I recently came across an article by Susan Weinschenk titled “The 5 Worst UX Mistakes Websites Make“. If you have 2 minutes head over there and have a read.

Ignoring Search Engine Optimisation and the minefield that has become, Susan concentrates on the basics. And that is indeed where most mistakes are made… and I’m happy to admit we make some of these mistakes at times as well (but it’s also about knowing when to break the rules).

Susan’s list of five worst mistakes are:

1. Paying too much attention to Macro and shortshrifting the micro
2. Putting too much time into designing the homepage
3. Relying too much on text
4. Designing for the wrong generation
5. Ignoring multi-screen behaviour

Mistakes 1 and 2 are easy mistakes to make in the context of a web design business… clients are naturally focused on how their home page will look but it is our role as designers to not only make it look good but also work well. And that is where a question like “What do you want your website to do?” can help focus the design on function rather than just visual style.

Mistake 3 is easy to do as well. We are so used to living in a print environment that we sometimes forget that the Internet can deliver information in a wide variety of formats… images, video, audio and more. People skim on websites and it is advisable to provide your content in more than one format eg text and video.

Mistake 4 comes down to a simple question that often isn’t asked in the briefing session, but it is absolutely the most important question to get the answer right to: who is your target market? Answer that and you will know what level of technology to integrate into your website.

These days there is no excuse for Mistake 5! 🙂

Make sure you have a ull read of Susan’s points here: “The 5 Worst UX Mistakes Websites Make“.