By Jim Clanin
Anytime you undergo a new website design, it’s a huge undertaking. There’s so much to think about including (but not limited to) your goals, messaging, functionality, design, and search engine optimization. When getting caught up in all of these details, it’s so easy to forget the fundamentals. Read on to learn some simple, yet often overlooked, web design mistakes.
Poor Readability
Too often, websites use font styles and sizes, or colors that 
may look cool, but make reading very difficult for the website visitor. Here are some tips to improve readability on your website:
- Use contrasting colors. It’s usually best to read a dark text on a light background if there is a significant amount of text. Sometimes a light-colored text on a dark background will work if it’s used for small sections of text or just a heading.
- Use a font size that is large enough to be read easily. Sometimes designers will use a smaller font size for a better design, but if the text can’t be read easily, then is your message even getting across?
- Use fonts that are simple and easy to read. A sans serif typeface is best to use for larger amounts of text. You can usually get away with using a cool looking font for headings, but keep it simple when it comes to larger sections of text.
Unorganized Content
Not only will unorganized content be a pain for your website visitors, but search engines will penalize you if they can’t understand the hierarchy. Keep in mind that most people do not usually read every word on a web page. Instead they scan it quickly to find exactly what they are looking for. If they can’t find it, it won’t take them long before they move on to something else. Be sure to consider the following tips for organizing your website content:
- Navigation works best if you use parent pages and child pages. For example, if your business is an insurance brokerage, you will likely have several pages explaining each type of insurance you provide. Your parent page may be called “services” and each child page would be named after each type of service.
- Use headings, subheadings, and bullets. Make it easy for the website visitor to scan for information.
Videos on Autoplay
Have you ever been minding your own business, surfing the web in a coffee shop, when suddenly a video starts playing loudly, and you scramble to turn it off while everyone is looking at you? Think about it from the user’s point of view. If you’re not expecting a video or noise, it can be very embarrassing. Your website visitor will press play on your video if they want to watch your video, so don’t force it on them. More than likely, they will be too embarrassed by the situation to care much about what you have in the video. Be sure to setup your video to only play if the play button is clicked.
And background music is, for the most part, a thing of the past nowadays, but it doesn’t hurt to mention it – never do background music!
Don’t Forget About Testing!
When a website project is nearing the end, it’s easy to want to get it published as quickly as possible. But before running to the finish line, take time to test the website in different environments. Test the website on various browsers, desktops, laptops, and mobile devices. Have one or two people who have not been involved in the development test out the website… and be ready for their feedback! After staring at a particular web site for hours and hours, you will likely miss a very obvious issue, so don’t underestimate the help of someone outside of the development team.
These are just a few web design mistakes that are easily overlooked. Take the time to plan, organize, test, and most importantly, keep it simple! If you need help with your next company website, contact Double Dome! We are web design experts!
