WEBSITE DESIGN MOST COMMON MISTAKES

COMMON MISTAKES WITH WEB DESIGN

1.     Too much white space.

2.     The site mixes text colors on the page.

3.     The site mixes text sizes on the page or has different fonts.

4.     The text is centered after inserting a headline.   Needs to be justified.

5.      The site does not use black text.

6.     Underlined text is not a link.   (Book titles need to be italicized.)

7.     Contact information is not available.

8.      There is no site map or search engine.

9.      Headings are capitalized.

10.   Paragraphs have too much text.

11.   The site has three or more fonts styles on a page

12.   We don’t use heading to break up text.

13.   We don’t use bullets to highlight organize information.

14.   We don’t spellcheck content of the pages.

15.   The home page does not inform visitors of the content.

16.   The site is difficult to read because the text is too large and pages text is not consistent from page to page.

17.  There is too much or too little text on a page.  

18.  Links are not named – instead readers see http://  addresses.

19.  Photos or graphics are large files and take a long time to open. Or photos are distorted because they have be resized improperly.

20.   Sites include animated gifs. 

21.   The sites navigation is inconsistent or unclear.

22.   The content is not organized.

23.   Wrong font choices :  Best choices:  Arial, Helvetica, Verdana [Helvetica comes standard with Apple, and Arial for Microsoft] Why?  Because they are free, mostly come standard, are very legible at small sizes and are visually similar in appearance, spacing etc. So, you can trust your layout will look relatively similar cross platform and browser.

Recommendation highlights  from Fast Pivot.com and Webpages That Suck.com

FONTS FOR WEBPAGES

It's not a good idea to get creative with fonts on your Web pages. If you stick to the three specs above, or something quite similar, your pages will look equally good for all your users, regardless of the operating system they use.

For the body text on the Web page (e.g. photo captions, navigation links, the main text), choose a classification. The standard choice is sans-serif because it is the easiest to read on a computer screen (while serif is easiest to read in printed material).

ARIAL AND VERDANA

1. Helvetica, Helvetica Neue, Arial
   Helvetica was created by Swiss designers 50 years ago, Helvetica is one of the most widely used sans-serif typefaces. Many well-known companies like American Airlines, Lufthansa, Toyota chose this font in their branding. There were so many variations of Helvetica that in 1983 Linotype released Helvetica Neue by redrawing the entire Helvetica family in a more structurally organized fashion. Many consider Arial, designed almost 30 years after Helvetica, to be a cheap imitation of Helvetica. But it turns out that Arial has more similarities with Univers than Helvetica.
   
   
2. Verdana was designed specifically for Microsoft in 1996 with a purpose of being readable at small sizes on a screen. The absence of serifs, wide proportions and loose letter-spacing make this font extremely legible for web sites.
   

1.    If you have no idea about fonts, how they translate to your web page, or how they will affect your visitors, then you should definitely stick with a san serif font. The reason for this is that these fonts are the most legible and provide the best readability for visitors in a low resolution atmosphere. Don’t take risks with your fonts, go generic and use a sans serif font. Your visitors will thank you for it and your sales will not suffer from it.

2.    Simple is Safe    Again, don’t let yourself get carried away with your fonts and designs. Instead, keep the thought in mind that simple is safe. If you want to be bold and brazen in your website design then don’t take that route with your fonts. Keep it simple, basic, and easy to read, and you will benefit significantly more than if you try to mix it up.