Puyallup Web Design

Web design mistakes

Below we list several web design mistakes, and how to avoid them. Of course, the easiest way to avoid them is to hire us! Please keep in mind these no-nos are from a business standpoint.

1. No defined action on main page
   99% of the people that come to your web site will leave the main page within 10 seconds. You have exactly that much time to to get their attention, and tell them what your web site is about. If they can't figure out what the site is about within those 10 seconds, they'll go somewhere else. Make sure you have an action message on that main page.

2. No Organization
   Getting lost in a web site is a nightmare. Nobody likes having to go back 2 or 3 pages just to find different links. Yes, it's boring, but having a standard spot for navigation is a must, even on the most artistic sites. If you question this, ask yourself what the site is really for. Is it for your personal enjoyment or the enjoyment of the people coming to the site?

3. Fancy Fonts
   This is the most common mistake for a new designer. Fancy fonts simply don’t work for the web. Unlike desktop publishing programs, not everyone sees your web site the same way. Screen type, screen resolution, installed fonts, and more change the way every web site looks on different computers.
   For instance, let’s say you love the Beach font, but your #1 client doesn’t have that font on their computer. The web will default to a different font, which will change the whole layout of the page.
   Choose font families rather than individual fonts. Start simple; do you want serif or sans-serif fonts? Read the Wikipedia article to learn the difference (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typeface)

4. Do not overuse Flash
   Flash is cool, and the right design will look awesome on your site without raising bandwidth. But it’s very difficult to get the design just right. It takes a lot of practice. How many times have you left a site before it stopped loading because it was taking too long? Chances are, it was a Flash file.
   Never design a site in only Flash. Search engines don’t understand Flash, so you may have the best site in the world, but nobody will know about it. Worst-case, design two sites (many companies do this); one for the search engines, and one for people.

5. Spelling and Grammar Mistakes
   I don’t even want to remember how many times I’ve forgotten to spell-check a page. I’m not a bad speller at all, I just think faster than I type so I fat-finger the keys sometimes. Proof-read the page. This is so important. I’m not even typing this in a web editor; I’m using Word so I can proofread it better. Once I’m done, I’ll copy it to Dreamweaver.

6. Text images
   This is a way to get around the whole “fancy font” thing; creating images out of text. On first thought, it sounds like a great idea, but it’s really a disaster. Like Flash designs, search engines don’t understand images, so they discount them. You can use the alt tag to help with this, but it doesn’t do a lot. Plus, images load slower than text, so it will make the load time on your page much slower.

7. Background Music
   I tell my clients to NEVER use background music. Yes, it’s cool and fun and you get to put your own flavor into the web site. Imagine, for a minute, the person sitting in a cubicle in a large office building though. She hits that site, but her speakers are on loud for some reason, and the music blares out. Everyone is disrupted, and she will most likely never go back to that site.
   Or, what if the person coming to the site doesn’t like that particular music? Unless you are promoting that music, or that style, don’t use it. It’s simply not worth it.

8. Frames
   I love frames. They are difficult to set up correctly and break easily, but when they work right, they are just the butter on my toast. Never use them.
   There are so many problems with framed web sites, I don’t even know where to start.
   Search engines don’t understand frames, so your framed page may be shown on it’s own from a search. If you have your navigation in a separate frame, the person coming to your site has no way of navigating (see #2 above). Or, if your business logo is in a separate top frame (also very common), the person who goes straight to the middle frame won’t even know what site they’re on (see #1 above).

9. Bad coloring
   Learn web-safe colors. Let me say that again, learn web-safe colors. Beige text on a mauve background may look good to you, but there are only 216 “web safe” colors. Like fancy fonts (#3 above), the web may change the beige to yellow, and the mauve to red. Now you have yellow text on a red background. Yuck!

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