The Seven Deadly Sins
(OF WEB DESIGN)
1. Too Much Template
 Website templates are a convenient,
inexpensive and quick way to create a
website. They are also an excellent
way to bore your audience and make
you look foolish, lazy and unoriginal if
you over do it. Most template
purveyors brag about industry specific
templates. If you think about it, what
that really means is that competitors
will be using the same stock images,
graphics and layouts.
 Mortal Sin
Leaving the template provided ipso
text up.
 Heavenly Virtue
A template can and should be used to
create cohesiveness and to keep
navigational elements in place.
2. Grating Graphics
 There are few things more
irritating than waiting for
unnecessarily oversized images to
load. A few lesser contenders
include missing graphics with no
alt labels and images that don’t fit
on the screen, forcing you to scroll
horizontally.
 Mortal Sin
Thumbnails that link to full-sized
images that are barely larger than
the thumbs.
 Heavenly Virtue
Graphics that compliment the
content and are visually appealing.
3. Sensory Overload
Is your website seizure inducing?
Unless you are promoting a
warehouse rave, avoid using
anything that should come with a
warning for epileptics. Avoid neon
or other bright backgrounds,
blinking special effects, cursor
trailers, pop up windows, scrolling
marquees, web counters and long
flash-intros. They are all just a
bunch of eye (sore) candy that make
it more difficult to find relevant
information.
 Mortal Sin
While you may think your choice of
music complements the web
experience, trust me it doesn’t.
Nothing is more jarring than a
computer suddenly belting out tinny
music when you don’t expect it.
 Heavenly Virtue
Using a color contrast analyzer to
make sure text and background
colors work well together.

4. Where the Hell Am I?
 When someone visits your website, they
inevitably fall into one of two categories,
first timers or repeat visitors. The first
group wants to find out what you are
about and the second group is usually in
need of some quick information, like
scheduling or contact information. As
simple and as logical as it may seem to
make that information easily accessible,
countless websites ignore the needs of
one or the other group or both. Unclear
navigation or overly complex navigation
make it hard (or impossible) for visitors
to get their desired information.
 Mortal Sin
Orphan pages with no links back, no
links home and no identification.
 Heavenly Virtue
A well thought out navigation system
with an intuitive layout make for happy
web visitors.
5. Terrible Text
 Sometimes too much choice can be
a bad thing. Take text for
example. While today there are
thousands of fonts and color
combinations to choose from, using
the vast majority of them is a really
bad idea. The best bet is to go
generic and keep the font size larger
than 8 point. Text should also be
easy to scan, so avoid huge blocks of
paragraphs, especially all in bold or
italics.
 Mortal Sin
Any type of blinking text
 Heavenly Virtue
Using a clean sans serif font in an
easy to read contrasting color.
6. Lame Links
 While many people love mysteries,
they usually don’t appreciate them
when it comes to website visits. Links
should be clear about where they are
going to take you, and they should
also let you know where you have
been. When visited links don’t
change color, users may
unintentionally revisit the same pages
repeatedly.
 Mortal Sin
Nothing says amateur and ugly more
than default electric blue links on text
or bordered around graphics
 Heavenly Virtue
Easily identifiable links
7. Absence of Aesthetics
 Yes, websites need to be functional,
but they also need to be aesthetically
pleasing. The layout should draw you
into the key part of the page. A sense
of symmetry is best, but the key
elements of a page shouldn’t be
centered. You’ll want to avoid having
no focal point or too many focal
points on the page. The background
should enhance and frame the key
elements rather than distract from
them.
 Mortal Sin
Blinking neon wallpaper
 Heavenly Virtue
Finding the perfect balance between
graphics, color, fonts, photos and
layout.
Source: http://designcrave.com/2010-06-16/the-seven-deadly-sins-of-web-design/