8 Web Design Mistakes Beginners Are Prone To Make

The first thing that people see in a website is the design, which is an important component of a website. This makes it tempting for beginner web designers to jump directly into designing the website interface. However, a lot of things need to be done offline to create a solid foundation to build the website. You need to have a clear plan on how you intend to structure and layout the site and a clear purpose for the design.

This way, when you start the design process, it’ll be simpler, and you’ll be sure of each step you take. It also helps you not to get influenced by trends but rather create a functional site that fulfills a client’s needs and meets Search Engine Optimization (SEO), navigational, accessibility, responsiveness, and usability standards. The point is to always create a user-friendly website, keeping in mind that the audience has varying proficiency levels and abilities in navigating a website.

Here are some of the mistakes that are most prevalent to beginner web designers.

 

1. Not Thinking About Responsive Design From The Beginning

Beginner web designers often overlook developing a responsive website right from the start of the development process. However, it’s important to have defined breakpoints of the website for an effective and responsive design right from the start. Different websites may need different breakpoints depending on the type and requirements.

That’s the reason why you need to consider a responsive design right from the beginning of the development and designing process of the website. Mobile-first development is crucial as it allows websites to load faster, even on small-screened devices. It creates a strong foundation for the website to work seamlessly on different devices.

It helps maintain clarity by removing any unnecessary user interface features and improve user experience —visit laughingsamurai.com to learn more about how to create an excellent website user experience. The fact is that a larger percentage of internet users today use mobile devices more than they do on computers. It’s therefore essential to optimize your web design to make it convenient to access from any device the way the user may want to use it. A responsive design automatically adapts to the device, allowing users to seamlessly browse a site from any device and find what they need.

 

2. Not Building An Intuitive Navigation

It’s hard to find the way in a new place with no clear guidance and direction. A website is no different. It’s the digital equivalent of a physical office, store, or showroom. Visitors look for directions in the navigation bar to get to what they want. Visitors rely on navigation bars and the sitemap as they do with sales representatives at a physical location.

Some of the mistakes beginner web designers are prone to make include:

• Having a huge navigation bar with too many menus' items
• Misuse of dropdown menus
• Vague labels
• Auto-hide navigation bar
• Navigation bar in an unusual place
• Failing to include a search bar

When the navigation doesn’t make sense to the visitors, it frustrates them and then leaves the website. The best practice is to build intuitive navigation bars that are easy to use. It also needs to be in an obvious place where visitors expect to find it, and in a familiar structure. In trying to be creative, beginner designers often fail to use a familiar structure in the navigation menu throwing visitors off.

3. Relying On A Single Web Design Software

Before you start the actual development and designing process of a website, you need to compare a few software programs to identify which will best suit your project. Choosing the best web design software trickles down to a website’s purpose and functionality. There’s not a single software that can solve all your design problems.

Besides, you may need to use more than one software program depending on your goal. That’s why you need to familiarize yourself with the different web design software. For example, there’s a software regarded as best for building eCommerce sites, business sites, marketer and advertiser sites, and more.

When you’re a beginner, you may worry that creating a professional web design might take ages to complete. But if you know the most suitable or a combination of web design software tools, you can create an excellent site quickly, especially those that automate most of the design process.

 

4. Disregarding Guidelines, Grids, and Columns

Some web designers disregard the proper use of grids, guides, and columns, usually, this is an indication of inexperience. However, these are essential elements in web design as they help to maintain page order and cleanliness. Disregarding the use of these elements makes websites look cluttered.

You can use the columns to segment content vertically, and they also ensure that all components are correctly aligned. In addition, columns are flexible as you can set the dimensions to fit your preference. You can also place guides and grids on either side of the columns to help space out the content. Otherwise, the pages might look condensed and squeezed when opened in a browser.

 

5. Overlooking User Accessibility

Accessibility is one of the most overlooked aspects of web design. Poor accessibility prohibits the demographics of visitors from using a website. The fact is, not everyone is capable of using a website by reading the content, using a mouse, or hearing what’s being played in videos. More often than not, web designers overlook people living with disabilities in the web design process.

Building an accessible website involves making broad considerations in the design process. Some of the features of an accessible website include:

Keyboard only accessibility

• Alternative text equivalent on images, audio, and videos,
• No striking colors or flashing elements
• Accessible forms
• Descriptive anchor texts
• No auto-play videos and audio
• Clean code

You need to design with accessibility in mind rather than improving the website later. For example, it’s easier to fix color contrast at the design stage than trying to do it later. Always conduct a color contrast test on your designs.

6. Unclear Visual Hierarchy

A website is a communication tool to the target audience, but many beginner web designers forget about the branding aspect in the design. Among the top purposes of a website is the ability to tell the brand story to the audience. A common mistake with beginner designers is failing to build a proper and clear visual hierarchy to convey that message to the audience.

A clear visual hierarchy guides the audience throughout the entire website. How the elements flow as visitors scroll through a page should address the needs of the target audience. When you’re starting, you may not be sure which elements to give priority and which ones not to. It’s essential that you only give the necessary information and in an orderly manner.

Look at some ways you can implement visual hierarchy in your design process.

• Use size on elements to show varying degrees of importance. This ensures that the larger elements draw more attention.
• Use white, negative, or blank space to increase hierarchy visibility. This will help draw users’ attention to a particular element that you want to highlight in line with the website’s purpose.
• By providing a great visual hierarchy, you’ll tell the story in a way users can follow and understand. This improves user experience and helps you create a design that attracts and retains visitors.

7. Using Uncompressed Images

Great images are appealing and attract visitors to a website. In an ideal world, everyone would use the highest quality images they have and still maintain loading speeds. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen. Large images load slowly, affecting the loading times of pages on a website. If you want to improve the loading speeds of images on your site, ensure to re-size them correctly and compress them.

When the images are too heavy, they take longer to load and sometimes force users to keep reloading pages for full images to appear. Slow images affect the page loading times of the entire website creating a bad user experience.

8. Lack Of Clear Calls-to-Action (CTA)

When a user visits a website, they’re looking to fulfill a need. First, they want clear and enough information on that need. Second, they want to find out how they can get the product or service. To encourage users to act, you need to have CTA buttons that help them take the next step. When you don’t give a clear direction to a user on what you need them to do, they will close the site and move on to other things.

 

A CTA is a crucial element in a website but is only effective when it’s clear and placed in the right place. Some clear examples of CTAs are:

 

• Connect with us on social media
• Sign up for the newsletter
• Donate to this website
• Place an order
• Give us your feedback

 

Other factors to consider when designing CTA include:

• Place CTAs in a hard-to-miss bright button that attracts users immediately
• Use a font size that commands interest
• Make it short and direct to the point

Takeaway

Web design is a continuous learning process that can become better with practice and experience. Building a good website isn’t only about its aesthetic appeal and publishing it on the internet. It’s the functionality, usability, and accessibility of different users on different platforms. Discussed above were the common mistakes you can avoid as well as improve as a beginner web designer. Eventually, you’ll build world-class websites that can draw and retain users.