There are common mistakes web designers make that are costly for web development. These mistakes can be easily avoided; here are some of the mistakes and how to avoid them.</P
Common Mistakes Web Designers Make and How to Avoid Them
Here are some simple mistakes the best web designers wouldn’t make;
1. Working with an Unclear Purpose
Most designers jump on designing websites without first understanding the purpose of the design. Further errors are inevitable when you start to design a site without knowing and understanding what the site is for and who it is targeted at. Every single element, from the look to the feel and features, hinges on the use of the website.
In order to avoid this mistake, take time to ask your clients questions regarding their business purposes and how they hope to achieve them through the site. You should also have an understanding of who their target audience is.
2. Too Many Visual Elements
The beauty of a design is in simplicity. Web designers make the mistake of crowding their designs with too many elements like images, texts, and buttons. The user interface design is the first element that draws a user in and the goal is to not just have website visitors, but also to have them stay long enough to know the brand and take the necessary next steps.
Keep it simple. Give your users a taste of your creativity without bombarding them with all your ideas and enormous design elements. Do not add any element or button that your design can do without.
3. Neglecting User Experience (UX) Design
By now you know that the aim of web designers is to give their users an amazing experience. Now that we have that out of the way, you can agree that not committing to the experience of the user you are creating the website for is a big mistake.
An experienced UX designer thinks about the user’s journey while designing a web application. UX UI is the heartbeat of the web design industry and must be treated as such.
4. Lack of Graphic Design Skills
A professional web designer most likely started off as a graphic designer. Some designers make the mistake of not learning basic graphics skills and thereby make crappy designs. Doing a design will require you to know how to use font size, the color of text, and the background. You will also need to understand where to place each element of your design and the appropriate distance between one text and another.
A product designer can execute web projects using tools like Adobe Photoshop for photo manipulation, though a lot of people do not appreciate it.
5. Designs that are not User-friendly
One mistake designers commonly make is creating designs that are not user-friendly. Is the web design difficult for the user to use? Simple designs, clear texts, and visible colors will contribute to making it easy for the user to find their way around the website. Also, navigation of the site should be considered and made easy. You wouldn’t want to confuse your users on where to go next and how to get there.
If you want to ensure client satisfaction, you must prioritize the users when making a design. A small business owner will very much appreciate a web design that will not just draw in their audience but give them extensive experience. You can do this by creating user personas (for example, using avatars to understand who the user is), doing research on the users, and testing your designs with sample users who can help you improve your designs by using them.
6. User Interface Designs
The best web designs are interactive. When businesses hire web designers, they hope to get well-structured web pages. When a digital design doesn’t have an interaction design, it will affect the business because their users cannot get back to them through the web applications. Hence the importance of features like call-to-action buttons and dropdown menus.
7. Responsive Design Oversight
A freelance web designer can so easily forget to apply techniques that make the website responsive to different devices and screen sizes. Web designers should be able to make websites work properly on mobile devices’ small screens or desktop’s large screens. They should not be limited to specific devices.
When a web designer makes the mistake of neglecting responsive web design, it can cost a website tons of traffic because the number of persons that access the web on a mobile device is so high.
Furthermore, responsive web design also ensures that images do not lose their quality or cause layout issues. You can use the max-width and min-width techniques to get the appropriate screen width and design a responsive website.
Just like top web designers, you can use some popular CSS frameworks like media query (another feature of responsive web design) to improve your web design. Media queries allow a web designer to make elements in a way that a website can properly function on any device or screen size. Some other features that will help you improve the performance of web pages are; the viewport meta tag, viewport width, browser width, browser window, and browser instructions.
Difference Between Web Design and Web Development
Above all that has been discussed before now, the greatest mistake would be to confuse website development and web design. Of course, it doesn’t have a big difference but understanding each one accordingly will help you understand your job description.
Web development requires technical skills, unlike web design. Web developers write codes and implement web designs using programming languages like CSS and Javascript. They can also add doctype HTML to a web page to determine the types of documents. The front-end developer works on the client side of the site while the back-end web developer works on the back side of the site. Web developers manage the content management systems and maximize the website builder. A web developer relies on the designs from the designer to fully grasp what they are building.
Final Word
Web Designer
As a web designer, you can avoid these mistakes and enjoy absolute pleasure from your work. Maximizing UI UX will give you a main advantage and most certainly make you a creative director. When anyone wants to hire a web designer, they’re looking for the best web designers and you fall into this category if you use the best practices and avoid mistakes.
Try out different styles and consider elements like the max width of screens, the page’s dimensions, browser window, the logo design you’re using, and other things we’ve discussed already. Understand when to add more space, when to give less space, and if your design can function properly in landscape mode.