To err is human; we have all gone through that “Oops” moment, where we recheck our web design and explore the mistakes we have committed. No, it’s not about minute mistakes like a misplaced comma. Here we are talking about a stupendous, “how-can-I-do-this” kind of design gaffe.
Here we will cover some of the most common mistakes and the best ways to prevent them in the design process.
1. Overlooking The Power Of Grids
You’ve invested several hours into devising a plan for your web design, sketched it out on paper and contrived a proper execution, and then just dispersed everything down randomly for organization or scale. Visual consistency is essential; it lets users easily navigate from section to section on your site. Even with the most well-planned concept, your website will hang on a trembling skeleton, if designed without grid.
The fix:
Dwell over your early designs and make small refinements to integrate the grid. It may demand a great deal of effort and might be best fixed with a complete website redesign. Designing a web page using a grid can make a big impact on everything from the typography to white space, to the image size.
2. Avoiding Colors or Typography Palette
The fix:
It is not difficult if your website has been online for quite some time. Firstly, determine a defined palette for your website and typography. Choose 1-3 colors and fonts that you will be applying to your website design. After determining the rules, you can swap styles in the CSS using the desired color and font groupings for your website that will immediately appear more professional and systematized.
3. Using A Theme As Is
When you don’t have a lot of time and money, using a theme can be the best option, as it comes with pre-built website elements required for a website to run efficiently. You can get different premium themes and UI kits online to launch your website without any ado, but make sure that you are applying a theme as it is and call a halt. Doing this will lead you to a website that looks exactly like others created on the same theme.
The fix:
When working with a premium theme, you can get access to a collection of tools effective in creating a web design customized to your unique needs. Search helpful toolkits to change color and typography. With such features, you can effortlessly build and revise whenever you want to give your website a fresh look.
4. Using Low Quality Images
The fix:
A good website has good images as an essential part of its design. Lacking quality images means that you need to:
• Get help from a photographer or designer to create customized pictures.
• Create dominant “art” by yourself using color and typography.
• Use high quality stock images.
5. Complex Navigation
What experience your website visitors are going to have on your website depends much on your website navigation. A simple and streamlined navigation is important for a website. Exhibiting a number of options in drop downs and different levels is too much to grasp at an instant for the time-pressed users of these days.
The fix:
Give your menus an afterthought. It is not necessary to include all web pages in the navigational structure. Your website’s navigation needs to be comprised of clearly labeled primary pages using an understandable click pattern. If your website is stacked with content, you can use a second level of navigation or a sidebar comprising of links and related pages as your site’s secondary page structure.
6. Sluggish Website
Time is money. There is no room for slow websites on the World Wide Web. Upon landing on these websites, people feel frustrated and often escape even without clicking or following any actions. The same goes for the landing page, as well as the inner web pages.
The fix:
Slow loading websites can be tougher to fix. While you are fixing this issue, consider an engaging animation to entertain your website visitors while the page is loading. Besides this, dig deeper into the main cause of the issue. Keep your images and videos optimized; give your code a good and clean look.
To wrap up
Rather than brooding over the possible mistake on your website, you also have to consider the ways in which you can make your website experience better. In order to prevent the common web design mistakes, look at your website while putting yourself in the shoes of your visitors. Focus on what frustrates your audience the most, and then devise the best practices to counter these problems for your projects.
At times, the solutions are simple and easy to apply; while sometimes, they can be quite complex and time-consuming. You may also find yourself in scenarios where the proper redesign will be the only solution. So consider tiny changes as you are designing your website, or you can create a temporary page to satisfy the needs of your users.