Once, having a website was an option for businesses; today, most companies have one. This is not surprising considering 5.56 billion people globally use the internet, a whopping 67.9% of the world population. Naturally, organizations need to meet consumers where they are most likely to go. And in the current expanding digitalization, the online space is one such lucrative location for businesses to be present in.
In light of the intense diversity and competition in local and global markets, your website needs to be so much more than a digital brochure of information on your business. It needs to be able to create an exceptional experience for users that will have them coming back to your site repeatedly.
Guyana’s rapidly digitalizing economy further necessitates that businesses are increasingly accessible and attractive to digital users and are equipped with latest technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. However, if businesses focus only on the aesthetics and technology and do not pay attention to UX and UI design when creating their online platform, they fall short in user experience (UX) metrics, hurting their credibility, both online and offline.
This article will examine some of the most common UX mistakes that can hurt your website along with steps to fix them.
Common website UX mistakes and how to fix them
Websites issues like poor user engagement and high bounce rates can be traced back to bad UX design. As the term suggests, user-centricity is at the heart of UX design. This means, your website needs to be easily accessible, usable, intuitive, cross-platform optimized, consistent and built with UX enhancing functionalities.
To that end, here are the most critical UX design mistakes:
- Not opting for a mobile-first design
- Slow-loading pages
- Poor or overcomplicated navigation
- Weak calls-to-action (CTAs)
- Inconsistent and disjointed design
Let us see how these UX mistakes can impede user engagement and your bottom line, and what steps you can take to correct them.
How does not optimizing for mobile usage damage user experience?
The latest statistics for 2025 reveals that a staggering 62.54% of global website traffic comes from mobile devices. This underlines the importance of following the mobile-first approach in web development and optimizing the website for smartphones and mobile devices.
What is mobile-first website design
Mobile-first design prioritizes mobile device interface. It focuses on first creating digital experiences for mobile devices and then scaling up to larger screens like tablets, laptops and desktops. Using this approach, website designer will first build the simplest version of a website that works on small screens with limited bandwidth and processing power. These include, essential content and must-have functionalities that ensure usability and high performance on a mobile phone.
Once the mobile version of the website is ready, the design is enhanced for larger screens by adding more features, content and additional design elements that a larger machine can handle easily. This ensures a consistent user experience across all devices and promotes cleaner, more focused design. Mobile-first design often uses responsive web design techniques to seamlessly adapt to different screen sizes, ensuring consistency and a smooth user experience across all platforms.
Images, text, icons and layouts that do not respond to mobile screen sizes and orientation will immediately throw users off. Having to zoom in to read text or not being able to click on links easily on your smartphone are all very damaging to user experience.
How can you fix this?
- Speak to your website development agency and ask them to ensure that your website is built using the mobile-first approach.
- Develop your website with a responsive design that automatically adjusts layout for any screen size. For example, the mobile-first microsite designed by Webfx for Moo Milk that aims at creating a great user experience while giving users enjoyable ways to engage with the brand.
- Make navigation simple by using clearly visible, touch-friendly icons and buttons. Collapse menus into a hamburger navigation panel/slider.
- Include only the most essential features in the mobile version and save the bells and whistles for laptop and desktop versions.
- Choose legible font sizes and clear typography for easy reading on smaller screens and keep enough contrast between text and background for increased clarity.
- Avoid unnecessary pop-ups and distractions.
- Check your website on multiple devices, screen sizes and browsers to ensure design compatibility, responsiveness and user-friendly interface on all platforms.
Does a slow loading website really hurt your business?
From your own personal experience, you will be able to attest to the fact that nothing is more frustrating than a website that does not load instantly. Loading speed is no longer a specialized gimmick or USP. It is a non-negotiable without which users will quickly leave your site, leading to higher bounce rates and failed conversions.
Website speed is also a ranking factor for search engines like Google, making it a crucial performance feature in the modern digital landscape. Therefore, a slow website will not only hurt your brand reputation and cost you potential customers, it will also negatively impact your search engine rankings.
How can you fix this?
- Optimize images and videos to make them lighter and easy to load on varying internet speeds in various regions of Guyana. Use modern image formats like WebP and AVIF for lighter media that does not compromise on quality.
- Minify and clean the code using tools like UglifyJS and CSSNano and use plugins and tools that automate code minification to build a lightweight, efficient website.
