Frequently committed web design usability errors

This article source: E Mentor Network

High-quality availability has been at the heart of the industry's discussions over the past decade, as it is becoming more and more important to users. Good usability can also help build brand awareness, thereby increasing the user's evaluation of a website or a company. Today, there is still a high degree of focus on usability because companies large and small have demonstrated how important a good usability strategy is. after years of discussion about the topic, it seems that web designers are still having trouble understanding it. Usability is no longer a joke, and the following recommendations should be printed and glued to the wall on the opposite side of your desk.

The color of the link

Often find that when you browse the Web, some of the links on the page are not highlighted in some way. This is the stupidest mistake. Would like to access those links using the default blue pages instead of links and plain text one color page. Users need to know how to navigate between pages, where they can click a link. You can't expect them to hover over all the text of the mouse line to find the link until the mouse arrow turns into a "small hand."

Sometimes, because of design considerations, links cannot be highlighted with a color, which makes them too abrupt. This is entirely understandable. But you can add a text style or a dashed box, and you just need to emphasize the link in one way or another.

The visited links should also be displayed in different ways to distinguish them from the default link colors. Because it helps the user know what they've already visited and then determines where to go next. Some websites confuse users, but letting them know what they've already visited will definitely make them feel better about your site. After all , the user experience is very important AH!

Bad typography.

When we talk about typography, it's not that we need a big headline, or a nice piece of text. When we consider ease of use, typography is not so important, it is important how the layout makes our content easy to read.

In web design, how to use the font and what color to wake visitors, is not very important. Of course, you can do that, and that's better. Let me make a further explanation. On the Internet, two of the latest design trends, minimalism and flat design, are extremely simple and focused on the presentation of the content rather than the background map that is so beautiful. The reason why minimalism and flat design is getting more popular is that they are very simple and work well-sometimes it's really hard to believe that such a simple site can be a huge success, you go to the website, read the content, then leave, nothing distractions you, no flash, There is no JavaScript that makes the website slow to load, there are no beautiful flowers or drawings, just content.

Now, you should understand how important it is to make content easy to access, and not to spend too much time thinking about how to make a website look beautiful-no matter how beautiful the font is, it is useless for others to read it.

No reference to Convention

It's important to refer to design conventions and usability recommendations, because whoever you are, as long as you follow that, users will spend as much time on your site as they spend on other sites, which means you're on the same line as everyone else.

Let me give you an example of what I really want on the table. There is a Web site that places a link on its navigation bar to exit the page. The effect of this button, which is not the same as the usual understanding of the navigation bar should have, such a design violates the design practice.

Fortunately, the situation has improved a lot in recent years, but it is still possible to find some low-level errors that should not occur, such as: The link on the loop display module fails, or the link pops up when clicked. Therefore, follow the design conventions.

Avoid answering questions

The user browses the webpage to have the goal. Maybe it's about entertaining, maybe finding information, maybe keeping in touch with family or friends, maybe for other purposes. No matter what they do, there is always a goal.

The most important thing you need to remember now, most of the time, is that the user is looking for some information online. They go to Baidu or Google to search for something; they go to Wikipedia to learn something; they are on the corporate site to understand product information. They always have a goal.

When I explicitly want to go to the Web page to find the answer to a question, they are not found, this problem has happened to me N times. I can understand why design agents are not always highlighting the price factor because there are too many variables in a project, but I just can't understand why a hair salon doesn't tell me how much money a haircut needs, and I can't understand why the car wash company's website doesn't highlight how much money I need to clean my car. Then why do you have to build a website on this earth? I just feel that this is not good for you and your visitors, neither of you can get any useful information from them.

The reason you need to consider the needs of your site visitors is that your site is not built for you, if you are built for yourself, you do not network, directly on your own computer to see on it, a site for visitors, visitors are required to achieve them (demand) it!

Small clickable Area

Small clickable areas are sometimes uncomfortable. You might want to make the font smaller because you believe it looks beautiful, but you have to think about how much your decision affects usability.

It is important not only to ensure that the links are visible, but also to make them clickable. The smaller the area, the harder it is for people to click on them. There is a reason behind the web's tendency to move--that is, the layout needs to fit into a smaller screen. One of the things that needs to be adapted is the button, which suggests that they should get bigger on the portable device so they can be easily clicked.

The same strategy applies to desktop environments as well. The new flat user interface craze is the preacher of this idea. You won't have the hassle of clicking big and clear links. Make sure your users are browsing more easily. Again, focus on functionality and make aesthetics a cherry on a magical cake.

Missing contact information

There are a few things that annoy me more than bad customer service. One of them is the inability to contact pick-up or the company responsible for the transaction.

As we discussed earlier, people always visit the Web page with their purpose. If their goal is to get in touch with you, then from their point of view, if you can't find a contact, then this page is useless.

