As the technology to design and develop websites changes every day, web development is also becoming increasingly dynamic. Developers must decide on different languages, framework, potential libraries, and data storage and so on. The end result must be easy to use, fast and attractive enough for people to come back again.
While there are many ways of developing a website, there are also mistakes that you cannot commit.
Here are some of the common mistakes developers make:
Using old elements
Web languages are changing fast and while most of us are required to keep up-to-date with these, it is difficult to break old habits. So, many of us still end up using old elements even when they create unwieldy websites that are difficult to run on modern browsers.
Some of the common mistakes include using elements like tables. Once the only means of element placement in HTML, tables have become redundant now and can often make the website unwieldy on different browsers. Other elements include <div> or <span> instead of semantic-specific tags. Using the outdated <center> or <font> that are not supported by HTML5.
Solution: Avoiding or limiting the use of <table>, using HTML for content and not display and using CSS for formatting content.
Avoiding cross-platform testing
Even if you think a particular browser is the best and most people you know are using the same, it is imperative that you test it across different browsers. The same applies when we copy code from the web and use to build our website. A browser-centric approach will give us a site that does not do well across different browsers.
Solution: Run a quality assurance check on different platforms regularly. Today there are tools and websites that can help you check cross compatibility across different browsers.
Ignoring responsiveness
Developers often carry out their design and testing on the screen that they are using, usually a desktop. In the process, they ignore screens of different sizes. The result is a website that has no uniformity. This mistake can be especially damaging as more and more users are turning to mobiles as their primary device.
Solution: Make sure that you build a responsive website. There are tools to test responsiveness across various screen sizes and this will eliminate the need to check on different devices.
Page bloat or too many pages:
Many designs love to put up snazzy graphics or images. Often they will use CSS or JavaScript to link files on the page. This complicates the simple HTML and causes the page takes too much time to load.
Solution: Are the graphics and images necessary? Use different tools to minimize the image and preload as many as possible
Create meaningless pages by ignoring SEO
A website that looks fancy and works well will still be of no use if no is actually visiting it. The best means of directing web traffic to your site is through SEO.
Solution: Use<Meta> tags, add keywords for SEO. Additionally, you must also test your web page for Section 508 compliance.
