10 fails of web design that you need to know

Ready to design your beautiful-looking, high-speed website? Here are some important things you should and shouldn’t do.

by Natko Radmilovic - Art Director
10 fails of web design that you need to know

10 fails of web design that you need to know

As the world ushers in the New Year, it’s time to design (or redesign) your website. This will not only make your business online, but also help you stand out from the crowd. On top of that, website designing is important when it comes to meeting the ever-changing needs of your online customers, especially the ones related to the ongoing crisis.

Before you start designing your website with the help of a creative web design agency in Melbourne, you should know the fails and grails of web design. In other words, you need to familiarise yourself with the following dos and don’ts of the web design industry.

1. Do focus on the user interface (UI)

Your UI is probably the first thing that defines your website. In fact, it is what visitors usually judge when they land on your website. So, do your best to draw their attention through your user interface. Create an engaging and clear interface that includes great typography for important headings, colour schemes and typefaces. Make sure your fonts, colours are always consistent throughout the entire website.

2. Don’t skip to map out the customer journey

Before you start building your business website, you need to define your customer buying journey. Since the whole purpose of your website is to sell products and services, be sure to map out how you are going to lead visitors from point A to point B. Keep your target audience in mind while laying the foundation of your website. The best thing you can do is, be in your customer’s shoes and walk through their journey as they browse your web pages.

3. Make your website easy to navigate

Website navigation is directly proportional to usability. When your website is easy to navigate, your visitors can find what they’re looking for without struggling. So, create your navigation in such a way that it gets visitors where they want to go with the least number of clicks possible. Remember the three-click rule and use clear and visible labels for navigation options.

4. Don’t sacrifice usability for the sake of beauty

You want your website to look beautiful and appealing. That’s great! However, don’t sacrifice usability for the sake of appearance. For instance, using too many colours or fonts is only going to overwhelm users. These elements may seem tempting at first glance, but they often affect website usability as well as navigation. So, it is better to choose a consistent web design that highlights the key points of your webpages.

5. Optimise your website for speed

Speed matters in the digital world of web design. If your website loads slowly, it will have a huge impact on your SEO and conversion rate. That’s why it’s important to optimise your page loading speed. Resize your images, minimise add-on scripts, watch the number of fonts you are using and optimise the most important web pages. Also, make use of browser caching to store static files, such as media files, HTML documents, etc.

6. Don’t forget to optimise for mobile users

Visitors come to your website from various devices, including desktops, tablets, smartphones, etc. So, a big part of your web design journey is to ensure that all vital information should be displayed correctly on different screen sizes. Invest your time and money in responsive design, so your potential customers don’t bounce away. This could be done by optimising your website with the help of an experienced web design agency in Melbourne.

7. Check all your links

When visitors are searching for your website content, they want every link to land them where it says it will. They easily become frustrated when they click a link and receive a 404 error in response. In other words, they just hate broken, slow and incomplete links. That’s one of the reasons why some websites have high bounce and slow conversion rates.

8. Don’t use too many images

Chances are, using too many visuals will crowd out your brand message. Instead, consider using them sparingly to create a positive impact on the user’s mind. Keep in mind that search engines aren’t able to read images very well. Therefore, don’t count on them to convey text. Also, large images slow down your website. So, try to keep them under 1 MB, especially when you are using background images.

9. Internet of things

It’s not enough for your website to look beautiful and load fast; you also need to test it for any bugs or errors. The best thing you can do is to get feedback from real users. Keep your eyes on web analytics. Also, use multiple devices and tools to navigate your website and figure out different scenarios, so you can catch performance issues before visitors do.

10. Don’t underestimate (or overestimate) white space

As the name suggests, white space is all about balancing the text-free parts of your website. You can use it to indicate a switch or separate your content. Also, it’s a great way to highlight your most important web design elements, such as your CTA. Keep in mind that too much white space can make a web page appear empty and too little can make it appear cluttered. So, follow a balanced approach.

Wrapping up

There you have it – a list of things you should and shouldn’t do when it comes to web designing. Hope you find these tips useful. To learn more about web design, get in touch with our web design company in Melbourne.
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