As a designer I’ve heard all of these when entering a new project unfortunately. It’s not anyone’s fault really. It’s just a misunderstanding of the basics in the user experience and how to truly create an online presence and not just a “fancy new website that all the kids seem to enjoy these days.”

So lets get started shall we? If you’re a designer you’ll know what we’re they’re* getting at with these. If you’re a business owner, don’t ever let a designer or developer slip one of these past you. Afterall, it’s your website too.

1. “Customers? Our web site is already intuitive and user-friendly.”

If this were true then you’d actually have customers. Try working on your user-friendliness to help your customers intuition. They aren’t psychic.

2. “We need to start doing some usability tests before our launch next month.”

If you’ve waited until a month before your launch to get user feedback on possible bugs or things with the site that need to be changed — good luck to you! Give yourself ample time to develop your applications probably before launch. User testing shouldn’t be rushed if you can help it.

3. “We can use [insert fancy buzzword here] to fix that.”

The shiniest new plugin or module won’t fix what might be ultimately poor planning and implementation. Javascript isn’t meant to fix problems. It’s meant to enhance the user experience. Just because there’s a buzzword for it doesn’t mean it’ll correct a glaring mistake in programming. In fact, 9 times out of 10 it’ll make it worse.

4. “If you stop and think about how the interface works for a second, it makes complete sense.”

You wouldn’t need to stop if it made complete sense. Try thinking about why you’re stopping and thinking about something that should be obvious. Does that make sense? Yeah. Moving on.

5. “How can our customers be so stupid? It’s so obvious!”

It’s not me — it’s you. Are you sure it’s really the customer how is so stupid? Customers only know how to do something if it’s a standard way of doing things, otherwise you’ll have to explain it to them in some way.

6. “Well, they should read the fantastic manual.”

Although this goes against the point above, you really shouldn’t need a manual to use a website. Most of the conventions that have been setup on the internet are there for a reason. People have found that as the best way. If you’re expected your customers to do things in a complete different way from what they’re used to then you might want to rethink things.

7. “We don’t need to do any user testing. I’m a user, and I find it easy to use.”

This may be true, but a second or hundredth opinion couldn’t hurt when developing a user interface or planning your calls to action. Getting your application in front of as many people from your target audience can be invaluable in determining areas for improvement.

8. “We’ll just put an ‘Under Construction’ sign there.”

This may have been acceptable back in 1994, back nowadays it is an extremely frustrating practice. If the page is under construction don’t show it. Period. If it’s not done, then they don’t need to know about it.

9. “Shrink the fonts more so that we can put more content at the top.”

These could have two negative effects. First, your text size should be at a readable size for your target audience. If your target audience is younger viewers you might be able to get away with a font size of 10-11 pixels, but if they’re older viewers then you should really think about upping that to at least 12 pixels. If people can’t read it. They won’t.

Second, the more content you put up in the top portions of the page, the more that area will seem ‘cluttered’ — like you should shoved everything you could up there for them to see first. Give the viewer a chance to really take everything in slowly. If the content seems relevant and the design is pleasing to the eye people will stick around if they feel your website is worth it.

10. “We need a splash screen.”

No. You probably don’t. A splash screen is just one more page users have to click through to get to your content. When in doubt — give them the content.

* The list of quotes were created by the writers of “The Design of Sites: Second Edition” as pointed out by Jason Tavarez.

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