Web Crimes: how to avoid common website design mistakes
Thinking about designing your own website? Think again about adding any of these "features"...
1. Animated gifs. You know the ones: the dancing baby, the rotating email sign. No matter what you chose, nothing screams out "amateur" quite like an animated gif. Next!
2. Mouse trails. Those little pictures, or strings of letters that "follow" your mouse everywhere it goes. In my case, they follow my mouse all the way to the "back" button, so I can surf on to somewhere less annoying.
3. Music. If I wanted to listen to music, I'd play some myself. Meanwhile, I'm reaching for that back button again...
4. Indecipherable colour schemes. Navy blue text on a black background. White on yellow. Ye Gods! It hurts my eyes just to look at it, never mind read it. Just say no.
5. Poor spelling and grammar. Specifically: text speak. It's bad enough on your mobile phone, never mind your website. If you're going to go to the trouble of setting up a website, at least make sure people can read it without cringing. Or it'll be that "back" button for you...
So, that's how to get it wrong, but how do you get it right?
There's no great mystery to great website design. Simplicity is the key; while there are a few people out there who go crazy for the piped music and the animations, there are probably a thousand more who're just driven crazy by them. A clean, simple website isn't going to offend anyone – or prevent people from actually viewing the content of your site.
Remember that unless you're a website designer yourself, it's the content that really matters. Visitors don't come to your website to admire the pretty colours: they come to buy something, or to find information. If the thing they're looking for is obscured by your website design, they won't stick around to find it.
At the end of the day, design is a matter of taste, and you'll never be able to please everyone who visits your site. Functionality is a different matter altogether, however. Make sure your website is clearly designed, content rich, and easy to navigate, and you'll be on the right lines. Just stay away from those animated gifs...
Amber McNaught is co-owner of Hot Igloo Productions Ltd. - the small business specialists. Hot Igloo offer a range of services to businesses, including website design, public relations, internet marketing, copywriting and more. Visit their website at: http://www.hotigloo.co.uk
Related News:
4 Reasons Not To Design Your Own Website
Remember, your web site is the first thing that the online buyer will look at. Therefore, a bad quality website design would reflect on your business, giving negative perception on your products or services. The number of consumers buying online is growing rapidly and the last thing you want is to have your potential customers to shop on your competitors’ websites because they are better.
5 Things You Need To Know Before Hiring A Web Designer
Everyone loves saving money and some will even go beyond to do so. You are saving money only if you get at least the same quality web site design for less money. However, it would be considered very expensive if you are getting an insightful and error prone web site design for it. Finding a good web designer for your web site is the first step to the success of your online business.
From Good Web Design To Great Web Design
While it is relatively easy to poke fun at bad web site designs, it is a much harder task to distinguish good design from great design. A great web designer is more like a problem solver. Every web sites has its own set of functions to address one or more problems. Finding the root cause of the problem is the first step of great web site design concept. In the nutshell, web site design is a two steps process; finding the problem and then applying the right solution to address it.
10 Must See Scarilious Web sites
Hi Ghost lovers, Haunters and the haunted, are you looking for the good old scary times? Here are what you have been waiting for, The compilation of 10 of the most Scarilious Web sites. They are the best of the scariest and bloodiest web sites of them all that you'll be downright scared of your own shadow.
Sailors Build Boating Websites in Seconds with Free Website Platform Built by Sailors for Sailors
For sailors and Boating enthusiasts, it has always been a chore to keep good communication with fellow crew members to share info, pictures, and schedule events. Blue Water Media addresses this need with a newly created website platform called Telltale. Telltale allows sailors to create their own personalized boating website within minutes.
PR Leap
The Evolution of Web Designers
A growing number of web designers are learning how to code as their clients have more sophisticated requirement. This new trends will emerge to create a new breed of web designers, Web Application Designer?
Mac OS X Leopard-enhanced Freeway Web Design Software
Softpress announced that on October 26th 2007, it will release the Leopard-enabled Freeway 4.4 that is compatible with the Apple's Mac OS X Leopard’s new 'Quick Look' functionality, in which, you will be able to display an enlarged preview of a file without opening it.
Web Site Cookbook: Page Design and Navigation
Color, layout, and navigation are what usually come to mind when one thinks about web design. This paper explores some of those choices and present solutions that will help the user balance aesthetics with usability.
ZDNet
Is Man Better At Web Design?
According to a 2007 Web Design Survey by A List Apart, the average web designer is white male whose age is between 25 and 32 years old.
Event: Voices that Matter in Web Design
By David Dahlquist :: Filed Under » Events Heads up, San Franciscans—New Riders, Pearson Technology Group’s Web design imprint, is bringing it to the Bay by ...more
CMSWire, CA
First Ever Web Design Survey Results
Close to 33000 web professionals answered the survey's 37 questions, providing the first data ever collected on the business of web design and development ...more
Slashdot
Related Articles:
CardsDirect Launches New Website Design
CardsDirect LLC, a leader in customizable and personalized greeting and holiday cards announces the launch of their new website design. With pleasing graphics and new greeting card categories the new site makes selecting and ordering business and consumer holiday cards and greeting cards for all occasions an easy and enjoyable experience. See for yourself at www.cardsdirect.com.
Website Design For Small Businesses
There are many different website design companies, offering different facilities such as flash design, however what should a small business look for when seeking an internet prescence?When choosing which company you would like to build your website, there are many factors which you need to take into consideration.Firstly how much is the website going to cost to build and host.
Width And Resolution Problems Encountered In Website Design
There are millions of computer users browsing the internet every day and each one is looking at a different size monitor using a different resolution. How each person sees the graphics on your website varies depending on their screen and there is no uniform standards for making your site friendly to everyone.
Website Design Considerations
Q: Should I build and maintain my business Web site myself or pay someone else to do the work for me?
-- Wesley L.A: When you say, pay someone else to do the work for you, Wesley, I am going to assume that you are talking about hiring a professional Web site designer to do the work and not your next-door neighbor's teenage son.
Rentalo.com Introduces New Website Design
Rentalo.com, the Miami-based on-line vacation rental directory, is releasing a new website design today. Months of research have resulted in Rentalo 3.0, an attractive new version that features wider pages with a 1024 pixel resolution and new functionalities.
Clean website design.
Taste comes in many forms . What may seem poor website design to one, may be good website design to another. Website design is an expensive and extensive part of any website build Going two and Going to and fro between the client and the designer is a costly business, but it doesn't need to be. Commonly most clients are currently looking for clean web design.
NJ Website Design Company CMDS Completes New Web Site for ICON Capital Corp
Online marketing and NJ Web site design company CMDS has announced the redesign and relaunch of http://www.iconcapital.com for ICON Capital Corp., a global asset manager specializing in equipment leasing and structured financing solutions for capital asset intensive industries.
Successful Website Design Features
Ever since the internet became the worlds largest marketplace, experts have been trying to interpret the important aspects of a successful ecommerce website design. Is it content, design or shopping cart facilities? Is it search engine optimization, or simply the product that sells? Given below are some of the most important features of a victorious ecommerce website design.