Ten Common Mistakes of Web Design in 2008
08 July, 2008
Aashish Solanki, Founder, Soon to be launched design studio1. Crappy form designs.
One of the biggest turn offs for any user is forms! Cut down on extra fields; let the user fill them later in his profile if he wishes to not right in the first go! Highlight clearly the optional and required fields. Also mention the privacy policy you follow. This builds up user trust and experience.
A very good article you must see here.
Read a very good pdf here.
2. Overdone layouts. Confusion while choosing between fluid and fixed.
Simplicity is the key to gaining pleasant user experience. Do not complicate simple tasks such as contact, navigation, products/services, and login. Choose the right experience – flash / static pages / dynamic or a CMS?
Also another very important aspect usually neglected is choosing between fluid vs fixed layout. Usually a content rich site is fluid and a personal/corporate site goes well with a fixed layout. Judge carefully what YOU can pull off!
CSS Layouts - http://layouts.ironmyers.com/
3. Inconsistent color schema, color palette undefined.
Uneven use of colors gives a disturbed user experience. A website should reflect an integrated environment and different sections of the site should belong to the same family. Keep your logo as the most important standpoint of your site and follow a strict color palette.
Life can be simple using http://www.colorlovers.com , http://www.kuler.adobe.com
4. Unreadable and cluttered text.
Brilliant content, great design but cluttered typography! Typography can make or break your entire site. Select carefully the font and their sizes for various headings, tags, paragraph text. Font size should never go below 9px-10px. This is the effective threshold for human readability. Use white spaces around text for better readability and composure.
Fall in love with TEXT @ http://www.ilovetypography.com
5. Separating SEO from Design and Development.
A lot of times design, dev and SEO are seen as three different phases all together. I believe that SEO has to begin right with the design and development. For eg: Using appropriate Image names, Use of [h1] tags effectively so on and so forth. Give due importance to it while laying out your project plan.
Loads to learn @ http://www.forums.digitalpoint.com
6. No browser and resolutions compatibility.
This is the biggest pain that a designer or a developer has to go through. Call it the ‘Labour pain of Web –Design!’
IE inherently does not support a lot of CSS and JavaScript’s hacks making our lives complicated. With no good parallel for ‘firebug’ extension on other browsers consistency goes for a toss. Also make sure to test the site in wide screen monitors. During development make sure you have the site tested on top 4 browsers and top 6 resolutions. Avoid ignoring sets of users based on your clever understanding of site analytics!
Try using IE developer toolbox.
7. Trying hard to be web 2.0 and user generated content.
I really wonder if we all need so much of so called user generated content at every other place. Be very clear why UGC on your portal / site is required. Never succumb to it just because everybody else is doing it. Also certain ‘web 2.0ish’ fundas don’t really go well with what you want to communicate at times! On a lighter note, excellent example of effective site with no web 2.0 – http://www.indianrail.gov.in
8.Design Imbalance due to uneven flow of layout.
Subtle yet important! A design has to be balanced and consistent. The icons, typography, navigation, interactions and all other elements need to ‘belong’. Simple things like use same Font Family, a same icon family, use of CSS based forms etc.
Try not to use extra icons and graphics just because they were offered free!
MindBlowing stuff @ http://www.smashingmagazine.com & http://www.cssbeauty.com
9. Whitespaces hamper effective space utilization.
One of my favorite things in design is white spaces. The more of it the more focus on the things that you want to communicate to your target user! Clarity is evident around white spaces.
A must thing to adopt in any design is space and minimalist approach.
10. ‘Beta’ used as an excuse for bad user experience.
Don’t kill me for this. But give it a thought. Why is beta used so damn commonly used?? For a certain period of initial launch I completely agree but anything more than that becomes an excuse!
Eg: Google did that with GMAIL!
Avoid ‘Extended’ Beta tags to gain user trust is what I would say.
The above points do have exception at places but that definitely happens after getting few basic things right. Enjoy designing the user experience and allow your creativity to try new never before things!
The author also blogs at http://www.netbramha.com
@anupam - we are doing a revamp of our site as well. you will see more of best practices and tips coming your way soon. Keep a track at http://www.netbramha.com
@palin - spam looking site? did you see the correct URL?
I think the article is informative and does reflect experience.
I differ on Web 2.0. Web design is shifting to a new paradigm and like any new technology, we must follow closely. Web 2.0 does offer a lot and should not be bypassed.
>> "There are legal issues and other strategic reasons for using Beta."
You're saying that a company as big as Google can't ship a final product because of legal reasons?
And there are strategic reasons to make yourself look ridiculous?
I don't think so.
If your product stays in Beta too long, you create the impression that
a) you're unable to make and keep a proper release schedule
b) you don't care enough about your customer to ever ship a final product
c) you need an excuse for shoddy design
d) you're copying the latest fad started by Google
None of the above is positive. Whatever Google's reasons are to do that, don't copy it.
