Like most things in life, it’s best to learn from your mistakes when it comes to web design. Even better is to learn from the mistakes of others before you have a chance to make them for yourself. The following are some of the most common design mistakes people make that can jeopardize a website’s success.
- Slow to load. Slow download times are one of the main things that drive visitors from a site. While animations, music and other graphics may seem pretty ‘cool’, if they’re sending visitors away because they’re taking too long to load, they’re worse than useless. The most successful site is a clean one that loads quickly.
- Bad navigation. Visitors to your site must be able to easily navigate through all your pages in order to find what they’re looking for. It’s very important that you have a clear and obvious link to your homepage. A site map is also essential, and a search feature can be very beneficial as well.
- Illegible text. Visitors coming to your site are seeking information, whether it’s information about you, your practice, or particular plastic surgery procedures. You must provide them with the information they need in your content, but you must also ensure that that content is in the form of easy-to-read text. It’s best to have dark text on a light background. A low contrast between text and background can be very difficult to read. The same goes for small text and text set against a busy background.
- Poor design. The design of your site must be pleasant and appealing, and that means appealing to your visitors and not just you. Certain designs – clashing colors, too many or too bright colors, too many images, messy layouts and just too much going on – are not very appealing and can be hard on the eyes.
- Lengthy pages. Pages that are overly long tend to deter visitors from reading them. It’s best to keep a page short so that a user doesn’t have to scroll down. Large pieces of content should be broken up into multiple pages.