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7 Deadly Sins of Website Design

The 7 Sins of Web Design

Design is tough. There’s no formula or algorithm capable of delivering ‘the right’ design – at least not every time. Whilst there are rules that we as designers adhere to, it’s still a subjective beast – whether we like it or not! The same could be said for anything involving right brain thinking. The music of Yoko Ono and art of Damian Hirst divides opinion and demonstrates that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

In the web space there are elements common to 99% of all websites. We know that, for the most part, they all need images, text and colours. Web design then becomes about how these simple elements are selected, used, stretched, remixed, structured and coded – and this is where things can go wrong.

There are well designed, carefully considered websites that present businesses in the best possible way. And there are eye bleeding, horror show websites, which commit all of the following 7 sins of web design.

1. Text balance

The fonts you use on your website play a huge part in how it presents. Text sizes, line heights and the number of fonts used on a page all impact presentation.

  • Size matters. From our experience, 14px to 18px is a good size for standard body text with supporting text such as label and captions often being around 13px to 14px.  While it’s difficult to state the optimal sizes for all header tags (main headlines) , H1s are commonly 36px to 50px with H2’s between 36px and 30px and the size decreases as the hierarchy goes down. A good way to determine if your visual hierarchy needs modification is to squint until all the words are a blur. If you’re unable to make any distinctions between the text, you might want to reconsider the sizes being used.
  • Line height. Depending on the typeface chosen and whether it’s for body text or headline text, optimal line height often falls between 1 and 1.5x the font size. If you’re either side of that range you’re a sinner.
  • Colours. It sounds so simple but there are many ways this can go wrong. Light text on a white background. Poorly balanced background and text colours. If your site visitor struggles to read the text then it’s more likely they’ll leave.
  • Number of fonts. With a huge amount of fonts available to us it’s easy to want to use ALL of them. We’ve been guilty of using a few too many font’s on sites in the past but we’ve learned the error of our ways. Keep the number of fonts used down to a maximum of 2. More than that and things can start to look messy.

2. Unnecessary Animation

When used in the right way animation can enhance a site design and help engage site visitors. Subtle movements, image hover states and even video can go a long way towards improving user experience and creating something that is interesting to interact with.

When used in the wrong way animation can be a massive distraction and an eye sore. With the advances in web speed and improvements in design functionality it’s tempting for businesses and designers alike to want EVERYTHING animated – but that doesn’t mean that you should. Subtle animations helps bring some life to even the most boring sites but it’s a delicate balance and easy to get wrong.

Our tip, avoid animating site content for the sake of it. Use movement to help bring visitors eyes to a specific area of your site and help create engagement.

3. Crappy images

As discussed in our article The Importance of Good Images, the right images will capture a visitor’s attention, inform them of a particular message and keep them engaged. In a world of short attention spans the old saying ‘an image speaks a thousand words’ is more relevant today than ever before.

Finding images that align with your brand, convey a message and look authentic is not easy. If you’re ever looking for a time vacuum we recommend spending half an hour on Shutterstock. It can be quite soul destroying. There are a lot of great free stock sites that are worth exploring and a few great paid stock sites – but they can get expensive.

Alongside unrealistic stock images, uploading a full resolution unoptimised image is arguably one of the most common sins committed. We often see sites with high resolution images that are better suited to full size billboards than a hand held device. At Start Digital we resize and compress all our images to ensure the site loads quickly without losing quality. Our full screen images don’t exceed 2000 pixels wide and, ideally, should be below 250kb. Whats more, all images should be tagged so that search engines understand what each photo represents. This is almost a post in itself.

4. Cluttered structure

A website has 7 seconds to grab a visitors attention before they leave. Truth! And once they’re gone there’s no coming back. It’s important to very clearly communicate who you are and what you do quickly and with a minimum of fuss. Less is often more but it’s a delicate balance. Either way, if you try to communicate too much or too little then you risk alienating your audience.

Once you’ve captured your visitors attention it’s incredibly important to ensure they can find the information they’re looking for. A clean, simple menu structure and intuitive navigation helps enhance the user experience, creates further engagement and guides site visitors towards the information they need.

Want to see how not to do it? Check out Arngren…..

5. Pop Ups

‘I love that pop up screen’, said no one ever.

Pop up advertising is still widely used, especially on sites that are marketing products and services. We recognise the temptation for businesses to use pop ups once a visitor has been on the site for a period of time or is trying to leave the site. Our advice is don’t – unless absolutely necessary. No one likes a pushy sales person and we’ve become increasingly savvy to online marketing tactics.

