As a website designer, there are certain mistakes you simply can’t afford to make. While there are many common design mistakes to avoid, it is necessary to take note of the most frequent mistakes and avoid them in order to pull off a successful and user friendly website.
Poorly designed websites won’t be able to attract and maintain new traffic to the site. This is ultimately the purpose of any website and if it is unable to keep new traffic visiting the site, it is not fulfilling its purpose.
Here are a few of the top web design mistakes to avoid at all costs:
- PDF files for online reading: Visitors to websites despise coming across PDF files while browsing, simply because it breaks their speed and interrupts their flow. Simple tasks like printing or saving documents are made more difficult because standard web commands don’t work with PDF files. While PDFs are fantastic for distributing large documents, only use it for info that doesn’t need to be displayed directly on the web page.
- Boring, un-scannable text: While the content may be well written and relevant, if you paste it into the site as a wall of text you will be set for a poor user experience. Studies have shown that users rarely read all content on a page while browsing, but instead only scan the content for its meaning. This is made difficult when web designers create an uninterrupted wall of text. Avoid this by using sub headings, short paragraphs, bullet point lists, a simple writing style and easy to understand language and words.
Avoiding these and other common web design mistakes is important in pulling off successful sites. Keep this in mind while designing future websites and you’ll always create well-designed sites.
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