Professional web design

common mistakes made in web design and how you can spot them

Looking for a good web designer can be a hit and miss process. Everyone has different requirements for their particular project so the best that you can do is find a designer whose previous work you like and hope that they can produce a design to suit you too. The most important factor in getting a great finished product is for the designer to work closely with you and gain a good understanding of what the client requires. Before you hire a designer though you should be a able to get a good idea of who might do a good job, and who won't.

The first thing to do is check out the designers web site. That will give you a good idea of their style of what sort of web sites they specialise in. Most designers usually specialise in a certain type of site and it's a good idea to choose a designer that specialises in the sort of site that you want. For example, Architectura specialises in web sites for small to medium-sized businesses. Beware of the designer that accepts a job without actually checking what your requirements are! Once you've checked out the designers web site, move onto some of the other sites in their portfolio. Hopefully they've included a range to give you a good idea of their potential.

First off, make a mental note of how long the site took to load. It isn't always important to have the whole page loaded instantly but the important information needs to appear quickly to keep a visitor interested. Have a look at the site and note whether the site looks professional - would you buy from a site designed like it? Many sites we have seen are littered with spelling or typographical errors, betraying a lack of attention to detail. Are the graphics professional looking and sharp? Or will they quickly look dated? What about the ratio of graphics to text. Too many graphics and too little text will result in a page that search engines will ignore. If you hope to pull in a high number of new visitors from search engines then this is a very important factor.

Have a look around the site and consider how long it takes you to get used to it. How easy is it to find your way around? Are the section headings obscured by fancy graphics or are they the first thing that your eye is drawn to? There are many web sites that actually hide the section links behind graphics that only reveal their secret once you put the mouse cursor over them - that's fine if you've got all day to surf. Can you quickly find the information that you want? If you can't find the information that you need, how easy is it to contact the designer to ask them for information? It's also worth testing the designer with a query to see how they respond. (feel free to test if we practice what preach!)

Now that you've checked out these points and satisfied yourself that the designer has got the basics right, you've done just about all you can. You could also view the source code and check how the page is built (more on this in a future article), but if you can do that then you probably don't need a web designer!

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