There is no excuse to not provide contact information. If you don't want to make your own phone number public, you can leave your e-mail. Yes, you can also buy a cheap mobile phone with a cost-effective package, then leave this number, or apply for a new e-mail. Do you want to avoid junk mail? You can use a contact method that is not automatically recognized by the machine. This is nothing, as long as you can give your customers a chance to find you in some way.

Search function

Many users are mission-oriented, meaning that they come to the site only to get the information they specify and not to be interested in anything else. In this way, you will find how important a good search function can become.

But that doesn't mean you need to provide a search bar on every page, and if you run a design company with a single-page Web site that provides information on projects and contacts, there's no need to provide search functionality.

However, if you run a blog or any other content of the site, the search will be a lot of users will first go to use the function, research shows that the first time to find the user's search bar ratio of more than half of all users, it is really great beyond our imagination.

Assuming you're running a website on a WordPress-like platform, you'll be able to take advantage of its internal integrated search capabilities, and you can always use Google's search, because the smart search engine may have indexed all of your (or most) pages, You no longer need to write your own search function, so you have no reason to not use it on your website.

Mandatory registration requirements

Allows users to have a preview of the software or feature before they have to register or pay, much better than requiring them to register immediately. Some of the best concepts or ideas on the internet have always asked me to register first, which is unpleasant.

No, I don't want to leave my phone, address and shoe size to you until I can use your app. I need to try it right away to decide if it's right for me.

This statement, is also mobile phone Ux/ui Design Master Luke Wroblewski (related reference in the article at the end) agreed. He believes that users should have a glimpse into the product before making a decision. It's simple, and it's all about meaning.

No matter what you do, sales or production, do not ask users on the Internet to pay if they are not sure they need the product, or they will feel cheated, of course, you will never lose them. A good example is the Fruit Ninja, the very hot game on the iOS platform, it always appears as a free sample version, then after a period of time, that is, you have been fascinated by the example version, you will feel that you want a little more challenges, and then you buy the full version of the game. This is what I do, and I think it really says that the past, I will be in the beginning of the premise can not play to buy this game? Nonsense.

This is not just a class for designers, but also for many companies and manufacturers, if your product is good enough, do not immediately call on users to order, instead, you should provide them with a free trial of your products as soon as possible, you should be sure that if the product is really as good as you want, they will buy it.

Registration Form

Another issue that Luke Wroblewski often mentions in his key tips is the registration form. I have used registration. You'd like to sign up for an account right away (because he can meet some of your needs in some way), but because the registration form is too long. So you may give up registration so that a potential customer loses.

Make the registration form as simple as possible. Requires only the most important information, email, password, and user name. Once you have completed the registration, you can make them choose to fill in more details. This is also in line with the same principle mentioned earlier. In order to submit, users need to try your product first. If the customer is not sure if they like your product, then why would they give you information about their home address, real name, and job title? At most, you get some bogus information, and you don't get real information until they decide they want to use your product.

Today, many websites can be signed in via Twitter or Facebook. This is great, making login very simple and fast. You don't need to remember too many accounts and passwords for this. As long as you can sign in to Facebook, you can also sign in to websites that use the API to register. Although not everyone uses this approach, please provide the user with this possible sign-in path.

Inconsistent design

If the site has a white background and a top navigation area, do not turn the page into black and move the navigation to the bottom of the page. It makes me wonder if I'm still on the same website, and I don't want to waste my time on this issue.

The entire site to maintain the same layout. Give your page grid system A number of columns, whether it is a few columns as long as appropriate, and throughout the site to implement this rule. The same rules apply to background color, link color, typography and design principles. In a word, I can clearly know that I am still on the same website before I click on the "about" page.

Misuse of pictures

One of the basic principles of design is not to use the elements that you actually need. This is also true for pictures, not just to fill the page with them. Research shows that users tend to ignore images that simply populate the page. So if you don't have anything to show, the last thing I want to see is a random picture.

If you decide to use pictures, at least make sure to put them in the right place. I hate a station site, write the text into a two-column wide table, but also with the whole line wide picture to separate the text. It always makes me think: Should I look at the second column on the right and look at the first column under the picture, or should I look at the first column under the picture? This is disgusting, and what's more disgusting is that different websites use different ways to deal with this problem. If you want to use a picture, make sure that I do not have too much influence on the picture when I read the text, which is most important. All I need is to read.

Oh, by the way, if you want to know why I don't want to think about it (or why the user isn't willing to think about it), I highly recommend you look at Steve Krug's book. You can find a link to the book in the final reference of this article.

Written in the last

If you want to be a good web designer, just follow the steps above. You don't have to be a user experience expert, and what I've written above is really just some common sense, but most of the time they make a top-level site different from a decent site.