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I believe all of you has so many experiences of seeing so many web design when surfing in internet. I could guarantee that you often see bad web design layout more than good one. I feel the same way too, there are a lot of websites which has bad web design & layout, so i won’t comeback & bookmark them. I will share some of my experiences of seeing basic visual web design mistakes which makes me leave those websites forever.
Do you even remember when you visit a website with fancy script font that is very hard to read? Fancy script font must not be used in body text, otherwise your reader won’t be able to read anything. Use fonts that are easy to read.
Other mistake is some people use non standard font in their websites. If their reader is only a common person who don’t have so many additional fonts, they will be confused and say, “Why is the font size in this website is very small?” I experienced this when i use non standard font for my website to enhance readability. But unfortunately, it makes people complain about my website. Just use common font like Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Georgia, or Times New Roman, which every people has in their computer.
Believe me, people will be bored if they see text only & they will leave your website once they are tired of reading your ocean of words article. This is internet, not a personal development book. If you don’t have idea about what image you should add, just use any image related with your post title. Don’t leave your body text alone without any images.
Even though you have inserted images on your article, you should remember to separate some sentences with a paragraph. Imagine that you are reading more than 500 words article without any paragraph on it. It’s confusing right? With some sentences separated with paragraph, people will find it easier to read your article.
Have you ever visit a website and you have to zoom in to read the content? This is bad, make your body text at least 12pt to make sure that your body text are readable enough. If not, people will have to provide large magnifier to read your article.
Almost any Flash usage will bring added value to your visual perception. But unfortunately, Flash usage will only make your website slower to open & it gives more chance for new visitors to leave you quickly. Reduce usage of Flash, unless it’s needed to explain something. I personally don’t really like websites which has Flash intro. They are really annoying & wasting my time.
Most of good websites use plain color background to enhance its readability. If you use colorful background to make it nicer, you are absolutely wrong. It only makes people tired of reading your articles, because the body text color are blended with background image. Make your background plain & put image somewhere else where there are no text.
Have you seen a website full of banner advertisement & google adsense inside? I’m sure that you will leave that website once you have done with it, Or worse case, you will instantly hit close and move to another website. Never prioritize advertisement over content. Good websites always place advertisement in a proper places which aren’t bothering the main content of websites.
I always hate websites which has unstoppable pop ups. It really annoys me. I want to look for information, but the pop up interferes & wastes my time. I don’t know why, but i really hate pop ups.
I don’t know about you, but i don’t like too long articles. It takes you more time to write it and also make people bored to read it. Make it at most 1000 words with some image addition to make it more attractive than just a plain text. Make your words simple & understandable. Believe me, most people doesn’t like too long articles.
Make sure that link color has different color with body text color. It helps your reader to identify which links they have visited and also help them not to visit the same links unintentionally.
Don’t forget to share your thoughts about the article in comment section.
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Albert Lie is a 24 years old graphic designer from Indonesia, and also owner & main writer of AlbertLie.com | Currently specializing in graphic design and adobe photoshop. Follow Albert Lie's twitter here
Sunday, April 22nd, 2012 10:00
Thnx. g00d 4 beginners.
im in Iran and music and film websites have very much ads above the website. they want earn much money and it seem the they avoid users!
Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011 17:48
And mistake 11 is writing articles using poor English.
Dude, take another English grammar class or two. Or have someone clean up for you. Or stick to writing in your native tongue where I’d hope you do much better.
Just sayin’
Thursday, November 24th, 2011 06:16
Grammar Nazi be hatin’. Seriously, as long as it does not impair understanding, why not give people a try at it? It’s not like you have exclusive rights for the use of the language. The world doesn’t need any more pedants. Here’s a cool video for you, Stephen Fry on language. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7E-aoXLZGY
Wednesday, October 19th, 2011 20:27
I don’t even know how I ended up here, but I thought this post was good. I don’t know who you are but certainly you are going to a famous blogger if you aren’t already ;) Cheers!
Monday, September 12th, 2011 15:16
Hey there great posting , Appreciate your giving this info
Sunday, August 7th, 2011 00:07
Hello,
I am use it (tips on read), good post.
Also i am share this page, my social account.
I am following you, since today :)
Good luck man !
Sunday, July 31st, 2011 23:18
Thank.
this is very wonderful article. I agree with you. Heavy flash, Too Long Articles and Unwanted Pop Ups are very bad.
