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What We Clicked: Web Design Mistakes Sorted

This link takes you to the list of the top 30 mistakes.

The results are sorted in descending order by group.


First Impression / Big  Picture

630Our site tries to tell you how wonderful we are as a company, but not how we're going to solve your problems. 
617We've designed our site to meet our organization's needs (more sales/contributions) rather than meeting the needs of our visitors.
289We say "Welcome to..." on our home page.
275It takes longer than four seconds for the "Man from Mars" to understand what our site is about.
244The "Man from Mars" cannot quickly find the focal point of the home page.
222Our site doesn't make us look like credible professionals. (Video)
177Our home page — or any page — takes more than four seconds to load.
177We never conduct user (usability) testing.
174We don't analyze our log files.
171We don't know which design items are not necessary.
162Quickly scanning the page doesn't tell our visitors much about its purpose.
159We have not eliminated unnecessary design items.
157The "Man from Mars" cannot quickly find the focal point of the current page.
129I don't know if our site looks the same in the major browsers.
128Our pages have too much/too little white space.
123We don 't put design elements where our visitors expect them.
113Our site doesn't make visitors feel they can trust us.
113We don't identify PDF files with an icon. (Video)
103Our site breaks when visited with the Javascript turned off.
95Our site's design was "borrowed" from another site.
93The important content does not fit in the first screen.
90Our site uses a splash page (unless it's a liquor, porn, gambling, adult, tobacco, or a multi-lingual / multinational site).
81Our site's navigation is Flash-based.
78Our site is Flash-based (and this is what our site looks like to people without Flash.)
74Our site uses pop-up windows.
71Our site's TITLE tag is something like "New Document", "Index" and not the name of our company or other search-engine friendly terms.
71Our site doesn't look the same in different browsers.
68Our site is based on a template that's bloated with ugly code, is difficult to maintain, and is, quite frankly, broken.
63Our site has a sound file automatically play in the background when a web page loads, but we're not a record label or musician
61Our site doesn't provide clear instructions on how to perform tasks like ordering, filling out forms, etc.
58Our site makes visitors register before they can enter.
52Our site prominently displays what hardware and software was used to create the site.
46 Our site disables a visiors right-click mouse button because we're crazy enough to think we have content worth stealing and that our visitors are too stupid to figure out how to bypass our code.
44Our site uses two or more splash pages.
40Our site forces visitors to install weird plugins.
40Our site has "Download latest browser" text or buttons.
8Our site breaks because of back-end coding errors.

Text and Links

124Our site mixes text colors on the page.
118Visited links don't change color.
100Our site mixes and matches text sizes on the page. (Video)
93We use justified text.
88We have too much/too little text on a page.
64Visitors can't read our text because it's too small.
63Our site uses centered text on more than just headlines.
49Our SITE USES LOTS OF WORDS IN ALL-CAPS.
49Our site uses scrolling, blinking, fading, or moving text.
46Our site has too many links.
41Our links are not informative.
35Our site uses underlined text. (Only links should be underlined.)
35Our site has lots of complex URLs.
34Our site has too many links in one area.
34Our site has lots of dead links.
32Our links are not clearly labeled.
31Our site has lots of dead links and/or no 404 pages.
30AccessColor says there isn't enough contrast between our stylesheet and our page.
29Our site's text requires people to have special (unusual) fonts on their computers to correctly view our text.
29Our site has links consisting of 10-20 words.
26The color contrast analyzer says there isn't enough contrast between text/links and the background.
26We use browser-specific tags like <MARQUEE>.
26We use font faces that are not appropriate for our audience — like Comic Sans on a senior citizen site.
22Our site has sideways text.
17Our site has text in the status bar — moving Javascript text.

