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Web Design Taboos to Avoid

By: Nicole Serrano

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Web Design

26 Dec 2017

“Design is not what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” – Steve Jobs


 

Why is Web Design Important?

Good web design does not only refer to how attractive the website looks like; it should deliver good user experience and achieve successful conversions. A website is one of the most important platforms used to generate a good online presence, so it is imperative that it is designed with the usability and credibility in mind.

Ideally, web design and web development should go hand in hand and fulfill both the criteria of functionality and aesthetics. Users are becoming less tolerant towards poorly designed websites, as it affects their opinions towards your brand, including their decision-making process. Web visitors will subconsciously judge your credibility based on your web design. Applying the study that a website has only 8 seconds to secure the visitors’ interest, if it does not pique their curiosity and does not exude professionalism, then you will lose your potential customers.

A good design should be pleasing to the eyes and has a definitive layout that is easy to navigate with, that potential customers can easily find what they’re looking for in the first place.

 

Here are the top 5 taboos to avoid when designing your website:

Anything Created Using Adobe Flash

We’ve said this before and we’re repeating ourselves again – Flash is a thing of the past. It takes up a huge chunk of space that greatly increases the loading time of your website. According to KISSmetrics’ study, 47% of visitors will only wait up to 2 seconds for a web page to load and will leave if it takes more than that.

In addition to that, Flash requires to be installed and not everyone will be willing to download the Flash player just to view your content. Because of this inconvenience, they would rather look elsewhere, – leading to a missed opportunity for your brand. Thus, do remember to leave Flash out of your web application development.

 

Auto-Play of Videos and Audios

Long gone is the era when it was trendy to have music playing in the background once you enter a website, nor is it impressive now for pop-up ads to unexpectedly play all of a sudden. These will just irritate and turn off your visitors causing them to leave in an instant, and will only serve as a distraction from the message you are trying to convey. Moreover, it will slow down your web page’s loading time.

 

Fancy and Unreadable Fonts

The idea is to reassure your website’s viewers that you are reliable and professional, not to convince them that you’re wildly artistic. There’s no point in having good content if viewers can’t read them anyway. Make sure that everything is easily readable so you can deliver the message you want to convey clearly to all potential customers. You only have a limited amount of time to get them interested, so make the most of it.

 

Using Harsh Colors

Each color has a corresponding meaning and representation that speaks to our subconscious minds. It is thus vital to think through carefully about what colors to use and the proper color combination that is both visually appealing and emotionally effective.

Bright colors may be eye-catching, but they can be annoying and distracting when not strategically used. Design your color palette with your brand’s objectives in mind – taking into consideration what looks good and what emotions you want to invoke from viewers. Color combinations can make or break a brand’s credibility.

 

Horizontal Scrolling

Most of the screen resolution nowadays is at 1024 x 768 px, hence horizontal scrolling tends to be intolerable for most of your site visitors. People would usually ignore sections that would require them to scroll more to the right, leading to unnoticed content. The same thing goes for those websites that haven’t upgraded theirs to a responsive design yet, as they come off as unprofessional, outdated, and unreliable.

Responsive design is the framework approach that uses a multiple fluid grid layout where your website automatically reformats itself to fit whatever device is currently being used. Mobile users tend to avoid websites that are difficult to navigate with, so make sure to upgrade to a responsive website, if you still haven’t yet. If you are facing technical problems, our web developers in Singapore can help you out. 

 

A good and effective web design should be visually attractive, easy to navigate with, and fulfills its purpose in leading potential customers down to your sales funnel. Web designers should keep a checklist on what and what not to do when it comes to crafting a website. By knowing these taboos, you would know what to avoid and improve if you plan to get a website for your company or revamp your old one.

 

Interested in what we have to offer for you and your brand?
Engage our web design services and give us a call at +65 6841 1680 to schedule a FREE consultation. Don’t worry, coffee’s on us!

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