Why do people leave your website so quickly? It’s not just about your content. Yes, people may leave your website when they have no interest in your content. But, they can also leave your website because of the annoying features that your website has. These features are usually coming from your web design. Here are the 5 annoying web design features that will turn off your visitors:
1. Fixed Header
Fixed header can be cool to some extent. Well, it can also be good for branding purposes. But, if you go overboard, it can be annoying. If you only have small header, you can make it sticky so that people will still be able to see it when they scroll through your website. But, if you have a big header, you shouldn’t use this feature since it can be difficult for your visitors to read your website content.
2. Pop-up Windows
Pop-up windows, whether it is advertisements or subscription invitation, can be very annoying. People who visit your website want to just read your content and see whether it is good for them or not. They don’t want to subscribe yet. They also don’t want to see advertisements suddenly popping up in front of them and distract them from reading your content.
3. Auto-Playing Media
It is always better to give a chance to your visitors whether they want to play a specific media within your website or not. For instance, if you embed YouTube video in your content, give people a choice whether they want to watch the video or not. Otherwise, you’re just irritating them. What if you have two or more videos in the same page? If you set those videos to play automatically, you’ll find your page to become really annoying for your visitors.
4. Social Media Add-On Bar
While encouraging your visitors to join in your social media circle is necessary to spread the word about your website and widen your target audience, social media add-on bar will only annoy people who visit your site. This is true especially if your social media bar is sticky and can’t be turned off. It is good to ask people to follow you on Twitter or like your Facebook page, but it is not good for you to force them to do it. By installing social media add-on bar that is sticky in each of your web pages, you’ll only annoy your visitors and make your website load slower than it should.
5. Blocking Content
It is very annoying to see a website that is blocking content unless the user is doing a specific thing. For instance, you can block users from reading your content further unless they subscribe to your website or something. While this feature will help you to attract loyal audience to your website, it is very annoying and generally people will just leave your website instead of following your demand.
Those are the 5 most annoying web design features that will turn off your visitors. If you have those features on your website, you can fix it. If you can’t do it for yourself, you can always use the service of an reputable web design agency that will help you to improve your website design and remove unnecessary elements from it.
Author Bio
Mark is a web designer and a part time blogger. He is passionate learner who has got great grips with the New HTML 5 standards and occasionally blogs about Tips and Tricks to use when designing with HTML 5 standards.