Web Design & Usability

         I think an important aspect of good visual web design is understanding bad  design.  Here I will look at some of the more common and fatal visual web design mistakes.

Bad Font Usage
After doing some research on incorporating fonts into your web site and some of the tools available (Google Font Api and Fontspring) I realized how easy it is to use professional fonts. With that said, it is important to avoid using fancy fonts in your main content, this ensure easy readability.  Designing with web standards will allow you to use less common fonts that will work in all browsers.

Not Dividing Content
Also along the lines of readability...Make sure content has some separation.  Use some basic paper writing skills, throw in a paragraph or get fancy with a horizontal rule.  Ensure that reader can easily find what they are looking for.

Outdated Content
This should be an obvious one...keeping your content current and accurate is important. An bad price could cost you some serious cash depending on the amount of traffic and the different in price.


Bad Text To Background Colors
Grab a color wheel...having text on a background can be really cool, just make sure that the colors work together.  Text can easily get lost on a background.  There are many color / theme generators that can help you choose a complementary color scheme.


This is just a short list of something that stuck out at me when I was researching bad web design, visual design, blah, blah, blah...I do believe that one of the most important things that you can do when designing for the web is to not do the things above(and a few others).  It seems that more people agree on what is wrong than what is right.