Web design is a flick industry. Just like every other form of artistic expression, web design has undergone a continuous and surprisingly fast evolution. Once a playground for enthusiasts, it has now become a mature rich medium with strong aesthetic and functional appeal. In fact, we are experiencing what could be the golden era of web design, or at least the best period thus far. We have powerful new tools at are disposal, an excess of freely available resources, a strong design community and also reliable support of web standards in the major browsers.
There are several mistakes that web designers do while web designing. If the designers do not commit these mistakes, then the web designs look great. Some of them are as follows:
- Bad search – overly literal search engines reduce usability in that they are unable to handle typos, plurals, hyphens, and other variants of the query terms. Such search engines are particularly difficult for elder users, but they hurt everybody.
- PDF files for online reading – users hate coming across a PDF file while browsing, because it breaks their flow. Even simple things like printing or saving documents are difficult because standard browsers commands do not work. Layouts are often optimized for a sheet of paper, which rarely matches the size of the user’s browser window. Worst of all, PDF is an undifferentiated blob of content that is hard to navigate. PSD is great for printing and for distributing manuals and other big documents that need to be printed.
- Not changing the color of visited links – a good grasp of past navigation helps you understand your current location, since it is the culmination of your journey. Knowing your past and present locations in turn makes it easier to decide where to go next. Links are a key factor in this navigation process. Users can exclude links that prove fruitless in their earlier visits.
- Non scan able text – a wall of text is deadly for an interactive experience. It is intimidating, boring and painful to read.
- Fixed font size – CSS styles sheets unfortunately give websites the power to disable a web browser’s “change font size” button and specify a fixed font size
- Page titles with low search engine visibility – search is the most important way users discover websites. Search is also one of the most important ways users find their around individual websites. The humble page title is your main tool to attract new visitors from search listings and to help your existing users to locate the specific pages that they need.
- Anything that looks like an advertisement – selective attention is very powerful, and web users have learned to stop paying attention to any ads that get in the way of their goal driven navigation. Unfortunately users also ignore legitimate design elements that look like prevalent forms of advertising.
By correcting these blunders one can make an attractive and creative web design that can get attention o f the web surfers.