I believe some people create and publish websites for the sole purpose of tormenting their visitors. Browsing various websites and navigating the Web can often be like trying to read on an airplane while a kid kicking the back of your seat and the baby next to you alternates between screaming, crying and drooling on you. There are some excellent websites for sure, but there are a lot of terrible ones too. The latter are the bane of so many people there, especially those who use the site regularly.
The Net continues to grow in popularity and importance as consumers and businesses. Therefore, the quality of the sites should be continuous. Creating and maintaining websites of high quality is more important than ever. Higher quality means higher revenue.
Below are the top ten ways that a website designer misses the boat and contributes to hair loss and nervous breakdowns. Notice the common thread that runs throughout each of these. Namely, a bad website neglects to consider the site visitor experience in some fundamental ways.
1. Animation
Seven-year-olds like watching cartoons on Saturday morning, business people, professionals and most other adults. Sites that flashy Flash animations as an ‘include Intro’, animated gifs on every page, or flying words are really annoying. They take away the content and distract the visitor from achieving their goals. Unless your site is an entertainment site, try to avoid maddening motion. However, if your product or service can be better demonstrated using Flash, Quick Time or other multimedia, which is common, offer your visitors the chance to click a link to view it. But do not force them.
2. Too much scrolling
Once I scroll down a full screen’s worth, my eyes begin to blur, I feel somewhat lost, turning my head and my interest is decreasing. Computer monitors really are not the best medium for reading. The Net and many sites are so large that it is important to always clear reference to your visitors at all times while on your site. If a page requires two full screens scrolling or more, simply split into multiple pages.
3. Long, text-heavy and blocky paragraphs of unbroken text
I must really be a topic or desperately need the information to find out slogging through large tracts of unbroken text online. If I’m just shopping around for a product or service, you have lost me as I endure such torture. Again, it is difficult to read text on the Web than in other media such as books. Moreover, Web users are notoriously impatient, so make your content easy to read and not intimidating. Use titles, subtitles, small paragraphs, bullets and numbering.
4. No obvious ways to contact the company
If all you offer is an e-mail on your website, your legitimacy may be questioned. Why can not you answer the phone? Why hide behind an anonymous email address and cold? Make it easy for your existing and potential customers to talk with you.
5. Unchanging or outdated content
If I start reading content on a site and soon discover that the content was written three years ago, I split. With so much information out there, my reasoning is that there really comparable information online that is more power to be. If you fresh content on your site will attract repeat visitors. And returning visitors are more likely to convert into customers.
6. Long page downloads
It is amazing that this is still a problem. When I click on a site and have to sit there waiting to appear in my browser, I start sweating, picking my teeth, tapping my toes, rolling my eyes and soon want to throw my computer through my office. I’m obviously a little impatient, but again, I know there are other sites out there with the same information faster to download, so why wait? I’m gone.
7. “Me, me, me!” instead of “You, you, you ‘
In general, nobody cares about you, your company or your thoughts. What they do is care about what you can do for them. So sites that show pictures of the farm building or tout their deep philosophy on the way business should be conducted really do not bode well for keeping the interest of visitors of the site. On the other hand, sites that talk directly with potential customers about how they solve problems, make their lives easier, safer, richer or more comfortable have a much better chance of keeping the eyeballs glued.
8. Non-explanatory buttons or links
Here are some examples of the buttons let me dazed and confused: A wedding site with a button called “Blanco”, a site with sailing on a button called ‘The Lighthouse’, a book site with a button called ‘The Inside Story’ or a web site with a button called “Tea Time”. They sound like Jeopardy categories. Imagine trying to find your way on a highway where the different signs read here, “” Moon beams’ and ‘Lollypops’. Good luck navigating your way through. It’s the same with navigating websites. Button and link names to the user where the link leads to tell. Make it as easy as possible for a visitor to know where they’re going before they click. However, there are times when naming a link an ambiguous name may pique the curiosity of a user and get them clicking. But as a general rule, keep your links and buttons as descriptive as possible.
9. Inconsistent navigation
Imagine sitting in a restaurant and the waiter comes to you and hands you five different menus, one for appetizers, one for soups and salads, one for the starter, one for desserts, and one for drinks. Annoying. Now imagine if each menu had a different format, layout and method for listing the items. Brutal. I really do not want to work hard when choosing my food, I’m hungry and I just want a meal. Keep your visitors work hard either by expecting them to re-learn your navigation each time they enter another section of your site. They too are hungry, for useful information and they are even more impatient.
10. Inconsistent look and feel
When the look and feel entirely from one page to another in a website, I think I have another site, another company, a partner or daughter to visit. I get very confused. This screams poor planning and often results from tacking on new sections later after the original site was built. This can lead to design drift. It may be tempting to deviate from the original design, you can now have a better design. But wait until you get an entirely new generation re-design of the entire site before introducing a new look and feel. If not, then many visitors scratching their heads with one hand and possibly clicking away with the other.
Finally, a site that some of these notorious features is particularly painful to work experience. When I click on a site with five different fonts and colors, move to the core of the earth, takes zinging words and big blocks of text, lists no phone number and has content written and dated in 1996, I scream and know deep inside that pulling my fingernails are not as torturous as a minute longer to stay.