The opposite is what the KDE team did with KDE 4.0, to label a beta as final. That also cost them dearly.
The part that I don't get is what this issue is doing in a list of web design usability issues, though.
I can't agree with you more about the importance of good typography. ILT is a great place to start, but definitely don't stop there. Alistapart has a few great articles that are specific to type on the web and have proved to be a really good resource for me.
Excellent.Can you please explain seo little bit more.
The points are well stated. I liked the article over all. They have been there since a long time. I am not sure if they were really the most troubling issues of 2008. Is there any statistics to support it or it is just a feeling of yours.
Any way great article. Clearly stated. Thank You
I can not agree more. Brilliant stuff that clearly underlines the mistakes that are very common due to carelessness, confusion and cluttered content.
I also find this article that was published few days back interesting on Bhopu.com:
http://bhopu.com/2008/08/08/Usability-and-UI-Designs-should-go-hand-in-h...
@Jonathan @giri
Completely agree with your points above. Very valid and useful. The point of the article was not to cover all the aspects. Plus getting into deep dive examples and codes might not go well with the non-designers / non-developers.
In any case I'll try my best to address this in any further topics. And thanks for comments. It's always the discussions that are more valuable to a reader.
Keep them coming!
Cheers
I recently read a great book entitled 'Don't make me think' on Web Usability. Its written by Steve Krug. He's also got a great website: www.sensible.com
Gautam Kshatriya
gautam.kshatriya@moneyvidya.com
www.moneyvidya.com/blog
Real good article, the author has really tried to highlight basic common mistakes, i think th author also knows various critical in web design.
I think the author has missed some essential points:
1. Is your site serving the needs of your customers/users? Or is it for your own ego gratification?
Does your site have a stupid Flash screen--which visitors can't skip, or bypass. Give yourself zero points.
2. Is the content on your site organized in manner that is logical for the visitor?
Many sites have weird content organization that would be familiar to corporate insiders--not to customers or investors.
For instance, do you organize content by operating divisions rather than the products or services your deliver? Give yourself zero points.
After all, which customer cares which of your divisions delivers the product or service?
3. Is the content on your site correct, current and complete?
Does your site have downloadable versions of all your latest print catalogs and print ads?
No, then give yourself a big zero.
How do you think customers are going to find your products?
4. If you are a publicly listed company, do you have all investor information online? Do you have the latest financial reports, press releases and press reports online?
No--give yourself another zero.
This list could go on.
Even large companies have pathetic web sites that re more reminiscent of 2001 rather than 2008.
Nice list of mistakes Aashish. Although I would have preferred if you had elaborated on each of them a bit more instead of just pasting popular links. Most designers already know about smashing magazine, CSS Beauty and other design blogs.
Personally I look for a deeper insight and direction all the time from old sources of graphic design like type foundries, print media and swiss grid design.
@Ajith
The real challenge lies there. Keeping your client happy and yet not compromising on basics and design! :)
@Ramesh
Great idea.. an index of such a thing would allow people to have a better understanding of UI and other aspects and consider it as important as the product/service itself. Plus startups like us can try to do our best!!
Hi Ashish,
Whatever you mentioned here is brilliant and I completely agree. But what happened when we reach the normal clients/customers they doesn't know anything about website and usability. If we try to convince the facts... even though they will say... I want a website something like that... so ultimately client satisfaction is the point...
It tough to implement...
Ajith
I think Alootechie should conduct a neutral ranking of India's top 10 website design companies solely based on their portfolio. This may be an excellent source for all the corporates and startups looking for good UI designs. It may also give some good exposure to the unknown design companies with excellent design skills.
We always praise or thrash designs, but never mention about the companies behind the site. So, let them also hog the limelight! :)
Hello all,
You can reach me @ my blog www.aashish.in
@anupam : Will try to elaborate with live examples next time around. Thanks for the pointer!
Ashish i am also looking to start my own design studio in Delhi...can we discuss this further ??
Good learning for any online/web media professional
ineresting stuff. All new interpretation of beta versions as well!
Excellent Stuff Ashish. All the best for your Design Studio!
Aashish Solanki, Founder, Soon to be launched design studio
1. Crappy form designs.
this reads like the studio name is 1. Crappy form designs.
Great design ha ha
Hi Palin,
The correct url is : http://www.netbramha.com/.
You can also reach him at : http://aashish.in
There are legal issues and other startegic reasons for using Beta.
Thanks Aashish, for the pointers. Damn neat stuff. One thing that distinguishes this article from most other ones, are the illustrations/examples for each point. However, I have a request/suggestion - if you could give some example of mistakes and also show how it could possibly have been done better. Or if thats a huge ask, then maybe a little more elucidation of the Best Practices so as to say!
Anyways, thanks again!
Excellent. how can I contact you? Also a bit ironical that the author of this post has a spam looking site as his website. Or maybe the domain expired? :-)
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