Designing your website can be exciting, scary, challenging and fun all at the same time. This is essentially your digital shop front, where you show your customers what you’re all about and, hopefully, encourage them to sign up to your services or make a purchase.
For a business, there’s a lot to think about when it comes to web design. And that includes things that you should avoid.
A recent article for Forbes shared the wisdom of a number of experts who sit on the Forbes Technology Council. They revealed some of the biggest things to avoid when you’re designing a website, as well as some advice on how to avoid these kinds of faux pas.
The first piece of advice is to remember that not only should your website look great, but it should also deliver an “easy and satisfying user experience”. That means you should take the time to really think about your users’ journeys around your site.
What do you want them to do and which content do you want them to find easily? By stripping it back to basics you can get this element of the user experience spot on, and then think about adding some extra design features.
However, the news provider stressed that additional elements should never be added at the expense of your user experience. After all, you don’t want people to get frustrated and go elsewhere.
Tom Altman, from Leverage, provided the first feature to avoid autoplay video. He described it as “the modern day pop-up” and pointed out that if you’ve taken the time to craft compelling and original video content that people will choose to play it.
Similarly, it’s best to avoid video backgrounds, because these can distract from the main content of the page and mean that your visitors miss your call to action, David Isaac Murray of Doctor.com explained.
Intrusive pop-ups were also on the list, cited by Chalmers Brown, of Due. He acknowledged that pop-ups can be useful in some situations but stressed that you need to limit them, particularly for mobile browsers.
This also applies to chatbots. They have their place in modern website design, but you need to balance this out with people’s desire to use them. Artem Petrov, of Reinvently, said you should think carefully about how you use this feature.
“What you think may help your website seem more intuitive, helpful and personal may leave your visitors unhappy and feeling over-pitched on a cluttered website with messages that are painfully robotic,” he stated.
You should always come back to your user and your user journeys if you’re unsure about a design decision. Things like too much text and too many calls to action were also cited by the panelists, who noted that these can confuse people and prevent them from interacting with your business or making a purchase.
If you get help with web design in Buckinghamshire, you’ll have a team of experts who can help you navigate the digital design process and ensure you end up with a site that’s both functional and attractive.
They’ll also be aware of some of the top trends in web design. For instance, the likes of nature-inspired design and monochromatic themes are set to be popular among businesses as we move through 2019.