Common Beginner Web Designer Mistakes

• An easy to use navigation structure is essential to any well designed website! Important information should never be more than 2 clicks away.
• Gratuitous use of frames is a common mistake of web designers. Many older browsers do not support frames. They disrupt the flow of the website and can be difficult to anticipate where a page may appear when a link is clicked.
• Make sure your text color is able to be read against your background color.
• Keep your backgrounds simple. White or light colors usually work best. Your background should not compete with the content of the page for the users attention. If you would like to use a background picture, select a picture that uses muted colors or format your picture as a watermark. Select text colors which will contrast well with the background picture.
• Constantly running animations can be distracting when used excessively. There should be no more than one animated object in your view at any time. Also in this category are excessive, large, flashing and and obnoxious advertisements.
• Aggressive pop ups, banners, flash ads and other intrusive ads annoy your visitors, make your site difficult to use and bury your message in a sea of clutter.
• Usually, it is best to skip the tunes, but if you must add music, be sure you provide a way for them to turn it off! Specify the number of times it will run.
• Splash pages which require you sit through a long download and don't offer a 'skip intro' option. Especially torturous on a dial-up connection. Avoid excessive or exclusive use of java script menus.
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• Enclosing blocks of text within borders breaks up the flow of the page and causes unnecessary distractions
• Pictures which don't load properly could be due to improper uploading of files, improper characters in filenames or unusual formats or file extensions
• Pages that provide no way back to the originating page. These can cause users to get 'stuck.'
• Hyperlinks that don't work is another problem with poorly designed websites. Click through all your links often and update them regularly. Hyperlinks of unusual colors can cause confusion for new users. Hyperlinks which are overly long and don't tell the user where it goes or what it's about. Hyperlinks that lead to the wrong place
• Internet Explorer may be the most widely used browser, but it is not the only one. Others include Mozilla Firefox, Safari and Opera to name a few. Different browsers may display your page very differently. Check your website in as many different browsers as possible. Check it in both 800 x 600 and 1024 x 768 screen resolutions. Using tables may help control the layout. Avoid components which only render properly in specific browsers.
• If your website contains timely information, you need to keep it updated regularly, or remove the old stuff
• In addition to the problems outlined above, remember DOWNLOAD TIME is one of the most important factors in your web design. Most web surfers will not wait for more than 10-15 seconds for your page to load before they move on. Use pictures sparingly or use thumbnail images. Be sure to save images in .jpg or .gif format.