Jacob Nielsen, a world-famous usability consultant, has published a list of top ten mistakes in web design. The list is constantly updated and supplemented with new mistakes, but old mistakes do not disappear.
We offer you to get acquainted with the list of web design mistakes which still can be frequently met in design of modern websites.
Legibility problems (illegible text). Too small or too large frozen font size prevents visitors of websites from perceiving information. Low contrast between background and letters makes the text illegible. Bright acid colors and color combinations irritate the eyes.
Non-standard links. It is a quite widespread mistake which includes different violations. Among them we can name non-standard setting off or, on the contrary, absence of setting of hyperlinks in the text. Ungrounded abundance of JavaScript or other fancy techniques in links complicates indexing of the site and prevents website promotion. The link should explain clearly what users will find at its other end, lead exactly to the page it indicates and, of course, it should be working!
Flash techniques on the site. The site owners used to be fond of flash banners and other flash elements on their websites. Today the popularity of flash has somewhat decreased, and flash techniques have become more developed and progressive. That is why this mistake is not so disastrous for web design of sites anymore. However one should remember that search engines still recognize flash not quite well so they are not able to index the site properly. We use Flash only in case if it is really necessary.
Outdated content on the site. Modern content management systems make update of content on a site considerably easier: you do not have to edit the html code of the page manually to change its content. It would seem that sites will update more frequently. However quite often a picture of desolation rises before our eyes when we visit some websites: news blocks of sites contain news published two years ago. You can also observe reverse situation when outdated content is replaced by new articles and news so quickly that visitors can overlook important news or events. A well-structured news archive on a website is absolutely necessary in conditions of WEB 2.0. Structure of the site is thought out at the initial stage when website promotion has not been carried out yet. It helps to avoid appearance of dead links in search engines index.
Inadequate image sizes. The speed of Internet access increases, and a lot of site owners upload large (and very large!) images and photos on their websites. However excessive size of photos and images slows down the loading of the site. The solution is to use reduced images and photos, the so-called thumbnails. Thus you offer your visitors the ability to enlarge photos and images for a close-up view. However it is a mistake when sites let users enlarge photos, but only by a fraction. It is often best to offer an enlargement that fills up the most common screen size used by your customers.
Bad search. Bad organization of search in conditions of information richness of the site is a big oversight. Search is a fundamental component of the Web user experience; when you offer your customers bad search – you lose them.
Cumbersome forms. Web forms for information input should contain correct names of entry fields and give everyone to understand what information he should enter. Complicated registration forms are already out of fashion, besides, Internet users appreciate confidentiality on the Internet. That is why you must not make fields mandatory until they truly are. Avoid too big forms which feature too many unnecessary options and questions.
Slow page loading. Users become more and more demanding and impatient. Pages of the site should load in seconds because no one waits for a longer period than a minute. This fact constrains the use of certain web techniques and sets mandatory requirements concerting graphics optimization.
New windows. The use of target="_blank" for internal page linking is absolutely unacceptable because the user can open the link in a new window himself using the contextual menu.
Aggressive animation on the site. Animation on the site is associated with annoying advertising, that is why it is often ignored and blocked. Therefore we avoid excessive animation while developing web design.
If you want design of your site to correspond to the rules of usability and be convenient for the visitors, you can order web design in web studio WebStudio2U right now!
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