It seems that there are all kinds of weird and wonderful trends to follow in the web design world these days. Don't get me wrong; following a trend isn't always a bad thing. Following a bad one IS!
As a business owner, it's unlikely you are a web design guru. You will usually just go with something that you think works well for the type of website you've got. You may even follow the design trends your competitors are using on their sites.
If you are revamping your website, you might do the same things again. After all; your primary goal is to engage people to visit your site and buy from you. Before you do anything, I recommend you read this blog post in its entirety. Doing so will help you avoid the terrible design trends some people think are awesome! Here is what you need to know:
Hamburger menus
Have you ever been to a website that didn't have a clear navigation menu? It's likely it will have had what we call a "hamburger" menu. In a nutshell, the menu gets replaced with an icon. It might be something like three horizontal lines or six dots. When you click on it, you get a drop-down menu.
Hamburger menus are useful on mobile sites. That's because they don't eat up that much-needed screen real estate. Whatever you do, don't get tempted to use them on the desktop version of your website. They make it hard for non-mobile users to navigate your online home!
Slideshows
There was once a time when sliders on the homepage of a website were all the rage. Today, their popularity has waned.
For a start, slideshows eat up a lot of screen space. Second, they cause the page loading time to spike through the roof. The problem is even worse if you have HD images that use up megabytes of bandwidth! And, third, they just don't work on slower computers, Internet connections and mobile devices.
If you want to make an impact, your web design agency might recommend you use smaller sliders. Or just avoid their use entirely on the homepage. Remember that slow loading times can affect your site’s SEO score.
Popup pages
One thing that I hate today as much as I did 15 years ago are popups! They are annoying and detract from the message you are trying to read on a page. Plus, they often get blocked by modern web browsers. Please, just avoid popups on your site like the plague!
Complicated typography
One thing you should never do is use tens of different fonts on a single web page or site. Instead, you should aim to achieve a uniform look with just two or three font styles.
The thing about mixing and matching scores of fonts is they make your site look bad. In fact, I'd go so far to say that your website will look unprofessional.
And while I'm on the subject of typography, please don't make that design sin everyone hates. I am, of course, talking about using the Comic Sans font!
Lina Martinez has her B.S. in journalism and is a contributor to our politics, life and money pages. She once admitted over drinks to singing "Careless Whisper" in the shower. We are still trying to get her to sing it at karaoke.