“On average, small business owners need 1319 people to see their popup to get one subscriber who clicks on a link in their emails”

Not only are they annoying but statistics indicate that conversion rates are very low. Even worse is that Google doesn’t like pop ups and they can affect your SEO.

6. Poor use of white space

White space is an integral part of all good design but is one of the most misunderstood parts of a websites presentation. Web designers want to use white space, business owners want to fill it and see it as a waste of space.

Whitespace allows your content room to breathe. The space between content makes text more legible, headlines stand out more and navigation more intuitive.

7. DIY Design

For some, the temptation is hard to resist. After all, home DIY work is easy – what could go wrong.

There are so many DIY website platforms, from Wix through to Squarespace and everything in between, making your own website has never been easier. But that doesn’t mean you should. In 2019 Businesses will be judged on the appearance of their website and making sure it’s professional is vital if you’re going to win clients and beat your competitors.

A DIY website builder will get you so far but inevitably your site will look homemade and, unless homemade is your thing, it won’t be something you can proudly show to your clients. Read more about the perils of DIY websites here.

The world of web is better looking than ever and has never been so demanding or competitive. Because of this, no design agency or designer or business should need to ever commit any sin – let alone 7!

If your business is looking for a sin-free website, drop us a line – we’re nothing but angels here! (Unless someone forgets to stock up on coffee beans…)

startdig

We are a collective of designers, coders, producers and technologists from around the world who collaborate on a shared passion for innovative websites. Based in Perth, Western Australia, we bring style and innovation to the projects we undertake. Taking time to understand our clients requirements we strive to produce quality web design work for an affordable price. We then leverage our years of experience to make sure that our websites are responsive, SEO friendly and meet the clients requirements.

