If there’s one thing you need to remember when building a website, it’s to never take good design for granted.
As we’ve mentioned in a previous article, a site visitor’s first impression on your website can make or break you in just a matter of seconds.
In other words, if they don’t like what they see within that timeframe, chances are they’re going to close their browser windows and direct their attention elsewhere.
Fortunately, there are a lot of ways to prevent this from happening; one of them is to familiarize yourself with good web design practices. And the good news is you don’t need to be a professional web designer in order to do so.
Because while it’s true that not everyone has a good eye for design, preventing bad design becomes easier once you know what to avoid.
Cela dit, veillez à garder ces 4 erreurs courantes de conception web à l’esprit. De cette façon, vous aurez une préoccupation de moins lorsque vous commencerez enfin à créer votre site web.
Erreur n° 1 : Utiliser plus de 3 polices
A rule of thumb when designing websites? Try not to have too much visual elements going on within your space. Having more than 3 fonts on your site design is a surefire way to break this one rule. It’ll also overwhelm your site visitors.
Limiter les polices de votre site web à un maximum de 3 est une pratique générale de design observée par les professionnels. De plus, cela améliore la lisibilité et la cohérence de votre site, qui sont essentielles au succès de votre trafic.
DON’T DO THIS:
Don’t use more than 3 fonts and try to avoid “fancy fonts” as much as possible. These tend to make your site look unprofessional and outdated.
DO THIS:
Use only 2 fonts, or a maximum of 3 if you have to. Notice how the page below looks clean and sleek, all while keeping readability and consistency all throughout the design.
Try comparing the differences between this example and the previous one. The example below with only two fonts is a website that your visitors will likely take seriously. This previous one above with the overwhelming amount of fonts isn’t.
Mistake #2: Failing to Use White Space
White space is one of the most important aspects of web design. But what is it?
Put simply, white space is literally the empty space between elements in a composition.
In other words, it’s negative space. This pertains to anything on your website that isn’t filled with text, photos, or other design elements.
Now, the problem arises when website owners want to fill all of the white space in, which is an absolute no-no.
White space matters because it gives your site visitors and readers some breathing space when going through your site. Just how it was mentioned in the first design mistake to avoid, overwhelming your website with too much design elements is more than enough reason for your site visitors to leave and for your traffic to decrease significantly. It also makes for poorly executed design.
DON’T DO THIS:
In the example below, take a look at how the text is nearing the edges of the purple section’s margin. Notice as well how all elements leave almost zero room for white space.
DO THIS INSTEAD:
Give your site readers some room to breathe. If adding in long paragraphs is unavoidable, just remember to always take the rules of spacing into account—they’re pretty easy to remember anyway ?. It will leave your page looking cool, crisp, and professional.
Mistake #3: Designing Websites With Zero Flow in Your Site’s Content
It’s important to pay attention as to how information on your website is presented. Moreover, site content should generally follow a logical flow, taking the site viewer’s intuition into consideration.
Découvrez les deux exemples ci-dessous pour comprendre ce que nous voulons dire.
DON’T DO THIS:
Unless you’re a graphic designer by profession, it’s probably not a good idea to experiment with the standard flow of your website’s sections.
Below, you can see that the site’s design lacks both visual and logical flow; everything is all over the place. You don’t want your audience having a hard time navigating through your site, either. This is another surefire way to do it.
DO THIS INSTEAD:
Notice how the sections of the website flow depending on what actions the visitor is most likely to take.
Le design est intuitif et présente un cheminement logique : premièrement, l’organisation se présente et informe le public sur les éléments de base, comme sa mission et ce qu’elle fait. Deuxièmement, elle intègre des chiffres fiables pour asseoir sa crédibilité. Enfin, le site web fournit au public ses coordonnées téléphoniques et une liste d’événements, l’incitant ainsi à passer à l’action.
Mistake #4: Trying to Fit in Every Bit of Information Onto Your Website
Ajouter des pavés de texte inutiles là où il devrait y avoir des espaces vides peut faire fuir votre public. N’oubliez pas de ne conserver que les détails importants.
Studies find that readers only visit 20% of your webpage; everyone else outside that percentage will probably just scroll through your site.
DON’T DO THIS.
Don’t overwhelm your visitors with inconsistent, giant walls of text, especially if it means having to sacrifice your website design’s cohesiveness and structure.
DO THIS INSTEAD:
Keep your copy short and concise, and take out chunks of unecessary text if you can help it. Only keep vital information that your site visitors absolutely need to know.
Conclusion
Website design is important, and can be a huge deciding factor in whether or not you gain site traffic.
N’oubliez pas de ne rien tenir pour acquis. Accordez toujours du temps à la recherche et consultez des articles de design pour vous guider en cours de route. Avant même de vous en rendre compte, vous verrez le trafic de votre site augmenter. ? Bonne chance !
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This week’s useful resource:
CANVA has hundreds of resources that you can access on their website. Apart from useful and easy-to-follow design tips, they also have photo editing tools, graphs, and a wide range of useful resources you can use for your creative projects.
Découvrez ce super guide des couleurs de Canva pour votre prochain projet de design.
