Two weeks ago Simon gave us some examples on what can go wrong in a web design. In this post I just want to add to this and bring up some more, according to me, quite common mistakes that I think designers do. This is not about complaining and I hope that anybody reading this realize that. It’s simply just about improving our skills and I would love to read a similar post from a designers point of view.
So let’s begin. Simon brought up the problem of getting the design as jpeg and non-descriptive names of groups and layers. What else is there?
As a professional designer, I think 737 px is a perfect width
Usually there are two ways to go when designing a website. Flexible or fixed width. A lot of people like fixed width since it makes it easier to control the look and feel. But if you choose a fixed width it doesn’t mean any width is as good as the other. You normally optimize for a certain resolution. This based on what you know about your visitors and their screens. So just any number, especially a number not divisible with hardly anything, like uhm… seven…, is a bad number. Common numbers today is 960, 980 but widths around a 1000 px like 1010 or even 1080 is increasing in popularity.
Using layer style is a nice way of getting a perfect colour
This is quite annoying. Opening a psd-file and using the color picker to get the colour of a plain element should, in my humble opinion, give you the right hex/rgb code. But if the designer has decided to use layer styles to get the right tone the color picker doesn’t work. Annoying!
I mean maybe it’s not right but you get what I mean, right…?
Using a certain width or margin in your design should mean that it’s what you want. If I’m working with a design with eight pixels padding on the left side I’m thinking the designer wanted eight pixels. But unfortunately this doesn’t seem to always be the case. I have come a across quite a few designers who think it’s ok to put approximate numbers in their designs thinking that the developer will in some magic way ”get it”.
What? Is there a difference between a website and a book?
A website is interactive. That means that depending on what the user do the look and feel of the site can and should change. That’s why it’s important to point out in the design how a link, button etc. is going to act when the user hovers or clicks. Put it in your design. Don’t make me ask you about it.
Screen captured text is cool enough
Same reason as it’s not cool to send the design as a jpeg. I might be a great frontend developer but it’s not fun having to guess font and font-size. Don’t put any screen captured elements in your design. This also goes for pictures who might end up looking really nasty in the end.
The client are not allowed to write more than 234 letters in this box
What do you mean not allowed? Again. There is a difference between a web site and a book. A good web design should not break because the client put in ”too much text”. And your design should show an example of that scenario.
Variation is a key. Let’s say we have an element which contains ”data”. The data might be text, images and links. A good design show different kind of ways this data might be displayed. Only text. Text and images. Only several images. Only a list of links. Little content. Lots of content. A real website does not consists of the same text repeated ten times.
Accessibility is only for geeky frontend people
I hate having to point out to people that this colour is real bad when it comes to contrast or this button is too small to be clicked by a person with shaky hands. Include accessibility from the beginning. And if you are insecure when it comes to contrast here’s a link: Color Contrast Comparision
Well, it’s already approved by the client so…
A lot of times when a design land on my table it’s ”finished” as in “it has already been approved by the client”. If I point out things like problems with contrast the designer just shake their heads and say “yea, maybe you are right but it’s too late now.”
In one way I do understand them. Some designers really have a hard time getting an approval from the client so of course they don’t like the frontend developer trying to make them change things. But seriously come on! It should not be too late.
And actually I have a perfect solution to this. I would like to suggest that every designer send their design to the developer for approval before sending it to the client. I really think this would help a lot when it comes to avoiding unpleasant surprises.
Final words. Communication is the freakin key people…
/Ida
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