Graphics, Video, Audio 

121Logo is not on the top of every page and clicking it doesn't lead to the home page.
110Our site uses divider bars.
108Our logo does not look like it was professionally made.
107No one has spent the time figuring out if our color scheme alienates our international users.
65Our site uses images with shadows.
60Our site uses graphics for text.
58Each page on our site is one big imagemap.
57Our site uses beveled images.
52Our site uses gradient images.
49Our site doesn't use color to convey meaning — red text signifies "this is important."
48Our site uses large (file-size) graphics.
48Our site uses animated GIFs.
48Our graphics don't have ALT= attribute text filled in and doesn't use "" for graphics that are empty.
42Logo is not above the fold. (Yes, this does happen.)
41Our site has an ugly color scheme (red and green, for example).
39Our site uses cheap clip art instead of high-quality web graphics.
37Our site doesn't physically reduce graphics using Photoshop (or other program). Instead, we take a 1200 x 800 pixel photo and manually changing the width and height attributes of the IMG tag to a smaller size.
35Our site has multiple colored areas on the page.
31Our site uses 3-D graphics.
30Our logo is a bad scan of a business card.
30Our site uses a background graphic that repeats itself on large-screen monitors.
29Our site automatically loads movies instead of using YouTube's method of only showing movies when people click.
27Our site has graphics that suffer from the "halo effect" — dithering that leaves an ugly halo around the image.
26Our site uses a trailing cursor.
26Our site uses animations gratuitously.
26Our site has flashing graphics that might cause seizures.
26Our site's graphics are confusing — they look like ads.
25Our site uses graphics that detract from the page.
24If your site has banner ads (especially near the top of the page), keep graphics away from them. People tend to ignore ads and they'll ignore your graphics.
24Our site uses IE page transitions.
20Our background graphic doesn't contrast well against the text, making it hard to read.
19Our site uses "Under Construction" graphics.
19Our site has blocks of ugly colors next to each other (red next to green).
18Instead of calling it a shopping cart, we call it a basket or other silly term.
17Our sites' symbols are not logical. Our shopping cart symbol doesn't look like a shopping cart.
16Our site uses moving graphics — falling snowflakes, flying birds — stupidly rendered by DHTML.


Navigation

85We understand how our site's navigation works so everybody else probably understands how it works.
66We created our site's navigational system to meet our needs, not our visitors' needs.
61A site's navigation should tell you where you are, where you're going to go, and how to get back to the home page. Our site's navigation doesn't.
50On our site, you may have to click four or more times to get to the information you want.
42Our site uses Flash navigation.
40Instead of being predictable, our site's navigation is inconsistent.
38The "Man from Mars" could not quickly understand our site's navigation.
38Our site doesn't have shortcuts on the main page to the popular content.
37Our site's navigation is not in the top screen.
35We use stupid terms like "stuff" for our navigational links or "Beginning" for "Home."
33Our site's content is not divided into logical categories and subcategories.
32The names of the categories and subcategories are not clear and mutually exclusive on our site.
29Our site uses JavaScript for navigation and it doesn't degrade naturally for visitors who come with JavaScript turned off.
28Although people don't want to learn a new navigational system, we've created our own anyway.
27Instead of being predictable, our site's navigational placement is inconsistent from page to page.
23Our links aren't clearly labeled and don't tell you where you'll end up.
22We keep people from signing up for expensive conferences.
21Some/all of our pages require visitors to scroll horizontally.
19Our links aren't clearly labeled, don't tell you where you'll end up, and say "Click Here." (May not be suitable for work NSFW.)
17We have a page or a popup explains how our navigation works.
17Our site uses Java navigation.
16Navigation graphics are not the same size and/or color.
15Our site uses Mystery Meat Navigation.
14Our site uses sideways navigation.

Content

101Our site doesn't have a privacy or legal statement page.
97We don't know what content is popular.
74We don't know what content is popular.
64Our site has too few words on a line, making it frustrating to read.
57Our site doesn't have Heroin Content.
51Our pages are too long. We forget that people skim.
50We don't identify non-HTML documents like PowerPoint or Excel.
50Our site's content is not written for the web, but for print media (or other media) and we just transferred it to the web.
45Our site has too many words on a line, making it hard to read.
44Our content is not organized to meet our visitors' needs.
42Our site has different looks on different pages or sections.
42Our site has different looks on different pages or sections.
40I don't know if our content is appropriate for our audience.
39Our site has a mission statement or a link to a mission statement on the front page (non-profit's are exempt).
38Our site has sections that are under construction and the public can access them.
36The content is not engaging, or relevant, or accurate, or fair and impartial.
36Our site's content came from Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, etc., documents and then converted to HTML.
31Our content is not broken down into logical categories.
29The content is not understandable by humans and is full of marketing-speak, or jargon, or unexplained acronyms.
26Our site may contain sensitive information the public and/or competitors shouldn't see.
25Our site uses content that our visitors don't need to know.
21The content really isn't appropriate for our audience.
21Our site's content is written at a higher or lower readability level than our visitors' knowledge level.
19We haven't checked to see we've eliminated all "Lorem ipsum" text or other placeholder text and graphics from site — especially from document titles.
14Some of our site's content — graphics and/or text — is considered offensive.
14Some of our content — graphics and/or text is considered racially or politically incorrect.
13Some of our content — graphics and/or text — is considered offensive to international audiences.

 

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