No matter how experienced they are, web designers are still capable of making mistakes from time to time. To be honest, this just shows that they are indeed human and there are numerous occasions where the errors can be attributed to just a number of relatively common mistakes. However, for anybody that is involved in the industry, it makes a lot of sense to just educate yourself on the main errors that occur so you can then take the appropriate action to avoid them.
So, that being said, let us begin.
1. Not Being Economical in Your Business
Things like domains and web hosting are expensive, and too often web designers will create websites for their clients and pay top dollar for it. For one, you can get a domain name for under a dollar for most registrars, and even thetop 10 rated companies for hosting charge under $5/month.
But you just pass that expense down to your client? First off, overcharging your client is a quick way to lose clients, and secondly: you could still charge them the ‘rip-off’ hosting rates you were originally charging, and then spend a fraction of that on the website itself. It makes no sense to intentionally pay more when you don’t have to.
2. Issues with Color and Contrast.
If you are a designer and you are unaware of the color theory concept, then web design is going to become rather difficult. If the color combinations are unable to work in harmony, then it is going to make the website tough to read. If this is the case, then visitors will give up in next to no time and go elsewhere rather than try to wade through this website that is hurting their vision.
Different colors reflect different meanings. Red is seen as being passionate whereas blue is more calming. If you use the wrong colors then it can give the wrong impression of a site and that issue if further exacerbated when you use colors together that just do not work.
Avoid trying to be too complex with colors and use online tools if you are having problems.
3. Using Heavy Images.
It used to be the case that Flash animation was the coolest thing out, but that is no longer the case. Using animation and heavy images might sound as if it is amazing but the reality is that it makes a website heavy and slower to load. We are using smartphones and tablets to access the Internet more and more and when you put this alongside the simple fact that people are unwilling to wait for a website to load, then using these options is a recipe for disaster.
Having these large images or trying to effectively show off with complex animation is something that should really be avoided. Keep the design as lightweight as you can as it will provide a better experience for the visitors.
4. The Website is Not a Responsive Design.
It is absolutely essential that every single website now has a responsive design. This basically means that people will be able to view it without any issues on any device whether it be a desktop, laptop, tablet, or smartphone.
This is effectively professional suicide especially when the number of people that visit websites on devices other than computers is growing. If they are unable to load a website or view it without any issues then of course they will just click off and go elsewhere.
Failure to produce a responsive design should never happen. If it does then something has gone awry.
Tutorials on how to make your website responsive:
http://1stwebdesigner.com/responsive-website-tutorial/
5. A Chaotic Layout.
The first mistake that we are going to look at is the concept of the chaotic layout. This can often be the result of the client wanting to have far too much on the home page whereas an experienced designer should be aware that a messy and cluttered page is not good design.
A chaotic layout makes the page look as if it is just not organized and the visitor just has no idea where to look first. With this, it is all too common for the visitor to just click off the page and go elsewhere simply because their eyes and brain are unable to absorb everything that has just been thrown at them.
Keep the layout simple, clean and effective.
Sites with terrible layouts:
http://www.gatesnfences.com/
http://wholesalemeatscoventry.co.uk/
6. Not Testing the Website Before it is Live.
Finally, and this has to be the worst one of all, is when a web designer fails to effectively test the website on various browsers and formats before it goes live. Just because it works well on Chrome does not mean that it works well on Firefox for example and that is going to make the website look a real mess.
A good designer should have tested the site extensively before it is made live. It should be checked in Beta mode on every browser as well as via Android and iOS phones and tablets to be absolutely certain that there are no issues whatsoever.
Now, we are not saying that these are the only mistakes that a web designer is likely to make as that is certainly not the case. However, they are huge errors that no designer should be guilty of making because if they do, then the impact it has on the website is absolutely massive.