website; we recommend no more that 3 colours and 2 or 3 fonts per page.


6. Orphan pages

In the early days of the internet, orphan pages were a fun way to deliver extra content from your website. Now they are used as an excellent way of displaying adverts. For this reason alone you shouldn’t use them because people have negative connotations with pop ups. As useful as your content may be, it should be displayed with the rest of the website. Orphan pages also use system resources and take time to load, which your visitors will not appreciate. The one time we would recommend orphan pages, is for displaying magnified images. Although there are other ways of magnifying images, so use orphan pages as a last resource.


7. Disabling the back button

The erotic sites favorite trick. Consider whether you would like to employ the same tactics as pornography sites on your company’s site. Probably not; just as your visitors will probably not want to click their browsers back button and find that it doesn’t work. So rather than navigating to a previous webpage, they will simply close it in frustration. As mentioned before, annoying potential customaries is not the best way to gain them as customers. If you want to keep visitors on you site (as I suspect you do) you would be far better off offering them something of value rather then refusing to let them leave.


8. Side Scrolling

Visitors to websites have accustomed themselves to scrolling down a page with lots of valuable content. However having to side scroll because the website designer has apparently not bothered with the layout of his pages is incredibly annoying. When designing a webpage, you must ensure it fits the screen resolution 800 x 600. This is the standard resolutions and currently the most popular. Larger resolutions will display content designed to fit 800 x 600 easily. If you really want to have a perfectly fitting site for any resolutions, use percentage position for tables rather than fixed pixel widths.

On some sites were design is more important than function (of which there are few, but they do exist) then the use of higher resolution sites should have a low resolution option. At the very least you should make it clear that the website is best viewed in a certain resolution.


9. Slow loading times

1 second, 2 second, 3 second, 4 second, 5 second, gone! Visitors to websites are merciless when it comes to download times. They expect there surfing to be fluid and effortless and so it should be. If it is going to take a while for a webpage to download add an interesting and well developed preloaded displaying the percentage of the download to complete. Still if you are going to make the visitor wait more than 5 seconds, the content on the other side of that wait better be good.


10. Music

Further than having to consider copy write laws, not every one wants to listen to your choice of music. Worse still is the use self made jingles. I actually visited a website once that used a polyphonic ring tone as the background music and there was no off button. The author deserves a medal for that shocking performance.

Music isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but there are important considerations that go with it.

• Make sure it is clear how to turn it off.
• Have it professionally produced.
• Generally, keep it short, no more than a few seconds.
• Obtain a license for broadcasting if necessary.

For a professionally designed website contact us.