WEB DESIGN MISTAKES TO BE AVOIDED When people log onto your site, they should be able to see straight away what your site is all about.  Being able to grab somebody’s attention as soon as they set eyes on your web pages is the most priceless thing on the Internet.  If you do not grab the attention of your site voyeurs, then you need to go back to the drawing board.

Ensure the web pages can be read quickly by using short paragraphs, bullet points and lots of sub headings. Web pages are not book pages and people want to be able to see the content rapidly.

The use of ornamental style fonts should be avoided, because although they may well give a sophisticated look to the website, if they can’t easily be read, site visitors will find the content of the web page difficult to assimilate. Make it easy for them, or they will leave your pages.

Minuscule font size should not be used because, once again, site visitors need to feel comfortable looking at the web pages. If visitors find they have to zoom in to read site content, they will leave your pages.

Opening new browser windows is a mistake.  You may think that by opening a new window, the visitor won’t leave your site.  This just isn’t the case.  Allow your visitors to control where they want the links to open – this is why browser controls have a "back" button. You should not be concerned about site visitors going to another site, as they will easily get back to yours if they want.

Don’t annoy visitors by requiring registration unless it’s absolutely necessary!  When people browse the Internet, they do so to get information, not give it. You can only get away with this if what you offer is so good that your visitors will put up with having to go through all the hassle of registration.

Subscribing visitors to something without their consent is a huge mistake. Often, people are automatically subscribed to newsletters, etc. they simply don’t want. You will make no friends this way.

The over use of Flash will annoy many visitors and this should be used only if you have features within your site that will not be supported by static pages.

How often have you visited a site only to be greeted with annoying music that causes you to turn off the sound? This ploy was something that was tried many times in the early days of the Internet and you still see it, but its annoying, so is best avoided.  Everybody has differing tastes in music.  If you must have an audio file, allow your visitors to start it by having a "play" button.

Cluttering your website with badges looks unprofessional. Even if you have many awards and recognition badges, avoid putting them on your home page. Keep them for the ‘About’ page if you have to use them and then they can be passed over easily by site visitors.

When websites have a home page that launches the ‘real’ website, its annoying because the less steps the visitor has to take to get where they want to be, the better and the more comfortable they will feel with your site.

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