- Minimize HTTP requests by using techniques such as use of CSS sprites that combine multiple images into one file. Merge CSS and JavaScript files wherever possible.
- Leverage content delivery network (CDN) to distribute your website content across global servers. This will let your website load faster by reducing the distance needed to transfer data, caching static content and using optimization technique like file compression and minification to reduce file sizes.
- Use caching technique to temporarily store website content like images and scripts, so they load faster for returning visitors. These include – Browser caching, server-side caching and object caching which is especially useful for e-commerce or database-heavy platforms.
Why does overcomplicated navigation drive away users?
Your website navigation is the map that guides users reach the information they are looking for and what you need them to find on your site. Poorly designed or complicated navigation will immediately frustrate website visitors, who will hasten to leave the site without exploring its content.
How can you fix this?
- Plan and design a clear Information Architecture for your website to logically group related pages and content for a well-organized navigation. The navigation menu must reflect content hierarchy with the apt use of categories and subcategories.
- Keep labels and navigation links clear and concise. Your main page should not have more than 5 to 7 navigation links, so that users are not overwhelmed.
- Use concise and descriptive navigation labels and standard terminologies web users are accustomed to. Stay away from technical jargons which can confuse users.
- Establish visual hierarchy through the use of design elements like font size, spacing, colour and header tags. To avoid confusion and hold user attention, highlight the active page and provide hover or click feedback.
- Ensure menu and navigation accessibility through keyboard and screen readers for a website designed for inclusivity.
- Follow a responsive design that adjusts the navigation for different screen sizes and devices, allowing easy access to the various pages of the website.
- Incorporate a search bar with robust search and filtering functionality to help users quickly find what they need.
- Choose the right navigation type based on your content, layout and user device preferences:
- Top navigation bar – User-friendly navigation and the most common form of navigation bar
- Sidebar navigation – Streamlines navigation for content heavy sites, such as e-learning platforms
- Hamburger menus – Used in mobile designs to save space
- Sticky navigation – Increases menu visibility on the website, even while user scrolls up and down the page
Let’s take a look at 7‑step process for building a modern business website from scratch.
How do weak CTAs dampen the impact of your online efforts?
Your website could look great and be a dream to navigate through. Your products and services could be top-tier and offer great value to customers. But without clear and strong calls-to-action, you will not make those conversions that are key to business growth.
How can you fix this?
- Design your CTAs to be clear and compelling.
- Customize CTAs to your products and/or services.
- Use language geared towards action and make the CTAs stand out with visual emphasis and design elements.
- Place them at strategic points in your website to capitalize on user interest.
How does inconsistent design detract from website and brand credibility
The minute you land on Apple’s website, you know exactly what brand you are looking at. The same can be said for instantly-recognizable brands like Google, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, or Louis Vuitton. The reason is not merely the logo, but consistent and cohesive visuals and design elements.
If your website pages all look and feel different, they create a disconnect and users might find that confusing and lose trust in your brand.
How can you fix this?
- Be very clear on what image, messaging and public perception you wish to create for your business and brand.
- Develop a style guide that helps create this image and stick to it.
- Conduct a design audit to review all the pages and interface elements of the website to find and correct inconsistencies in typography, spacing, colour scheme, icons, button styles and layout.
- Be bold but measured where layouts are concerned. There is no ‘Every page should be a stand-out’. Instead, opt for consistent layouts and sections that create uniformity across the webpages and help users get a sense of familiarity.
- Design inconsistencies can sprout from miscommunication and a lack of effective collaboration between designers and developers. To remedy this, collaborative tools like Figma and GitHub should be used to streamline collaboration among team members, improving visibility and alignment.
Here are top branding mistakes to avoid for Guyanese businesses.
Conclusion
User experience is a crucial website design and development requirement affects the success of your brand and business in the digital sphere which then spills into the offline space as well. There are various UX features and functionalities you need to factor in to ensure your website is engaging and value-oriented. For example, AI chatbots at strategic points, auto-filling of forms, easy navigation, mobile optimization and contextual and location-sensitive features are all essential in creating a good user experience for website visitors.
In our ever-expanding digital landscape, your website needs to be accessible and usable to help the right users connect with your offerings. To help you avoid these UX mistakes and build a robust, engaging website, connect with our website design and development team.
