Top 9 Most Common Web Design Challenges

With all the different challenges in web design, this makes creating the best possible site, all the more difficult. However, knowing the ins and outs of what you should avoid can significantly improve the entire process. In this article, we’ll be going through 9 web design challenges that you’ll want to be aware of, if you ever hope to craft the perfect site.

1. Going with a Responsive Website

As a web designer, it’s extremely important, that whatever website you decide to create, it’s at the very least responsive. When you create a site without responsive capabilities, you essentially limit the amount of potential viewers it can get. In the past year alone, close to 60% of all web surfers accessed the internet through their mobile devices.

So what can you do about it? First of all, you’ll want to ensure your site is responsive, using a design format that is flexible. The overall theme should be your starting point, before anything else. From there, you’ll want to focus on other things, such as vector images, button placements, font family and things that portray best on smaller devices.

2. Poor Design Choices

One of the quickest and most effective ways of turning your viewers off is by creating an unsightly home page. It could be anything, from a poor logo to an ugly colour scheme. Or it could simply be that your site is outdated, using really old web design techniques. This is pretty understandable, given the amount of money it typically costs to create a really quality website. But, the digital world is forever moving and evolving. Sites that may have looked pretty and slick a couple of years ago, may now start to look a little dated.

If you find yourself in this position, then you must, with urgency, consider refreshing your site. Or starting all over again, if you have the time and money. It may cost you in the short run, but down the line, you’ll see that it was well worth it.

3. The Importance of Colour Contrast

When it comes to the arena of web design, colour contrast is a topic that always rears its ugly head. And that’s understandable, given its importance. Going with the right contrast of colours for your site design is very important, not just for how it makes your site look, but also for how accessible it makes it.

When you go with the right contrast of colours, it can effectively improve the accessibility and in turn, responsiveness of the site, especially for viewers that are visually impaired. There are tons of available tools you can use to test your sites colour scheme, which should ensure you avoid this issue altogether.

4. Make Your Site Load Quickly

This is one area of your site design that we cannot emphasize more. You want your site to load up in as short a time as possible. Why? Because the stark reality is, if your site takes too long to load up, then it doesn’t matter how great your site looks or the quality of its content – viewers aren’t going to take the time to wait. There are countless test studies that show, just how important site loading times are.

So, what can you do about it? There are tons of different techniques and methods you can deploy to improve the speed of your website. One of the simplest and probably most effective methods is to go with a hosting company that can deliver the best performance. There are also things that you can do, like removing any unnecessary redirects, compressing images and using caching plug-ins.

5. Low Quality Content

We may be living in an increasingly more superficial world today, where image is everything. But when it comes to web design, poor quality content can make, even the best looking site look bad. It’s pretty amazing when you consider the level of content some of these companies have no problems putting on their sites. Littered with spelling mistakes, unhelpful, etc. At worst, this makes the viewer think you don’t care.

If you want to get the most out of your site, then you want to go with content that is engaging. High quality. There are copywriters out there you can pay, if you feel you don’t have what it takes to produce the content yourself. But either way, the cost of having the best content will be well worth it, in the long run.

6. Your Website Is Your Product

A lot of business owners out there, make the easy mistake of not putting as much time and attention into their site as they do their products. This is the main reason why they don’t hire a product manager, or a marketing analyst who can provide them with a better understanding of their business and set them on the right path to prosperity. The truth is, because of this, a lot of companies end up spending money on redesigns, which, in the long run, ends up taking money out of their pockets, without putting much back in.

7. Focus on User Experience

User experience is one of the most importance factors of your website, as it can easily make or break it. It’s the user experience (UX) that determines whether or not a site viewer will ever return to your site. When considering the user experience of your website, you need to look at things, such as convenience, accessibility and ease of use.

What can you do about it? Well, a great many things. There are so many tweaks you can make to your site to enhance it. Some of the better options out there include improving site speed, adding more images, improving your CTAs, using white space more effectively, and differentiating your hyperlinks.

8. Web Standards

A lot of people are made to believe that web standards are the most important thing. Such as whether or not to use HTML 5, CSS, usability, and the like. While, these things are important, the reality is, all these things are simply tools that you can use to make the best possible site. Your mind should be fixated on making your site SEO friendly, by optimising your site images, for example. As this is where most of your benefits will come from, not whether you use this standard or that standard.

9. Terrible SEO

Most companies at the very least have some idea of the importance of search engine optimisation (SEO). If you want your content to be discovered by your customer, then you need to battle against other websites. However, if you lack the technical knowhow, then you put your website and business at a disadvantage. The best solution is to engage with someone who is experienced in this field. Someone that can offer great advice on how to make your site ready for the search engines.