Top Web Design Don'ts

The most common things that can turn people away from your website

 
Intro Pages

These just add another click for your customers, the vast majority of whom will be just looking for the skip button to get to the information on your website.

 

Animation

There is nothing more distracting then animations flying all over a website. If you do wish to use animation keep it simple and limit it to mouseover effects or allow your customers to control if they view it or not.

 

Sound

Your customers may be in a public place, at work, their family could be sleeping... The last thing you want to do is cause someone to hit the back button due to their computer sound system leaping into action! If you must use sound make it your customer's choice to listen.

 

Fussy Backgrounds

If you have your content directly on top of a fussy background it becomes a lot harder to read. Make sure there is enough contrast between the background and the text – if in doubt remove the background.

 

Frames

Don't use them! Your customers won't be able to bookmark pages within your website, search engines don't like them and customers entering your website on a sub-page may find themselves without any navigation!

 

Confusing Navigation

  • Drop down menus that require exact mouse positioning and disappear if you don't quite get it right
  • Expanding menus that change the position of the mouse
  • Menu systems that move

All the above will serve to confuse your customers. Keep your navigation consistent and easy to use.

 

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About the Author

This article was written by Sadie Knight of Glassraven web design, Coventry. The full series of articles is available on the Glassraven website.

Glassraven, established in February 2002, are specialists in web design, ecommerce web design and bespoke web development.

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