Common Mistakes and Tips for Web Page Design

Coaches of young athletes don’t usually get into the job because they couldn’t wait to build a sports team website. They coach for the love of the game, the belief in the value of collaboration and work ethic, or maybe they just want to be around their kid. But no matter a coach’s familiarity with the process, sports software is gradually becoming a larger part of youth athletics. And just as there’s a right way to catch a football and a wrong way to catch a football, the same could be said for the management of team websites. Let’s get common mistakes out of the way before we get to pertinent site design tips.

Common web design mistakes

1. Hiding the basics: When young athletes visit sports team websites, they’re not looking for a puzzle. They’re looking for certain information - game time, opponent, practice location, etc. -  and they should be able to easily find this content. Considering the context, be sure to refrain from creating an overly busy home page, Allvoices reported.

2. Abandoning the audience: Some websites require complex ideas and thinking points that encourage visitors to contemplate heavy matters. This site isn’t one of them. All aspects of a website should focus on the target audience, according to Allvoices.

3. Forgetting the medium: Even if you set up your sports team website on a desktop computer, that doesn’t mean the young athletes will use the same format to read the site. Allvoices advised for functionality across multiple platforms, including mobile and tablet.

Tips for web design

1. Important stuff only: As noted earlier, young athletes tend to have only a few reasons why they are visiting your team website. Consider Hongkiat, a design blog that encourages website builders to omit all unneeded elements.

2. Use the right colors: This one fits quite neatly with a team, especially if its colors aren’t black and white. Too many colors on a web page can easily disorient a visitor. If this happens, Hongkiat reported, all the work you put into the website will have been done for next to nothing. The blog recommends starting with no more than two or three colors. Pick your team’s colors and see how it looks.

3. Go above the fold: The phrase “above the fold” originated in the print newspaper industry, but the same principle should be used in web page design. Hongkiat advised site creators to decrease the amount of necessary scrolling and include the most important content at the top of a page.