1.ILLEGIBLE TEXT
Your webpage's content has to be easy to read by people that do not have perfect vision. You should take in mind that most surfers wouldn't come to your website again if they had to lean forward and approach the screen to figure out what was written or if their eyes were sore after viewing your website. What you should avoid is:
- ALL CAPITAL LETTERS
- Very small letters
- Very big letters
Dark text on a dark background Light text on a light background Background colors that don't match with text color Fading Text
- Use Caps sensibly. Not only are they difficult to read, but they are also considered shouting. It sounds rude and it's very unprofessional to write in all capitals. It shows that you are lazy too.
- Be careful with font sizes. Too big or too small text is difficult to read. Reasonable sizes are 2-4 and maybe 5 for headings.
- Dark backgrounds and bad contrast between text color and background colour make text illegible, so they should be avoided. The best way to write is in black on a white background.
- Respect your visitors eyesight, by using normal text or bold when needed instead of fading text.
2.BACKGROUND MUSIC
It is very annoying to enter a page and then a piece of music to start playing. The worst bit is that it will keep playing over and over and will start again if you refresh the page. First of all, the visitor might not want to make noise while surfing and secondly, how do you now that every visitor will share the same music taste with you? So, avoid using it at all costs. It frustrates most surfers and it doesn't make your webpage cooler or anything.3.FLASH INTROS
In reality, there is nothing wrong with the flash intro itself. It is often considered nice and cool. There are many webmasters out there that have worked really hard to create a nice-looking flash intro. A common mistake is that they do not provide the visitor a "skip intro" button. The visitor is forced to download a flash player (and some sites do not even have a link to it).That really gets into the visitor's nerves. That's what the visitor is likely to think: "I am on a dial-up connection,I don't want to see your wonderful flash intro, so get on with the site". Or: "Why on Earth should I download that flash player? I can't spend the whole day waiting for the page to load!". So, optionality is the key. Create a flash intro if you want to, but for god's sake, do enable the visitor to skip it.
4.TRYING TO BE COOL
Take a look at these examples:
- Hey, dude!!! Guess what? You've just entered my webpage! You know, it's the coolest place on Earth!
- This is @ gr8 P4G3!
- U hav just enterd my page. I hope u r enjoying yr stay!
- Avoid using multiple exclamation(!!!) or question(???) marks. I very much regret using these. It takes all the professionalism away.
- Don't try to persuade people that you are cool when they first enter your page. If you are cool, the content and the design will show it for you.
- Superlatives make what you say sound unreal, so unless you want people to think you're a liar, don't use them.
- Don't write with numbers and weird symbols. It looks very unprofessional and it doesn't create a good impression. The visitor may think that you are a sad nerd.
- Don't use the short forms of "you", "are", "have" too much. It is fun to use them in forums, but it is better to avoid them when writing something important, because it makes what you’re saying look unprofessional.
5.DISORGANIZATION
It is very important that your site is organized. Take a look at the tips below:
- It is a good idea to make a navigation menu that will show up in every page, not just in your homepage. You can of course include a back button in every page together with a "back home" icon, which is something I see in many webpages. But it's not as good as the navigation menu. Why force the visitor to go back and forward all the time? If you don't how to include a navigation menu in all your pages easily, check my SSI Tutorial.
- Make sure that the navigation menu appears in the same way on each page. Do not change the order or the name of the links, because it causes the visitor to get confused.
- Try to put the links to your pages in a logical order or divide them into categories. For example, if you have those pages: About me, Contact Me, Photos, Links, Game Reviews, Diablo Cheats, Link to me, then you should arrange them like that
- About me
- About me
- Photos
- Games
- Game Reviews
- Diablo Cheats
- Community
- Links
- Link to me
- Contact me
- About me
CONCLUSION
It's very important that you try to make your site as user-friendly as possible. That's because sites that are not designed in a user-friendly way confuse the visitors. And confused visitors don't buy.
