The virtual world has its own myths. If you are a website owner with no experience in web designing, so, you may have heard some about these myths from your hired web designer. The design of your website is not just recognized by visitors as a design, they get feedbacks by it about the value of your website either valuable or valueless. For some web owners, investing too much on their website by adding more and more elements would be appealing for users, but in fact, even the best designs could result in a poor web design if they were used by amounts not by wisdom.
So, what is visually appealing should also be easy to use and interpret, that’s what makes a good web design. In this article, we will undercover 8 web design myths that may be mistakenly considered good for your website.
More features are better than wasted white space
Some web owners deal with their website as a shopping supermarket. They think it should have everything, every idea and every possible feature to make use of white space. Then they wait for users to react to the website as a valuable one. They will never do. Users look for the simple design that is straight to the point. Simplicity will show your brand and will make it memorable. For web owners who ignore the importance of white space by calling it a waste, they are actually wrong. White space is a specific feature of your website that have its own effects. With white space, other features will be smoothening out and will be more observable. It directs users’ eyes to elements that are intended to catch users’ interest.
What should you do?
You should determine the main feature that is intended to catch users’ interest, then carefully add other simple features that cooperate with the main one to enhance your website design.
A new web design surprise is lovely for users
When I consider myself as a user, there are a lot of websites with amazing designs that were so appealing to me until their designs are surprisingly changed. Their new update is too bad. In fact, web owners don’t intend to replace a good design by a bad design. They just tried to surprise users by a new design that was expected by them to be liked by users. But to be on the right track and not to invest in a website update with no assured positive results, you should communicate with users to know what they like and what they don’t like.
What should you do?
You should make update tests and ask your targeted audience about what they feel about these updates, then collect feedbacks from their thoughts, and you will be able to come up with the best update for your website.
Bold text, stock pictures and bright colors are appealing
If there is a content in your website that is assumed to attract users or stock pictures that are intended to catch their eyes, using all of them at once in every portion of your website will reduce (if not totally cancel) the value of all good features. Users will find themselves in a mess and you will be recognized as a web owner with content problems. A good visual design doesn’t mean that you need to overuse visually appealing features.
What should you do?
You should specify the elements that are intended to reach the user, focus on them simply without making all your text bright or bold and without using too many pictures.
A good design is enough
Some web owners mistakenly think that a good design and easy to use website that is appealing for users to interact and builds brand experiences is enough to achieve their goals. But what if your content is poor! Will it rank in google? A website with content problems means no ranking which in turns will lead to low traffic and conversion rates. So, if your web design is awesome, poor content will bury it.
What should you do?
You should care about your content first, then your web design. A good content will deliver your message and achieve marketing purposes. That will lead to higher traffic then interaction with your website good design.
A good web design for desktop will be good for tablets and smartphones
Once you manage to get the best web design on your desktop browser, you may think that you are done. But in fact that’s a common mistake. In today’s life, websites are visited by tablets and mobile phones as well as by computers and maybe more. So, the size should be considered and the design that is perfect on your computer should be perfect on the different size of users’ tablets and mobile phones.
What should you do?
Don’t evaluate your website design from the prospective of a web designer, but evaluate it from the prospective of a user. You should test each phase of build on computers, mobile phones and tablets then take feedbacks that will help to reach the final design that fit all different devices.
Minimalism always results in simplicity
In contrast to the web design myth that say “more features are better”, there is another myth that say “less elements are better”. Sometimes less elements are better to achieve simplicity but it can’t be a settled rule. There are websites in different businesses that require a lot of elements to be inserted. By minimalism, you will give up some essential elements that are important to catch users’ attention. In this case, simplicity doesn’t make it easier for users, it makes it harder to interpret.
What should you do?
You should keep all essential elements out of your searching for simplicity approach as your website can’t do without and make sure that all required information for users are available.
Minor tweaks could always fix design problems
This web design myth is popular with website owners whose websites were ugly before hiring a specialized website designer. Once the website designer manages to transfer the ugly design into an appealing design, he become trusted forever. So, when the website owner applies feedbacks and discover negative results, he calls his trusted web designer to solve this problem instead of communicating with targeted audience.
What should you do?
You should limit the responsibility of your web designer to finding a solution for the design of your website. Regarding feedbacks, you should acquire insights from users themselves.
Your website view is intended to achieve your expectations from users
When you focus on your expectations rather than focusing on needs of targeted audience, you will design your website in a form that focus on selling instead of making a strong relationship with customers. You must let customers know that your website understands their problems, needs and fears, so they will trust your brand later after feeling that they are important in your website.
What should you do?
You should personally address your audience and communicate with them about their requirements and problems not about what you are intended to produce. This is the trust building stage. After that you will offer your solutions for their problems and they will positively interact after a trust has been built.
There are also many other web designs myths that should be ignored. A brief tip is to focus on your website design and written content as a user not as an owner.
