Common design mistakes no one is talking about!!!

5 min readMar 31, 2024

I know that you must have come across the term UI and UX either in a ad, a blog post, on YouTube or who knows, you probably are a UI and UX designer. This skill is awesome especially to those creating SAAS and PAAS products, it controls the visual and user-experience aspects of the product. In today’s post, I am going to be revealing the common design mistakes many people are probably hiding or are not even aware of.

Before we proceed, we don’t we take a few seconds to explain what UI and UX means?

User Interface Design also known as UI Design simply refers to the visual aspect of an Application or a Website. It can also be referred to as the visual, audio and audio-visual aspect of a Physical Product. One thing to remember is that UI design is not limited to Digital Products. It is also there in a Physical Product. Consider a phone as an example, all parts you can touch, see and hear is the UI.

Meanwhile, User Experience Design, also known as UX design refers to the overall experience of the user. It goes beyond the Visual Aspect of a web or application. It can involve Customer Research, Prototyping, Updates and many other strategies to create a seamless User Experience.

From the definition, we can tell that this is a very vital point of consideration especially when you are creating SAAS and PAAS products. But what if you encounter an issue where your customers start complaining about minor UI mistakes that even your UI Designer (or probably, You) is (are) not aware of. Well, let’s uncover some of those hidden mistakes and what you should do instead...

Mistake #1: Confusing Error Message

This is a common mistake as seen on many websites and applications. These mistakes can make you start looking at the form from the beginning to the end which can lead to frustration and can prompt the user to leave the page.

Do this instead:

Specify the exact part of the form one made the mistake on. This will give the user less time to try to troubleshoot their error.

Mistake #2: Low Quality Images

Never make this mistake especially when you have an image that contains text such as an infographic or a card.

Do this instead:

Always make sure that you use a high-quality image and you can even use an image upscaler to increase the resolution of your images.

Mistake #3: Confusing Call To Actions

Remember that in the digital world, CTAs are very important. There are the driving force that prompts the user to take actions. Using dual CTAs can confuse the user and make him or her think, “what in the world is add to cart and add to wishlist? What’s the difference?". This can lead to frustration, making the user to ponder on what decision to make.

Do this instead:

Categorize the CTAs and make the superior CTA take precedence over the less-superior CTA. Take for example, Wishlist and Add to Cart. Add to Cart will probably lead to sales, therefore let the add to cart take precedence over the Wishlist and since Wishlist is synonymous to Favourites. Replace it with the favourites icon, as shown in the image above.

Mistake #4: Wrong Field Groupings

This is another common mistake and to me, I will say this is the most dangerous mistake and can really destroy your Product if not handled with care. When the form is long and you don’t group them accordingly, it produces a very bad design. Although, this mistake can be very tricky but you can

Do this instead:

Group fields according to their relationship in input. For example, CVV is related to Expiry Date by input.

Mistake #5: Using Dark UX Patterns

Now we all know how painful it is to lose a customer especially in this Digital era with lots of competition but that doesn’t mean you should vent your anger/disappointment on the customer/user. In UI and UX Design, our message also matters. Using messages that will make the user feel ashamed especially when he or she is opting out of a subscription or deleting a profile.

Do this instead:

You can change the outcome of this by:

Explaining to the user what they will loose when they unsubscribe.
Show your disappointment in a very formal way
Make them feel more important by asking for their opinion to improve your design and service.

Conclusion

So that’s all we have for you in this post. I sure hope you enjoyed this and you learnt a lot from this post. Do make sure to hit the follow button to get more ICT tips and Digital Skill Training...