Web design is defined as the skills behind the creation of presentations. These are presentations of content particularly in the form of hypertext and also hypermedia. The presentations created by this art are then delivered to the target group by the use of World Wide Web. The end-user or clientele usually gets the contents by the use of a Web browser. They may even use some other Web-facilitated softwares such as microblogging clients, readers like RSS or even use the internet television software for clients.
Therefore, the idea behind a website design is basically to tell other people who don’t know about you a story and in doing so answer the questions that they may be having in their mind concerning you and what you deal with for example if it is a business venture(Jacob 1995). The idea of telling about your story and answering questions using a web design has got strengths and weaknesses. Some of the strengths of a web design is that interested people will be able to know from their stations the person they are dealing with. If they want to do business it will also be possible to get details from web site.
They will be able to know about the key products in advance before even commiting themselves. Users of a web site need to know the person they are dealing with in any activity they get involved in , the persons credentials, values, beliefs and ideologies that are captured in the process of web design. Web design also function to answer to frequently asked questions by users. One may feel intimidated to answer the questions each and every other time. Having a web site designed will therefore saves time and create an atmosphere of concentration on other matters(Jacob1995). However, there are various weaknesses with regard to web design. These are captured in this essay as the top ten mistakes in web design.
They are the top atrocities or offences one can commit in web design. One of the mistakes is having a bad search in web design. Simple searches presented in a simple box is what most users are looking for . This not only helps the elderly users to navigate but also every one visiting the web site. Secondly, most web site designers make the mistake of loading pdf files in the website instead of just having web pages. Most readers may not want to encounter such files since they disrupt them from the smooth flow they were enjoying before. These files may not open because they require adobe readers that the user may not have installed in his/her computer. A colour change is important for the links that have already been visited.
There is inconvenience if one will visit the same link over and over again. Users needs to tell clearly the links already visited by default colour change (Jacob 1995). Non –scannable work or text might prove to be boring to read. May also be intimidating or even painful for the user.
Use attractive tricks such as bullets, short paragraphs or highlighted words. Fixed font size hinders usability. In this regard purpose to give readers the freedom to change font as they consider appropriate. Another mistake occurs if a web design has title page with a weak engine visibility. Start the title page with the companies name and follow it with a clear and brief description other than use of phrases like ‘ welcome to’. Users too will not be attracted to things in a website that looks like advertisements.
The best to do is avoid such designs which might have a negative implication. There are usually design conventions and the moment one deviates from them there is a threat of low user turn over. Users form an opinion based on how other websites look like.
They will prefer to leave those websites that prove hard to navigate through lack of consistency. Another mistake is the open up of new windows as visitors browse through a web page. Most people will not like web sites that fail to behave as they expect and thus undermining their capability to understand the system they are using. The last of the mistakes in web-design is failure by the website to answer questions posed by the user. Most users will visit a site to accomplish a mission and if the answers to their questions are not available then they consider the website unsatisfactory(Jacob 1995).