- 1. Mobile design on big screens.
- 2. Only one huge hero image above the fold.
- 3. Layout shift on page load.
- 4. Icons without labels.
- 5. Can't select and copy-paste.
- 6. Inflexible input.
- 7. Low-contrast or tiny text.
- 8. Misleading links and expectations.
- 9. Slow response time.
- 10. Popups/overlays.
We see these issues causing problems for users/customers all the time on the sites we're asked to review - it's a little generous to call them 'mistakes', to be honest. For example the 'mistake' to include 'only one huge hero image above the fold' is all too commonly done on purpose in what we call a triumph of design over the user experience. Too often pretty sites are confused for effective ones.
Icons are often necessary or useful, and there are a few that could be considered universal, but too often we see clever icons that users just don't understand. Even the 'hamburger' icon used for menus on mobile sites isn't universally understood. That's why John Lewis have the word 'menu' underneath it. It's even worse when it's used on a desktop site.
Accessibility (which means people with disabilities can use a site) is often considered as an afterthought or unacceptable expense, but it needn't be. 10% of males are colour blind and just can't see some text, and there's no excuse for tiny text - 16px is the minimum generally regarded as acceptable.
Aren't we all frustrated when we visit a site and there's a cookie popup, and a newsletter popup, and a browser notification window, and an ad.... sometimes it seems like hard work just to be able to start reading the site. And so we give up.
These are all issues that we identify in our work, and help our clients to resolve in a way that aids both their users and the purpose of the site.