February 17th, 2012
Sometimes the web design company circuit suffers from “groupthink.” The repetition of overused ideas leaves businesses with pages that bore or irritate visitors. The last thing you want is a page that looks tired or outdated just as soon as you’ve finished paying the web designer! Part of the problem is Toronto web design company professionals who do not continue their education and keep up with current trends. Another part of the problem is the lazy designers who use the same templates for all their clients, only tweaking the logos and color schemes.
Did your last web design company use any of these cliché web design elements?
- Flash: Flash animation was popular in the nineties, but it has fallen largely out of use because the pages take far too long to load and visitors don’t really like sitting through some elaborate presentation before they get to the nitty-gritty of your site. Minimalism is catching on in modern circles, where “less is best.”
- Stock Photos: Certain images show up on every generic business site. Nothing says “fake” and “boring” quite like an overused photo that says nothing about your company culture whatsoever. Instead, designers recommend hiring a photographer to take photos for you or using unique images from Flickr photographers (giving attribution, of course). Although a photographer may not be in the budget, a web designer should always recommend one!
- Wet Floor & Shadow Effects: Popularized by Apple, this trend has come and gone already. No one is impressed by a website that looks like a wet floor or a three-dimensional shadow. Everyone and their brother has been there, done that.
- Oversized Fonts: It’s good to have eye-catching and readable headlines, but you don’t want to go overboard trying to look too “edgy.” Big fonts are especially meddlesome when people search a site via mobile device.
“Click Here”: “Click here” is an overused call-to-action button that is overly ambigy know what you want them to do… but why? What benefit does the individual get from following orders? Instead, a “Read more about our services” or a “Contact us” call-to-action is more helpful.
To avoid these problems with your site, be sure you hire a qualified Toronto web design company. Look for diversity in their portfolio, ask them if they are committed to ongoing training, and make sure they do not use templates to design their sites. Contact us Today! 
