Five Things to Remove from your Web Design in 2014…
Like many businesses, you may have spent January revamping your website, adding extra features and functionality. But there’s only so much you can add, and if you sense that something is still not quite right, February may present an opportunity for you to consider what to take out. Here are five such user bugbears that you might want to eliminate to enhance the effectiveness of your website.
Inappropriate pop-ups
There may well be a time and a place where pop-ups are appropriate, such as when a user successfully makes a purchase, but there are far more times when they are simply inappropriate and annoying. If you have any of the following common user annoyances popping up unbidden, then you might gain credibility with your visitors by removing them:
- Requests for surveys that pop-up when the user arrives on the site
- Non user-initiated email capture windows and subscription pop-ups
- Third-party advertising
Flash
Again, not all Flash is bad, but you should certainly consider whether it is necessary and useful. Flash may not work correctly for all users, can increase page load times, and can just generally be an annoyance, as well as distracting from your core page message. Only use it if it adds value to what your website has to offer and if there is no other way to achieve the same end result.
Long unbroken chunks of text
It’s well known that users tend to scan read web pages and that long chains of text that are not easily scanned are generally a turn-off. If your textual content is overly long or difficult to read, break it up with sub-headers, smaller paragraphs and bullet points. If necessary, consider splitting it across two or more pages.
Dead links
Out of date or broken links, whether internal or external, interrupt the flow of your users’ experience, and can appear unprofessional. Carry out a link audit and fix or remove any that aren’t working.
Auto-playing music or video
This isn’t as common as it once was, and for good reason! Multimedia content that auto-plays can be an unwelcome surprise, a drain on page load times, and a distraction from the main flow of your website. It’s also utterly pointless if your visitor has their audio function on mute!
