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How Web Design Mistakes Kill Engagement and What to Do About It

How large is the impact of web design mistakes on your brand? Although they seem to ‘only’ hurt users’ experience, they cause significant loss across different aspects of your marketing and sales touchpoints. 

From site performance to loss of promising opportunities, this article discusses the most fundamental mistakes that designers, developers, and business owners should avoid. It also offers practical solutions to create an optimal and professional online presence.

Key takeaway:

  • Prioritizing clear navigation, fast loading speeds, and accessibility is crucial for online success and customer conversion.
  • A well-designed, user-friendly website is a critical asset for effective marketing and driving online sales.

Also Read: Good vs Bad Web Design: What’s the Difference?

7 Most-Common Web Design Mistakes, Their Impacts, and Solutions

The following design mistakes are the most fundamental, sorted out from the top 10 mistakes in web design. They affect various aspects of your marketing and sales, from SEO, conversion, and your brand reputation for short and long term.

1. Confusing or Inconsistent Navigation

Unclear and unstructured web navigation
Unclear and unstructured web navigation (source: greatdreams)

This mistake entails an unorganized web structure, including unclear menus, broken links, or inconsistent navigation, which complicates visitors to easily find what they’re looking for quickly, triggering frustration and leave.

This usually results in a higher bounce rate, lowering conversion as users abandon their purchase journey. Also, it hinders search engine crawlers, negatively affecting your SEO. Consequently, an unintuitive site makes poor user experience and your brand appear unprofessional.

Solution: 

  • Implement a clear, logical navigation structure and consistent placement across all pages; 
  • Use intuitive labels;
  • Ensure all links are functional; and
  • Add a search bar.

2. Slow Loading Speed

Illustrated Digital reported that page speed stands out as a necessary factor in a website’s user experience. Website visitors expect pages to load within a few seconds. A slow-loading site leads to high bounce rates as users leave for faster sites, directly costing you potential customers and harming conversion rates.

While creating a poor impression, this is one of the common web design mistakes to avoid, damaging your brand image and negatively impacting your SEO, as search engines penalize slow-loading websites. 

Solution: 

  • Optimize images by compressing file sizes, 
  • Leverage browser caching, 
  • Minimize unnecessary code and plugins.

Also Read: Top 20 Picks of Techno Fonts to Energize Your Designs

3. Poor Typography and Readability

Poor web font choice and contrast
Poor web font choice and contrast (source: Fontjoy)

Utilizing hard-to-read and too many font types, insufficient text size and length, and poor contrast between text and background obstructs proper readability, making content inaccessible.

This leads to users’ low engagement with your brand and potentially lost conversions as users struggle to consume information. Poor readability likely has a negative impact on SEO, as search engines prioritize delivering a good user experience.

Solution: 

  • Choose web-safe, legible fonts with appropriate sizes (at least 16px for body text);
  • Ensure sufficient color contrast between text and background;
  • Break up large blocks of text with headings and bullet points.

4. Inadaptability Across Devices

This means your web design is not optimized for the mobile-centric era as today requires. Poor mobile experience blocks a major traffic portion of the audience’s accessibility, leading to potential conversions lost. Moreover, users will likely think that your brand is outdated.

Google prioritizes mobile-friendly websites, so, again, non-responsive design harms your web ranking.

Solution: 

  • Implement responsive elements, themes, and designs that adapt seamlessly to all screen sizes.
  • Test your website thoroughly on various mobile devices and tablets.

5. Ignoring Accessibility

Poor color contrast, lack of alt text for images, and absence of on-screen keyboard accessibility each preclude users with physical or cognitive limitations and disabilities. 

As search engines also consider accessibility as an SEO factor, this mistake surely affects website visibility, reduces the inclusivity of your potential customer base, and may cause legal issues, especially in the U.S. Overall, your brand appears as uncaring and exclusive, damaging the whole branding strategy. 

Solution: 

  • Adhere to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG),
  • Provide alternative text for images, 
  • Utilize keyboard-friendly navigation, 
  • Use clear and descriptive links, 
  • Use Accessibility Insights,
  • Maintain proper color contrast.

Also Read: 25+ Best Fonts for Clothing Brands to Appeal to Your Target

6. Overcrowded, Cluttered Interface

Overcrowded Homepage
Overcrowded Homepage (source: CNN)

Interfaces that contain excessive elements, distracting layout, walls of text, insufficient whitespace, and unclear visual hierarchy can easily overwhelm users. 

It is one of the web design mistakes that won’t favor conversion rates, as it hinders smooth navigation and users’ interaction with your website. It reflects how poorly your brand considers user experience, making the brand seem untrustworthy. 

Solution: 

  • Apply a clean and well-organized layout with a clear visual hierarchy;
  • Optimize headings, subheadings, whitespace, and strategic placement of elements to guide the user’s eye and make your content scannable and digestible.

7. Lack of Clear Calls to Action (CTAs)

Missing or indirect messaging of CTA is like missing clear guidance for customers on what to do, leaving them passive. It fails your customer’s journey, deterring engagement and lowering the chance of conversion, unfavoring your marketing and sales goals.

Without clear and compelling CTAs, users don’t know what action to take, leading to low conversion rates and lost opportunities. A confusing user journey also hinders engagement and can make your brand appear unclear about its goals. 

Solution: 

  • Harness action-oriented language for your CTA buttons; 
  • Make them visually prominent and inviting;
  • Consider strategic placement along the user journey;
  • Do A/B testing to find effective ones.

Also Read: 300 Top Futuristic Name Ideas for Your Next Big Project

Web Design Mistakes Undermine Brand’s Potential

Although aesthetics are important to create uniqueness in online presence, brands must pay attention and avoid these pitfalls. The proposed solutions will favor accessibility and improvement of SEO performance, conversion, and brand reputation. As typography is also a key component of a website, choose web-safe and professional typefaces for optimized website accessibility. Find premium collections at the Slide Shoot Type font shop.

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