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Home >> Knowledge Base >>Web Designer mistakes to avoid
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WEBSITE DESIGN MISTAKES TO AVOID
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Everyone makes mistakes, but mistakes can be
avoided. Even in website designing.
New website designers and developers
are the main culprits behind these mistakes
but seasoned professionals do find
themselves committing these
“crimes” as well. What are
these
common website design mistakes
and how can they be avoided?
We’ve compiled the
top website design mistakes
committed in website designing and
developing. Keep this as a reminder of
what not to be done, you can even print and
frame it, if you like.
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Never leave your documents untitled and do
not use the same title for all your pages.
Avoid using non-descriptive titles as
well. Page titles are being crawled by
search engines and leaving your documents
untitled, or using the same or non
descriptive titles can reduce your chances
of being discovered. And for this
reason, never name your page titles with low
search engine visibility words.
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Avoid duplicating meta tags across all your
pages. Keep it varied for every page
or do not use them at all. Also do not
forget to create an index (index.html,
index.htm, index.php, default.htm) page in
the root directory unless you want your
visitors to see an error message on their
screens.
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A disorganized file structure will make
updating or redesigning difficult.
Also, avoid uploading non-web files as
these eat up web space and take forever to
upload. Always store your source files
in a separate folder outside your local web
folder.
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There are also numerous mistakes done that
looks awkward when viewed on the browser,
such as “under construction”
page that’s been up for longer than a
month. If the page isn’t ready
to post, then remove it. NEVER use
frames and avoid horizontal scrolling.
Keep scanning your website for
worthless, out of date and excessively long
content. Always keep in mind to unify
the look of all your pages, and do not
“orphan” pages - link them at
all times or they’ll be lost in
cyberspace forever.
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Not changing the color of visited links will
confuse your visitors. Other mortal
sins of website design and development are
pages with no navigation, broken links,
hidden links and false links. Avoid
moving menus and inconsistent navigation.
Familiarity is key to great user
interface.
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The headline and body text is also not
spared from mistakes. Never restyle
text to substitute a heading tag and avoid
using heading tags for design. Using
images for text is also a grave sin - images
can’t be crawled by search engines.
Avoid justified types and use
<p> instead of <br><br/>.
Avoid using very small type sizes and
colors that are not contrasting. Limit
your fonts to only three types and always,
always check for
typos and grammatical errors.
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Never forget to tag your images and refrain
from using jigsaw graphics as each slice
requires an extra call to the server.
Do not resize your images on the
browser, do this step using an image editing
program. Do not forget the most common
image format types for use on the web; use
the appropriate format for specific
instances.
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Nothing takes the joy out of browsing than
advertising banners - stop using animated
banner advertisements and pop-ups - the
latter is usually viewed as a viral threat
or a Trojan. Go easy on the flash, not
only does it take longer to load but people
usually skip it. Having too many
animated or flashing elements on one page
can annoy your visitors, it can possibly
cause seizures too.
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Never design a page that’s bigger than the
standard screen resolution, it will only
make your design awkward and ridiculous.
Keep background music muted...no one
wants to be startled with blaring sound when
the page loads. Always have a start and stop
button if the site you have is about music.
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And finally, the gravest of sins designers
and developers make often involves making
contact with their visitors. Never
forget to place means of contacting you on
the website - email addresses, telephone
numbers and even social networking profiles
could work. Email links are a total
web design fail especially if they do not
support the service you use. And
finally, never ever forget to respond to
contacts, they took the time to visit you,
return the courtesy with a prompt reply.
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