10 Ways to Distract your Users with Poor Web Design

Do you enjoy searching for minutes to find simple information: Hours? Location? 

Everyday street noise penetrates the thick concrete barrier that is my office space. Horns, sirens, shouting, vendors standing outside offering free cell phones all create static noise. Couple that with a poorly designed website and you have a very unproductive afternoon.

 

There are a lot of elements you should do, but there are also elements that you should stop doing. Let's cover 10 items that you shouldn't use when looking into your next design. User Experience (UX) should always be put first and often observing how someone navigates your website is the most accurate method.

1. Drastic Gradients
2. Shadows
3. Bubbly Bevelment
4. Polychromatic Color Scheme
5. Animated GIFs
6. Audio Playing in the Background
7. Automatic Video Playing
8. Table Based Layout
9. Multiple Locations where information is stored
10. Popup Windows

 Keeping the interface simple is the best method for your users. I'm not one for reducing an interface to such simplicity that it ruins or damages the user experience for the larger audience, but it is important to be cognisant of the lowest common denominator.