Sometimes the smallest snafus can lead to disastrous problems in web design. Being in the Salisbury web design business for over ten years helps you avoid these little trips, however being able to identify some of these problems yourself can help you identify a strongly designing website from one that could leave a bad impression on potential customers or clients.
1. Poor navigation
Imagine a map with street names missing or only printed once along the whole road. Unless you've been there before your probably going to get lost and exactly the same applies to a website. Your users need to know how to get around and poor navigation for new visitors usually means one thing, a bounced visitor.
By having well designed navigation, users get to the pages either they want to go to, or you want them to go to and hopefully both.
Common examples of this include excessive use of hover menus, poor contrasting between the menu and the rest of the page and flash menus.
2. Unnoticeable hyperlinks
Ten years ago hyperlinks were simple, they were blue and underlined, however this is far from the case now.
The basic principal is hyperlinks must be noticeable, whether the user has perfect vision, is colour blind or visually impaired, the link must stand out.
Another important factor, as stated by Microsoft is that “users must be able to recognise links by visual inspection along – they shouldn't have to hover over an object or lick to determine if it is a link”[1].
Just make sure it contrasts, and contrasts well, as explained in the next point.
3. Poor colour combinations
This is something that pre-dates websites completely, the simple question of does this colour go with this?
It's up to you what colour combinations you like, its a preference, however there are some colour combinations that just cannot be used and with scientific reason to back this up.
Why is this text difficult to look at for a long time? Certain combinations of colours, most commonly, red and blue, green and red and blue and grey cause discomfort when reading, due to Chromostereopsis[2] and without going into a physics lesson, it effectively appears that the two colours clash.
Good colour contrasts include blue on white, white on black, and our favourite, orange on black.
4. Static websites
While not technically a design error, more of an error during design. Having a static website usually means once the website is finished, to make changes, its going to cost you money. This can be a mistake which sometimes lead to huge costs.
If you have a website where the content changes frequently, then static websites are definitely the wrong choice.
We offer fully dynamic website design in Salisbury using our own custom bespoke CMS (content management system) which allows you to change the content of your site, whenever you want and with ease.
5. Cross-browser compatibility
Finally, one of the oldest questions in website design, “what will it look like in this browser?”. Cross-browser compatibility is extremely important for your website. Too many people still use archaic browsers, however you still need to get your content to these visitors.
Only 0.5% of people in the UK still use Internet Explorer 6[3] however if your website is pulling in five thousand unique visitors a month then 25 of these visitors might not be able to view your website at all.
Your website should at least work in Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Opera.
We develop for all current browsers and usually go back to Internet Explorer 8 however if you require a website to work in older browsers such as Internet Explorer 6 we are more than happy to implement this for you. We also strongly recommend you to update your browser to the latest version, to make sure your getting the most out of websites your visiting. Visit this website to check.
To conclude
Have a look at your website and go through these points, you could be losing out on customers or clients without knowing.
We are Webbed Feet UK, offering web design Salisbury deserves. If you have any questions about your website design or any enquiries in general, please visit our contact page for more information.
[1] http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa511483.aspx