6 things to avoid in web design!

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6 things (you might want) to avoid in web design!

There wasn't, there isn't and there will not be a perfect website design, ever! On the hand, reaching an almost perfect website design is certainly possible. In order to reach a good design, you might want to avoid some 'obstacles' on the way.

There are lots of things to avoid in web design, but I am going to go over 6 of them:

1. Pop up windows:

People tend to use pop ups for important information, why? Probably because of it's sound and meaning. 'Why not? It POPS up your face!'

Pop ups, to begin with, are meant mostly for advertisements, at least these days. And as we all know, advertisements are the least important thing when it comes to websites since about 90 to 95% percent of the time we never click them, is that correct? Now, what do you do when you see a pop up in front of your eyes loading the content in it? Do you wait for it to fully load and see what it 'has to offer', or do you close it right away because, as you know, it's just another poor and pointless advertisement? You would probably do the second choice.

I think I made my point.

2. Large/tiny text sizes, annoying fonts, and hurtful colors!

Let's make sure we understand some stuff: large texts are usually meant for important messages, titles or for some sexy and stylish typography. Small texts are normally meant to display 'sub' information about a certain blog post, news, images (like dates, number of comments made, author name) and so on. Nether options are meant to display the 2-page article you wrote last night, nor to be sending a message while hurting your visitor's eyes! Try using well noticed although not over seen text sizes. Sizes between 11-15 pixels would be perfect for the job. All this depends a lot on the kind of font you use of course.

Colors are the perfect other choice to differ main content from headings and sub information like explained above. But don't go crazy on them; try to leave it as simple as possible so you won't be called stupid (KISS)! Using lots of different colors will drive visitors away because of the complexity to read.

Stick to basic and simple design. Tip: make sure you don't use too many styles, colors and fonts. If possible, use no more than 2 different fonts, maximum 3 main colors, and maybe 2-3 different heading/title styles. In case of a rich-content websites, such as large blogs, you might want to use more styles, colors and fonts.

3. Background music

Tell me something, why are people so obsessed in putting music in their site, uh!? I would understand if music will be playing in some music or band related website, but unless these two cases, simply do not put music in your site! When not well placed in, it can take ages to load, and just imagine people with slow Internet connection, poor people.

It might sound very pleasant at start, but it reaches a point that it makes people go crazy, picture yourself entering a 10+ pages website, and every time you change the page, the song starts all over again, until after some time just the beginning of the song stays in your head for about 3 weeks, annoying isn't it? What if there is no stop button? Ouch!

4. Confusing navigation or no kind of navigation at all!

Websites are the result of a very complex code, whether it's XHTML, CSS going all the way to PHP, but not the site itself! People aren't coming to a website to start looking for a navigation, they are coming for a message, but sadly they can't find it because of the poor navigation.

If visitors feel 'trapped', they will go from the backdoor which is the back button on their browser window. Don't make them leave because of that, navigation isn't a hard thing to achieve.

Another tip: Use the number 3 as a base for different locations on your website. The message or the location your visitor is looking for shouldn't be more than 3 clicks away from the homepage. Usually, after 3 clicks, the visitor will give up and head over to another location or site, don't make them do that!

5. Overused design and graphical elements

Who doesn't like some neat graphic design on their site? Almost everyone does! But wait, not over used graphics, and especially when it isn't needed if it's not a necessary part of your main idea. Too much multimedia graphics such as huge images, flash advertisements, and other 'garbage' elements will slow your site and then someone would say to you: 'too much loading time will drive visitors away'.

6. Bad content

I can't really explain much on this topic since it's self-explanatory and a very common issue. To make it clear: poor content = poor website. If content is poor, then it's like having a website with just divs and graphics, with no content at all. 1000 affiliate links and some funny images won't help you advance your site.