I've heard big sites of today were lagging behind because of bad design in the past.
You don't want that to happen to you, right?
Today, I'll be sharing you 22 common designing mistakes and ways of fixing them,
1. Confusing Home Page
You yourself have to express what you have on your home page. This gives reader an idea about your site's content.
Though not often, at times, readers fail to understand website's topic and leave it. To avoid that loss, you need to express your site's stuff to the reader in a sec.
Fix:
• Keep lots of blank space in the homepage.
• Make use of white space.
• Write your blog description clearly in simple words.
• Keep navigation bar when readers can easily locate.
• Create a 'Start Here' or 'About Us' page on nav-bar to guide confused people.
2. Combining Too Many Colors
Color builds our brand. But too many colors can backfire. Take an example,
Facebook is famous for their blue color. They've used this color to build their brand all these days. What if they start mixing yellow, orange, green as side colors? It'll kill their identity.
It can happen to you as well. Maybe someone remembered your blog with the color but could not recall it because there were too many colors.
Fix:
• Use 4 colors at maximum. Better to keep 2.
• Besides those colors, use white.
• Think before choosing color, don't change if you've already started.
• Your color should be in logo, site design and every brand related place.
3. Excessive and Lousy Font Selection.
If the font's lousy, the reader will suffer to read.
Site's total fonts must not be more than 2 - 3. Otherwise, the site will look 'a messed room with scattered rice'.
By lousy, I mean fonts that are hard to read. Like- 'Cursive', 'Lobster' etc.
Fix:
• Use one font for normal writing another one for the title. You can same font for both.
• You can choose from here- Arial, segoe ui, calibri, Georgia, verdana etc. fonts.
• Omit bold looking or cursive type fonts.
• Also use easy to be seen color for fonts.
4. Text Alike Links
Usually links are of different color from other text on page. If you keep it the same, the readers won’t know which one is link and which one is plain text. They will not visit your other pages as they think those are text. And while reading, they may consider a link as text and get misdirected
Fix:
- Bold and italicize your links
- Use a different color for links, like- blue
5. You Are Not Using Share Buttons
If someone loves a post of your blog and wants to share it, how can he do it? Share buttons. But if you don’t have them then? If you make it eay fr them to share it, they’ll take action, otherwise, it’s a no. You have to attach share buttons, at least at the end of post. This isn’t only a web design mistake, it’s also a reason for losing traffic.
Fix:
- Simple, just keep share buttons at least at one place
6. Using Too Much Effects
Just because you are a web designer doesn’t mean you should show off around your skills on every part of every theme. This’ll ruin your site. Borders, underline, boldening, italicizing, using multiple colored background can be really tempting to show off if you know about them, but in reality, it becomes unbearable.
Fix:
Use one effect per element
- Don’t mix underline, bold, different effects, fresh is better.
7. Using Non-Responsive Theme
What I understand by responsive theme is, a theme that fits screens of different sizes. Remember when you landed on a page and scrolled horizontally to read the articles? Is that even possible to read full? Those who are dying fo rthe info or those who are fan of that site might spend some time, but most would leave it without second thoughts. Nowadays, responsive designs are valued high in SEO.
Fix:
- Get a free responsive them
- But a responsive theme
- Use this tutorial to make it responsive
- Hire a designer to make you a responsive theme
8. Background Music Is Great, Or Is It?
As far as I’ve seen, people don’t only not worry about music, they also hate it. Reader doesn’t want song from you, he wants information, and this is a big mistake.
Fix:
- If you want to offer song, then use ‘click to play’ window to do it.
9. Eye-hurting Background
Plain background is pretty much perfect for all the blogging niches. But some try to take it to the next level by adding big poster and amateur colors.
Fix:
- Keep the background color solid, not even gradient.
- Use white or black or slight grey background.
10. It’s hard to find your search box
Just as any other element of the page, search box is also crucial. It shall be there and be in a way that it can be seen clearly. People
11. Not Keeping A Nice 404 Page
Many make a 404 page, but some do forget. If a page doesn’t exist and you try to visit it, then you reach a 404 page. Some sites offer dried 404 page which just says “404 Error”. The reader suffers to find a way back to the site, he leaves.
Fix:
- Design a picture to say sorry for the problem
- Give a auto redirect after 10 – 15 seconds.
Conclusion...
So, what did you find today, let’s take a recap,
Home page has to be clean
You have to use simple fonts
Design has to be in 2-4 colors’ combination
Link has to look different than normal text
Share buttons right this moment
No more effect stashing
A responsive theme is must
The background needs to be plain
Easy to find search box
User-friendly 404 pages
So, it was all from my side today.
I’d like to hear from you.
Have you ever made these mistakes, do you see these errors on your site?
Which other design mistakes do you think ruins a site?
I’m all ears. Please lemme know in the comments.
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