It isn’t easy getting the right design for your audience. This is a constant battle between style and substance, beauty and practicality. You want to have a gorgeous looking, aesthetically pleasing website or interface. So it is to be expected that some errors and mistakes will invariably occur, that some kind of gaff will rear its ugly head. 

Namely, no matter what your wishes are, the core point is having happy customers and users. And if your users are frustrated, your app or website won’t matter much. With all that in mind, we suggest you continue on and read the article below. We have outlined the core issues and problems that can really frustrate your users. Some of these may seem like common knowledge and will serve as reminders, others might be things you haven’t thought of before. Whatever the case may be, we suggest you take a look and evaluate your design practices and methods.

Poor navigation

You might have a fantastic, gorgeous website, with an original design, a unique aesthetic, and great presentation of products and services. However, what you don’t have is proper navigation. All of these great things we mentioned don’t matter much if people can’t reach what they are looking for when they are on your pages.

For example, sometimes people make the pretentious mistake of naming their core pages in a strange way. What’s so bad about “home, about, contact, blog”? Why does it need to sound like you’re pitching an idea for a summer festival with a Burning Man theme? Or just generally trying to be unique through your navigation systems. The standard hierarchical system works perfectly, and you should present yourself as unique through your content and design.

Remember what the point of your work is – not to have people marvel at just how amazing and classy your work is, how talented and insightful you are. No, what they want is usability and practicality first, aesthetics and uniqueness second.

Not letting the content and functionality speak

In line with other items on this list, you want your content and your features to speak for themselves. That is going to be impossible if you have photos and images everywhere around the page. You don’t want your website to distract people from the core point – your content and your products. The only reason this website and this interface exists is to draw attention to the functions of your work, to the products, services, and content advertised on your websites.

Neurotically avoiding white space

There is this impulse many designers have, this need to use up every inch of space they see in front of them. Fight it, leave some room. Think of emptiness and white space on your page like silence between notes when playing the guitar or a piano. You want to create a sense of rhythm on your page, not just artistically, but through content and presentation as well. It’s not only going to look nicer, but your users will also navigate it much more easily. 

Furthermore, Zen is in nowadays. The benefits of minimalism in the design are everywhere, it’s pretty trendy to use white and empty spaces. This doesn’t mean you are going to have a dead, colorless site – quite the opposite. Using empty, white space means everything else will pop, it will become more noticeable. The colors you do use, the features you do implement, it all will lead people’s eyes towards what you want them to see and focus on.

Overcomplicating things

Now, we understand the need to complicate things, to add as many cool and fun features as you can. The impulse is rather clear – you have the skills and the knowledge, so why not give your all to make something really cool, or even more useful? But you need to understand that too much innovation can hinder functionality.

Any good web design agency in Sydney, a strong programming firm in Paris, or a successful graphic design company in Chicago understands the need to express yourself through your work. However, they should also know that you above all create your work not for yourself, but for your clients. The customer (i.e. the user) is always right, and there are no ifs or buts about it. 

Users need to feel comfortable, they need to understand that they can use your website and your products without needing to refer to a manual. It’s all about striking the right balance between innovation and familiarity. 

No optimization

This is a huge sin that you do not want to make. Namely, we are talking about the lack of mobile optimization. Your website needs to be ready to handle any and all smartphones browsing. Namely, most people use smartphones to check the internet, to read stuff online, to shop and to learn. Of the many mistakes you can make when building your website, this is one of the worst ones. Not optimizing your website for smartphone devices means people will go through a hard time trying to use your stuff properly. You shouldn’t let this happen. Rather, work hard on keeping your website up to date and properly optimized the minute you finish it.

Conclusion

Try to work hard on avoiding common design mistakes. The last thing you want to do is frustrate your users. Rather, you should focus above all on creating a friendly, welcoming user experience. Avoiding overcomplicating things, putting the style in front of the function, and just letting your content and features get buried under things that simply don’t matter.