Neworld, Great relationships build great brands

Even at the best web agency, designing a website can be a challenge and every business needs a website designed with usability in mind. People can have a range of different opinions on what constitutes good or bad design but don’t get caught committing one of these seven deadly sins…

1. Dark UX Patterns

Deliberately tricking users into performing certain actions though misleading or confusing design.

“Stop calling these Dark Design Patterns or Dark UX — these are simply a**hole designs” by Flavio Lamenza https://t.co/qLJoddI9tM

— Alan T Duffy (@alantduffy) May 4, 2018

2. Including a footer on a page with infinite scroll

Footers can contain a variety of useful information, from links to contact details. If you’re implementing infinite scroll, you might consider moving the footer information to a sidebar.

Footer + infinite scroll = a game of Pacman I never wanted to play.

— I Am Devloper (@iamdevloper) June 24, 2015

3. Tiny body text

If it’s so small only the search engines can read it, does it even count as content? Yes, I realise this text is pretty small.

Your Body Text Is Too Small https://t.co/smWuJusrr0 #SEO pic.twitter.com/sOu1AwJw2x

— Beatriz González 🙃 (@beagonpoz) August 21, 2017

4. Forgetting to user-test

Sometimes incorrect design assumptions will only emerge with use. The earlier in the design process these are spotted, the better.

In software design and development almost everything is possible, but only a small fraction of what is possible is also appropriate pic.twitter.com/xGxd8aKdE1

— Mario Fusco (@mariofusco) January 31, 2017

5. Unnecessary animation

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

Client: "I like the design, but can you make it… POP a bit more?"
Designer: "Say no more chief…" pic.twitter.com/4EMtVSPfz2

— Stu-Stu-Stussudio, just say the word (@irishstu) November 29, 2016

6. Not optimising for speed

A slow website harms your user’s experience and can lose you site visitors.

Every second of page load time decreases satisfaction by 16%. https://t.co/KLntxUaJic

— Paul Boag (@boagworld) May 22, 2018

7. Auto-playing videos

Those irritating sidebar ads that start talking at you and you can’t figure out how to pause…

WEB DESIGNER: (wakes up in lava) Wh…why am I in hell?
SATAN: You know
WD: Was it the autopl—
SATAN: It was the f***ing autoplay videos, dude

— Elle Oh Hell (@ElleOhHell) March 5, 2017

Caitriona Butler, Web Developer.
When not scouring twitter for examples of what not to do on the web, Caitriona can be found crafting robust and effective responsive web sites across a range of programming languages & technologies at Neworld, a Dublin based branding, creative, design and web agency.