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Felicia Chong
Felicia Chong
07:05 12 Feb 21
I will definitely recommend Start Digital as a professional and reliable team for all services related to SEO. Huge thank you to Neil, Savannah and the Start Digital team. Not only have they listened to what the company needs, they managed to troubleshoot and provide cost effective solutions catering to our business needs and budget. Their ability to take on big and small projects for Saferight as a company accumulatively is outstanding. They have been flexible in their offerings when it comes to web development services and SEO solutions which has been one of the core drivers of the company's growth.
Jack McLoughlin
Jack McLoughlin
17:04 29 Jun 20
Thoroughly professional and well communicated. Thanks Neil
aimxi online
aimxi online
04:37 15 May 20
I am from Brisbane, my name is Craig, I have a dog training company, it was my first time attempting on page SEO, after calling nearly all SEO companies in Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne, this was the only place that gave me some time to help me out. 5 star from me, well done in being a human and not worrying about what you could have got from me. hats off to you !. from dogtrainingbegins.com.au
Sheri Macmahon
Sheri Macmahon
09:04 17 Jan 20
Knowledgable, inspiring and helpful. Getting my online presence created and managed by the Start Digital is the BEST decision I ever made. Edit. 16 Feb 2012. 6 months after Start Digital launched the web page they created for my business I rank #1 I'm too busy to even supervise the page. Just set and forget Start Digital have it covered. Thank you
Hello :-)
Hello :-)
12:39 12 Jun 19
Neil & The Team at Start Digital are fantastic to work with. Our new website is exceptional. The guys here have fresh, modern ideas and the process from start to finish was flawless. Highly recommended.
Blank Walls
Blank Walls
03:57 11 Jun 19
Neil and the team at Start Digital provide such an excellent service and have been a massive help for us since we launched late 2018. Their attention to detail is unmatched compared to other digital agencies we've dealt with, and the team go out of their way to ensure the best result is achieved in the most time & cost efficient way. Thanks again Start Digital
Move Homes
Move Homes
00:18 11 Jun 19
A huge thank you to Neil and the Start Digital team! We engaged them to redesign our Move Homes website to take our brand to the next level. Not only does the website look fantastic, but throughout the website build we received frequent and transparent communication- we knew exactly what was happening and why. Start Digital listened to what we needed and would offer their advice on how to achieve our goals. Aside from their expertise, they’re also great people and really easy to deal with. We look forward to working on more projects over the coming years!
Sheila Woods
Sheila Woods
04:36 12 Mar 18
Neil Mason and the Start Digital team have done a tremendous job with the design and implementation of Interstaff’s new website. Our brief to Neil was for a clean, modern website which visually communicated our brand values, ‘sharp, dependable, expert and human’ to both business and individual clients, and importantly to offer an engaging and easy-to-navigate online experience optimised for SEO. We are delighted with the design as well as the level of consideration and attention to detail Neil and his team put into shaping the online experience of our brand. Start Digital have been very flexible and easy to collaborate with and nothing was ever too difficult. They went above and beyond – even working over the weekend to help us have our website ready to launch ahead of one of our key business seminars. We look forward to continuing to work with Neil and his team in the future and would definitely recommend their services.
iQuest Consulting
iQuest Consulting
05:48 21 Feb 18
The Start Digital team built us a new website and have been managing our SEO for over a year now. During that time our site has moved into the top five on page 1 of Google for keywords such as IT Company Perth and IT Support Perth which has increased our traffic considerably. We're very proud of our website and highly recommend Start Digital.
Heather Bush
Heather Bush
01:02 16 Feb 18
Neil and his team at Start Digital go above and beyond expectations. Having worked with many web agencies I can honestly say that Start have been one of the most open and cost effective agency I have worked with . They come highly recommeded
Anthony Godin
Anthony Godin
05:11 04 Jan 18
Excellent Perth website design, development and SEO agency
Uniting ChurchWA
Uniting ChurchWA
06:58 06 Dec 17
After years of tolerating our old website, we are now proud owners of a sleek, responsive and easy to use new site, thanks to Start Digital. Professional, practical, affordable and easy to work with-Neil and his stellar team delivered our site along with 22 additional sites for some of our congregations. Our organisation is complex and this project was massive. Throughout the project, Start Digital were flexible and patient with us. They responded quickly to emails and phone calls, kept us in the loop and always made time to touch base in their cool office. We can’t thank the team enough for their tremendous effort. It’s only been a month, but we have received plenty of positive feedback since launching the new site. We look forward to working with Start Digital for future digital projects and highly recommend anyone who needs a new website to give them a call.
Amantha Imber
Amantha Imber
08:25 02 Dec 17
Neil and the team created an AMAZING website for Inventium. We have received so much positive feedback since launch. I highly recommend Start Digital - they are awesome!
Lee Bramley
Lee Bramley
03:54 16 Nov 17
Fantastic Service, Really Knowledgeable in all areas of Website and Marketing strategies, they built us a fantastic looking site and nothing was too much for them throughout the process, We also found them to be very reasonably priced compared to other quotes we had, highly recommended.
Dean Capelli
Dean Capelli
06:22 11 Jul 17
Start Digital have built 3 websites for The Highways Group. We've been impressed with their attention to detail and quality of design every time. They're a friendly, professional agency and our go to web team.
John Argiropoulos
John Argiropoulos
07:45 19 May 17
We highly recommend Start Digital service, their efficient , personnel approach and professional skills gave us great results thanks .
Mitch Capelli
Mitch Capelli
22:13 25 Nov 16
Knowledgeable and excellent service at a great price I highly recommend Start Digital. We engaged them to redesign our website and manage our online presence. Previously we were a few pages back on a google search, however after only a few months we are in and around the top 5 on the first page. The guys at Start were great to deal with providing straight forward easy to understand information without the typical sales pitch that we have experienced many times before from other providers in the industry. We continue to receive updates on the progress of our website and their SEO service all for a very reasonable rate (ie. much cheaper than we were previously paying for a lesser service)
Eva Wood
Eva Wood
01:24 23 Nov 16
Neil and his team was responsible for the design and re-branding of our website, business cards and marketing material. They quickly understood our business, they identified the market we needed to target and delivered an excellent solution to match. We would highly recommend Start Digital.
Compac Marketing
Compac Marketing
04:05 14 Oct 16
Neil and the guys at Start Digital took care of some problems we had with our website performance. They were really efficient, responsive, easy to get along with and gave us some great pointers to help us with SEO. Unlike many digital marketing companies out there, Start Digital were very genuine and well-priced. Would definitely recommend their services to others.
Paul Avery
Paul Avery
05:23 13 Oct 16
Great design ideas and technical capability means a complete solution for small and medium sized businesses like us. Neil & Co actually take an interest in what you are trying to achieve rather than just turn and burn volume website factories out there! I recommend them.
Claire Leech
Claire Leech
02:11 04 Oct 16
We have had the pleasure of working with the team at Start Digital recently as we wished to update our website for our restaurant business. WOW! An amazing new, innovative, trendy and professional approach taken by these guys has resulted in a brilliant new site, clearly directing so much more traffic through our business resulting in increased brand awareness and google presence. As a relatively new business, Start Digital will definitely be going places ! We really look forward to continuing to work with them in the future and watch both our and their business grow! Thanks Neil and the team at Start Digital.
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