I originally planned to write about a website, or review it here. However, I thought I could achieve more by talking about some bad web design techniques that everyone has committed at one point or another.And that’s five common mistakes that web designers make that actually drives away customers from their clients and, ironically, drives away additional clients.
- Opening Splash Pages. I used to do this a lot, but I’ve learned my lesson. Splash pages often come with long load times and limit customer interaction. Often they include some movie clip or animation you can’t bypass until it is done. I would say you have about 10 seconds to let a customer know who you are and what you do. Splash pages don’t let you do that.
Content does. When a customer asks for a splash page, I ask them why. The general response back is “I want to impress the customer.” which is true, you always want to impress them. However, intro splash pages are not the way to do that. The effective way of impressing a customer is showing them a page with content that talks about what you do online and what your business is. Nothing long, but something clear and direct. I often make the argument “Why don’t we put this page as the home page” to customers who want splash pages. The page I suggest in question is normally the main page of the site. If it is a car dealership, clearly the inventory and blurbs about the dealership goes first. If it is a resort, information about rates, services, and reviews should go first and so forth. - Special Web Plugins/Features. Flash is a great tool, but easily used for evil. Flash pages being the chief offender. A number of other special web plugins as well can undermine a customer’s faith in your ability as a web designer. I always question my friends who design solely in flash about “What happens if the user doesn’t have flash installed?” which normally drives away a user from a website and to a competitor. The question is compounded if the plugin is an obscure one. Stupid little gimmick features break websites and broken websites turn people off. It also turns off search engines further damaging a website’s future.
- Mystery Meat Navigation. Also known as “where the F**k is the page I need” syndrome or difficult navigation system disorder. This is commonly caused by overly-artistic web designers and over zealous creative clients seeking to stand out. This style of navigation confuses and confounds visitors from its crazy terminology. Search engines get confused to, not knowing the contact page from the about page from the services pages. Keep navigation as simple as possible and there is no way you can go wrong!
- Contact information. Florida government websites are, by in large, the most confusing of all as they lack clear contact information. Try to file a health complaint in Orange County Florida online, I dare you! But there is no excuse for not having a business mailing address, phone, and contact email on every page of your site. Think about it, this is pretty simple here. If your client’s email or phone number isn’t on the website…. how does your client’s visitors get in touch with them?
- Not Listening. Few web designers actually do listen to their testers. I have some good friends from a variety of interests and tastes who I show my new websites to for testing. I listen to my clients extensively. A web designer who doesn’t listen to feedback from their clients isn’t designing a website for their client. This is the worst of mistakes. It can lead to bad designing, bad information, and pissing off the customer.
Now I’m gonna add more to this list over time, but there is my top 5 mistakes you make on websites.
