Trusting your website to a non-expert may be a little like trusting your house construction to an amateur. Anybody who is computer literate can use the available online tools to build a website in the same manner that any person with a tool box can attempt to build a house. However, there are tricks to the trade that are often best left to experts with extensive experience in the industry. Otherwise, you could get marooned in a sludge of bad web design practices that will keep your business from securing a powerful online presence.
(Pixabay / vanmarciano)
Poor Design Practices
Here are a few elements that are detrimental to website success:
- Complex splash page. Many web designers believe that a flashy splash page will attract a lot of users. Often, a splash page includes animated graphics with sound effects that are intended to entice users to explore the rest of the site. What these web designers fail to note is that these types of splash pages can bog down the website, causing viewers to wait extensively to access content. Most users aren’t that patient and will quickly abandon your site for a competitor’s. Additionally, many devices no longer support Flash (a common software used to load a splash page). So users could be waiting forever for nothing.
- Too many images. Some web designers saturate their websites with a glut of images, thinking that people will be drawn in by attractive, high-definition pictures. Here again, these images can slow down the site, leaving viewers with a less-than-satisfactory experience.
- Sliders. Web designers often believe that they can boost the effectiveness of a site with slide shows or “sliders” on a website. Sliders, however, are often ignored by visitors. They delay the website’s function significantly and often freeze up on mobile devices, which are quickly becoming the medium of choice for users.