What Common Mistakes Do You Need to Avoid When Designing A Website?

by Andrew Howard IT Consultant

Nowadays, anyone can create their own website. All they need is a web design programme, a little understanding of technology, and the time and patience to design. Unfortunately, although any one can create a website, not all website are designed equal: some fall far short of the standards expected in the modern world. When this applies to a business website, the results can be disastrous; people navigate away from the site without giving them a second glance.

Unless you want to hire a website design company to do the work for you, then you should really understand a little about basic website design, and in particular, how to avoid some of the most common mistakes (if you need a professional website design Blackpool company, simply follow the link at the bottom of the article).

Here are some of the most commonly seen problems of web design:

•    Navigation: Sites need to be engineered to a high specification. One of the key points to address is ease of navigation. Now, overall, this has two separate components:

1.    Different website areas must be clearly marked. People must be able to see at a glance where they can go to do the particular task/find the particular information, for which they came to the site in the first place.
2.    The navigation links must be well written, accurate and fast. Some navigation points (e.g. the onsite buttons that you press to move between different areas of the site) can be poorly written. This can slow the speed of interaction, and lead website users to the wrong area of the site, or to error pages (404 ‘page not found’ error). Today, people have no patience for waiting, and they will quickly find another site that is more efficient, but which offers the same service.

•    Quality content: It is common knowledge that ‘Content is King’. People will like a site if they are providing users with interesting information. We will not talk about the specifics of content here, but it needs to be informative. However, one problem that many people overlook is the format in which the information is accessible. Many sites continue to use PDF files, and other formats that simply add bulk to the site, and which adds an extra level of effort for the web user. For instance, opening a PDF from a website can take between 20 seconds and 3 minutes, depending on the computer from which the site is accessed. This is too long for many web users, particularly if they only have a passing interest in that information. Therefore, avoid PDF and other downloadable content, unless absolutely necessary.

•    Consistency: One of the fundamental rules of design is consistency. If the website appears too convoluted or if it makes little sense, then people will generally avoid the site. Keep to color schemes, keep everything simple, and keep tabs in similar places on different pages. People do not want to have to work out where to go on each page they land on: keep sites uniform.

If you would like further information, or would like a quote for website design Blackpool, then please visit Neotericuk.co.uk.

Follow us :