It is common knowledge that anyone, whether it is a company making a name for itself or an individual trying to market his or her talents, must have a web presence to be successful. Because most people do not know how to code HTML, there are many website building templates that have sprung up over the years to help users create and maintain custom webpages.
However, with the easy availability of customizable web templates, users are free to make design mistakes. The design mistakes that are listed below can cause the offending websites to harm the credibility of the individuals or businesses who make them.
Poor use of color
Many web designers focus too much on content without making sure that the website is easy to read. Certain text and background combinations, such as red and black, render text very difficult to read. Additionally, while color blindness only affects a small percentage of the population, it is a significant number of people who should be taken into consideration when designing your webpage. There are plenty of resources available to designers online that give advice on what color combinations are the easiest to read.
Clutter
Just as nobody wants to spend time in an overly cluttered and disorganized room, cluttered websites make people want to navigate away rather than spend time on the website. If a website visitor is greeted with too much clutter then the visitor may decide that it will take far too much time to sift through all the text and images to find what he or she originally came looking for. When designing your website, visit some of the websites for the top global corporations. You will notice that almost all successful corporate websites are sleek and uncluttered.
Poor navigation
Just as clutter can drive a visitor away from your website quickly, poorly thought-out and illogical navigation will also drive away a potential customer. If your website visitor is unable to decipher your navigation logic, then the visitor will get frustrated and go elsewhere. A logical and well thought-out navigation scheme that is simple and intuitive is essential in building a successful well designed website.
There are many navigation schemes websites can follow, and they are all different depending on the focus and complexity of the website. An example of one such navigation scheme is the “breadcrumb trail.” This approach works well for websites with many layers and clearly allows the visitor to follow his or her navigation back to previous pages without virtually getting lost.
Failure to test across browsers
As the number of web browsers multiply, many web designers make the mistake of not checking whether or not their designs work across browsers or operating systems. What looks good in Safari might not even properly load on Chrome.
Websites that work well in a Windows operating system may not even properly load on machines that run Apple or Linux operating systems. It does not take much time to make sure that your website is accessible across all web browsers and operating systems. All but the most complicated web sites should be.
Good web design does take time and work. However, the extra effort a well thought out and well designed website is ultimately going to be worth the initial investment of time upfront.
This article was contributed by Mountain View Dermatology, who specializes in skin cancer removal and varicose vein removal.
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