Website design gaffe that grinds my gears

There is one design mistake that really grinds my gears more than any other on Estate Agent websites. This is not making your website entirely made out of flash, which comes a close second, but an Estate Agent website that has one feature that seems to ‘pop up’ a little too often…

The designers here at Resource Techniques have extensively covered website design mistakes for Estate Agents and website design mistakes that’ll make your business quake. Remember that your website is your shop window to the world on the internet – getting this wrong will cost you.

As you have probably guessed, the felon is question is more the way a website interacts than a web design per se. It is the horrendous and infamous popup, a widely known way of advertising and mainly annoying users as they surf the web.

Still to this day Estate Agents allow web designers to use popups on their website, but instead of advertisements it is used to show features, individual properties and even externally linking to Google Maps.

What makes it worse is when a website popups to show the location of a property in Google maps, then only shows a postcode – not the exact address. What help is this to a user?

Slightly off on a tangent, the main point here is that popups are bad for usability and decreases the user experience. Not only do they direct attention away from the main website, but increases the chances of confusing users who are aren’t ‘web savvy’.

A good web designer should have the skills to provide everything you need without using popups to host the features on your website.

If your Estate Agent website has popups then it is time to change.

James Coyne eMarketing and Social Media Consultant