Sunday, July 3rd, 2011 19:55
There are numerous grammatical errors in this article but otherwise very useful information, thank you for sharing.
Friday, June 17th, 2011 03:57
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Friday, May 13th, 2011 20:01
RE: Very Tiny Font Size
“make your body text at least 12pt”
Another classic mistake with font measurements for the web, 12pt is not the same as 12px. Point sizes are generally larger than pixel sizes and correct communication of font size is very important in site design. (This site uses a default 12px font size.)
Sunday, May 8th, 2011 21:10
Excellent site, thank you for the information, I will follow, good luck
Thursday, February 3rd, 2011 00:16
#7 sounds like the majority of blog sites.
Monday, June 7th, 2010 06:32
There are numerous grammatical errors in this article but otherwise very useful information, thank you for sharing.
Monday, April 12th, 2010 08:26
Only after years of practice can you fully see the transformation of your skills. Design is a skill that takes some time to learn and experimentation only drives it forward.
Wednesday, April 7th, 2010 21:59
I think that although we see many examples of these kinds of mistakes on the web, we have to remember that we all started somewhere. Only after years of practice can you fully see the transformation of your skills. Design is a skill that takes some time to learn and experimentation only drives it forward.
Monday, September 5th, 2011 06:15
Hi, I also have some years experience web develop , i practiced so much , but i got some mistake above . My mistakes were:
1. No title in web page , i didnot know web to talk about ?
2. Broken layout in some browser , it’s very bad for me to see .
Thanks you so much your sharing tips.
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sharmagee
Saturday, February 27th, 2010 01:33
Some obvious things that we do sub-consciously, but good to see them in one place.
Project Center
Sunday, February 28th, 2010 19:24
Good reminders of things that most designers should be implementing in their designs.
With so many people now accessing through mobile devices flash should def be kept off a site and fonts used should be commonly used ones.
@ProjectCenter
Laia
Monday, March 1st, 2010 03:19
Great tips, but next time you should proofread it before posting! There are many spelling and grammatical errors…
Tom R.
Monday, March 1st, 2010 02:18
> Just use common font like Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Georgia, or Times New Roman, which every people has in their computer.
Boooring. Web designers go to great pains to craft beautiful and original websites. Why would they shun one thing that can make the difference? There any many tutorials on the Web about the use of @font-face and it’s easy to create a robust font stack. “Fluid Web Typography” by Jason Cranford Teague is also a great resource for more information.
Eko Setiawan
Sunday, February 28th, 2010 13:47
Hi, this article give us a list to check before we design a theme and before we release our theme.
Thanks…
ryandc
Monday, March 1st, 2010 03:55
I agree with Alex W.
There’s nothing original about this post or the content, and what’s there looks rushed and scrappy.
Sebastian Green
Monday, March 1st, 2010 17:23
Good artical, address the basic kind of errors new designers may make or novice designer.
Interms of custom fonts I think its fine for say headings, or areas of text that you want to draw the users attention to making them stand out from the other text on the page, however the font must be large, clear, readable and used sparingly.
Tom R.
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 16:55
Custom doesn’t mean fancy. There are many elegant and lighly legible typefaces around, even for free.
freshalex
Monday, March 1st, 2010 14:36
I don’t know why flash has got such a bad reputation, I like it.
Sridhar
Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 13:43
Because Flash does bad with SEO. Google can’t effectively crawl flash files as easily as htmls.
ebsoft
Monday, March 1st, 2010 05:57
thank you, interesting post
even most of them already familiar..
website ontwerp
Sunday, February 28th, 2010 02:33
Yup you’re right on this. Flash-driven websites should be history :-)
Ravindra
Saturday, February 27th, 2010 12:51
good post
I am toatally agree with Tommy’s comments
Paul Murray
Saturday, February 27th, 2010 01:03
I totally agree about the Flash website section. If I open a page that uses Flash, I immediately close it if the loading is long and drawn out.
Whilst I may be missing something useful or interesting, chances are I can find it on another site that loads instantly.
Tommy
Saturday, February 27th, 2010 05:48
These concepts are easily avoided by designers. The problem is getting clients to understand them too!
Sharon
Saturday, February 27th, 2010 13:23
Too right, clients, pah!
Andrew Yates
Saturday, February 27th, 2010 02:01
Good list of obvious things to not do.