How often are you browsing online and you come to a website and leave immediately on the look of the site? If you're a normal person, then that happens a lot. The challenge as website owners and web developers is to retain people on your site and to get them to take action! It's important to think of everyone that is viewing your website. Not everyone will be using the same browsers like Internet Explorer and people will have different aspect ratios meaning your website might not look the same on each computer. There are 6 deadly mistakes that you need to stay away from for website design. About 85% of websites make at least one of these deadly mistakes so make sure that you read this and keep your website mistake free!
1. Side to Side Scrolling – The last thing you want is your website to be too wide for people to view it all without having to scroll from side to side. People are programmed to scroll up and down on websites, not side to side. This causes a lot of frustration with web browsers and frustration equal them clicking the back button. You'll want to make sure that when your website is built that your design is not too wide. So what is a comfortable size for website width? All of the websites that we build are 800 pixels wide. If you stick to this then you do not have to worry about anyone having to scroll from side to side.
2. Left Aligned Websites – Left aligned sites look unprofessional and outdated. I see a lot of websites that are aligned to the left and they just do not look right. On some computers they will appear to be aligned center because of that computer's settings but on computers that have higher aspect ratios they will appear on the left. Do not overlook the simplicity of making sure your website is centered and not aligned left.
3. Having No Background or Boarders – Since we are on the topic of configuring your website for all computers you should have a background that can be duplicated on the sides for people that view websites with high ratios. You do not want to have a website that has plain white boarders on both sides. It looks and unprofessional and very amateur. Make sure you set your background image to be expandable no matter what the pixel size is. A good example of a cool but simple background would be http://www.mlb.com
4. Using Obscure Fonts – You'll want to stay away from fancy obscure fonts on your website for two reasons. The first is because they can be difficult to read and you want to keep everything simple for people viewing your site. The second is because if the person viewing your website does not have the font that you desire downloaded on their computer then they will see it in a different font. This means that you loose control over the look of your website. Now, you can set it up to have backup fonts, meaning if they do not have the first font downloaded then it will go to the next one that you specify. For example, if you want your site to be shown in Myriad Pro but a user does not have that font on their computer then they will see it in Verdana. Now you can do that with special fonts but it's not advised because each font's size is not the same as another. Meaning you will never have full control over the look of your site. For that reason you'll want to stay with the standard fonts that everyone has on their computers. Verdana is my favor because it seems easiest to read, but other good choices are Arial, Times New Roman, Helvetica, Courier, and Geneva.
5. Poor Navigation – the best rule for websites is known as the "3-click rule." This means that any webpage is accessible to any other webpage on your site by just three clicks, and no more. When you're setting up your site's navigation or outline pay attention to your link structure and make sure that you're proactively leading your users through the site.
6. Unclear Message or Purpose on Homepage – Have you ever gone to a website and had no idea what it was about or what its purpose was? I'm sure we all have and we all have probably had the same reaction (the back button). That is the ultimate failure in website creation so you want to make sure your website's homepage is upfront and direct about what its purpose is. It must be visible in the upper body of the webpage, which is where the eyes will naturally go on websites.
Follow these simple instructions and you're on your way to a successful website!
