Chris Tyler-Smith
“Digital design is like painting, except the paint never dries.” – Neville Brody
There are a few things we have seen over the years with website design that are becoming more commonplace with companies and are, unfortunately, detrimental. We thought we would share some of our most common – and most irritating – bad website design findings with you:
I’m Not Responsive
Unresponsive sites are now penalised by both Google’s algorithm and users alike. As a result site rankings drop. A non-responsive bad website design means that users can only use a site at its full dimensional form and therefore only on a desktop or larger laptop. Without being responsive a site will not work or adjust to other devices, such as mobile or tablet.
Wherever you look, a responsive design is key to a website’s success especially with over 56% of all online traffic now coming from a mobile device, having a responsive web design has become an imperative.
Poor Readability And Legibility
It goes without saying that a well-designed interface will grab a customer’s attention. But, what is often overlooked, is the ability to read the text and being able to find specific information easily. We often see websites that use a range of text styles and fonts that make it particularly hard to read, let alone find the valuable information.
Additionally, it is important to remember that best practices for writing copy for offline and online purposes vary greatly. Have a read of our recent article that details how to stylise and optimise your text for the web!
Unorganised Content, Everywhere!
Something that goes hand in hand with design is a website’s content. How content is structured on your website is the difference between success and failure for your site.
If customers are not able to scan through your content and are being made to read paragraph after paragraph, they will easily lose interest. It has been shown recently that browsers only read 28% of content on a web page. Therefore, you want to make sure that what information you are offering is easily and quickly available and presented to the visitor in a digestible and accessible manner.
It is also important, at the design stage, to bare SEO in mind. We regularly see many designers put a block of text on the web page and disregard the importance of headings, subheadings, bullets, keywords and paragraphs.
The same goes for white space and its importance. They are so engulfed in their own design creativity that they forget that it’s not for them. Thus, they try to cram as much as they can onto a single page. End result? A busy, cluttered and unreadable page that will, unfortunately, underperform.
Bad Navigation
A big no! A site’s navigation ultimately determines how a user will use your site. If they cannot navigate through your pages with ease and simplicity – they are going to become frustrated very quickly and more often than not, this will lead to an increased bounce rate – which nobody wants!
Unfortunately, there is no set standard for navigation within a website, especially now as more and newer web development technologies are emerging. It is the 101 of web design to understand that navigation must be intuitive and consistent.
No Automated Music, Please!
We don’t understand why anyone would have this anyway, but, alarmingly, we still see it with bad website design – or hear it anyway!
When we hear automated music playing on entering a website, we automatically think of those spammy websites with adverts that have auto-play.
If a user wants to watch a video or listen to a song on your website, give them the choice! A website’s design is meant to allow for and encourage interactivity and engagement – forcing it upon a user can impact on their experience negatively.
So there you have it, a few of the most common downfalls of modern web design and what to look out for if you’re in the process of a redesign.
Just remember that your website is your shop front to the whole world and so needs to truly represent and celebrate you as a business. If that isn’t shown in the design, you’re not setting a great first impression, and, after all, first impressions really are everything.
Bad Website Design? Here’s What Rooster Can Do For You
Rooster Marketing is a full-service marketing agency in Winchester, Hampshire. It is via our creative flair, technical know-how and innovative mindset that we are able to successfully design both open-source and bespoke websites; we never use templates and of course, no project is too big or too small for us.
If you decide to work with us, you will have a dedicated account manager alongside a fully equipped and experienced marketing team.
Whether you need a simple website with an easy way to upload your own content or an advanced web service with the power to rock an industry, our web design team is ready to make it a reality.