Channel Dynamics
Everyone who uses the internet has a list of things they hate to see when they visit any website. While there is a vast amount of information on how to create a great website that can be easily found, it seems incredible that some web designers still insist on using the elements that will make every visitor click the back button instantly with the intention of never visiting that site ever again.
Every year, big-name websites are drawing up the list of the top 10 worst things in web design that everyone should avoid because they bring more harm than good. And each year, the Internet is flooded with new websites that make the same old mistakes. After conducting extensive research among website visitors, here is our list of the top 10 mistakes in web design:
Using Pop-up Ads
If you think that Pop-ups are a great idea to advertise, please type in your search engine “I hate pop-ups” or simply visit this link. There are tens of millions of articles and surveys that say the same thing: visitors hate Pop-ups. What is surprising is the fact that some designers still believe that bombing a visitor with Pop-ups is a great way to increase sales. In fact, the only thing that Pop-ups increase is the blood pressure of your, soon to be ex, visitors.
Animated Flash pages
Ok, let´s assume that most people come to your website looking for information about a product or a service that you offer. Why would you want to “attack” them with flash animation instead of giving them the information that they need? Research has shown that you have as low as 10 seconds to provoke interest in your visitor that will make them stay away from the “close tab” button. Why spend that time on animations that are irrelevant and require high-memory usage? High-speed Internet is everywhere, but there are still some visitors who have slow connections and spending 5 minutes to wait for your website to load is not an option for them.
Horizontal scrolling
If the text on a website demands scrolling left and right in order to read the entire line, it comes as a result of one specific thing: bad design. We were certain that this mistake was a thing of the past. Apparently, it is not.
Long load time
Slow loading time is one of the biggest problems of most commercial sites. When customers browse the contents of the pages looking for a product that they are ready to buy, waiting for a page to load can sometimes seem like an eternity. Many visitors at this time lose their nerves and just go to an alternative site, often your competitor’s one. Common causes of this problem are low-quality web hosting, too many graphics, non-optimized graphics and bad coding. Find the problem and solve it, or find someone who can.
Banner overload
Occasionally users might encounter a commercial website with 20 banners. OK, congratulations on your collaboration with so many other sites but a limit must exist. It probably isn’t your intention to confuse your visitors but using banners in this way will never leave the impression of professionalism.
Bad grammar
Do you know the difference between “their” and “they´re”? Most people know the difference mainly because it is essential grammar and because of the fact that mistakes like this tend to go viral on social networks. Why risk losing your reputation and professionalism over some typos?
Animated movable objects
“Cool” flash banners and dancing graphics could seem like a great approach if your visitors are 8-years old. However, when everybody is talking about premium and quality content, it is obvious that visitors want websites that aren’t full of this type of visuals.
Background music
We are sure that you have an excellent taste in music. But we are even more sure that there are those who do not share your taste. Visitors in most cases do not expect and do not want music to auto-play on a website. It is also worth noting that background music is also a heavy-loader, consumes bandwidth, and the player can be a significant burden on older computers.
No contact info or outdated info
Your visitor is searching all over your website and is ready to contact you to make a purchase but there is no contact form. Or even worse, you have changed the phone number but the old one is still present on your website. Visitors need to have some way to contact you easily, even if it is simply an email address.
No navigation support
Never assume that your visitors are aware of technical design or that they know your website as well as you do. Most of your visitors are newcomers and they will have difficulty finding information if there is no navigation support. Inserting a site map is not a difficult process but it can prove very helpful to your visitors.
We hope that your website will never fall into these pitfalls that can do easily ruin a user’s experience. It is amazing to know how often these mistakes are made by designers and how sites that could be effective and interesting are suffering just because of simple mistakes that are easy to resolve. If you want to know more about effective UX then we suggest you take a look at our post on the benefits of user centred design.
If many of these issues sound familiar or you have found some of the worst web offenders online then get in contact and let us know on Twitter at @Channel DynamicsLondon and make sure you follow us for more UI and UX tips while you are there.
