The primary goal of any website is to provide a smooth and engaging user experience and, at the very least, not drive visitors away… Often, just one out-of-place or overbearing design element can be enough to put people off your company. But when there are multiple elements like this it can make the user experience hugely frustrating or annoying, and your user will hate you for it. In this day and age, poor user experience just isn’t excusable, so here are five website design mistakes you should avoid if you don’t want to send visitors running for the hills.
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Pop-ups
Find us a single person who enjoys pop-ups. They are intrusive, dominating and generally just distract the visitor from the website itself. Some digital agencies will tell you that pop-ups are effective if they are sparse and the content is catchy and relevant but, as a whole, it is better to just avoid them. Seriously, they suck. There are smarter and more welcome ways to gather information about your users.
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Long Load Times
One of the worst things you can do to decrease visitor retention is make them wait. Some visitors might hang around on a slow loading page if they really want or need to visit your website, but this is the exception rather than the rule. And they will still hate you for it. More often than not, browsers are impatient and will find a faster-loading alternative.
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Too Much Text
Another website design mistake you should avoid is too much text. When visitors land on your homepage for the first time, they have a short attention span and will want to quickly find out what your business is about and what you can offer them. Big unnecessary blocks of text clutter up the design and can be off-putting. It’s about finding the right balance between providing all the necessary information without getting bogged down in content.
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Unclear Contact Information
When visiting a website one of the most frustrating things is when key information such as contact info is hard to find and for you, it means the loss of valuable opportunities and customers. Contact info should be a prominent feature on your main page and easy to locate no matter where visitors are on the site.
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Unclickable Links and Images
This is seriously frustrating. Unclickable links and images is a negligent website design mistake that will just piss your user off. Links and navigation need to be consistent and intuitive so that visitors can explore your website and find what they are looking for with ease.
So there you have it, the five biggest website design mistakes you should avoid if you don’t want your users to hate you.