Avoid Undermining Your Website: 5 Research-Backed Web Design Mistakes and Fixes

1. Visual Overload

Excessive elements, competing calls-to-action (CTAs), and a lack of whitespace increase cognitive load, causing users to bounce rather than convert. Research indicates that users prefer “low prototypicality” and high visual simplicity.

• Source: Google Research: Users prefer simple and familiar designs
• Source: Nielsen Norman Group: Minimize Cognitive Load

2. Hero Carousels

Auto-forwarding carousels and sliders often suffer from “banner blindness.” Users frequently perceive them as advertisements and skip over them. Furthermore, they move too quickly for users to read, leading to a click-through rate (CTR) often below 1%.

• Source: Nielsen Norman Group: Auto-Forwarding Carousels are Annoying and Reduce Accessibility
• Source: University of Notre Dame: Carousel Interaction Statistics
• Source: Should I Use a Carousel

3. Infinite Scrolling

While effective for social media discovery, infinite scrolling can hurt conversion-oriented sites by making it impossible to reach the footer (where critical links reside) and causing “scroll fatigue.” It also prevents users from bookmarking or maintaining a sense of place within a product list.

• Source: Nielsen Norman Group: Infinite Scrolling Is Not for Every Website
• Source: Baymard Institute: UX Research on Infinite Scrolling vs. Pagination

4. Disruptive Popups

Intrusive interstitials, especially those that appear immediately upon entry or cover the main content on mobile devices, frustrate users and lead to high abandonment rates. Google also penalizes sites in search rankings for using intrusive interstitials that impede access to content.

• Source: Google Search Central: Official Policy on Intrusive Interstitials
• Source: Nielsen Norman Group: Most Hated Advertising Techniques

5. Long Forms

Each additional field on a form correlates with a decrease in conversion rates. High-friction forms—those that request unnecessary personal information or lack clear validation—cause users to abandon the checkout or sign-up process.

• Source: HubSpot: Form Field Experiments and Conversion Rates
• Source: Baymard Institute: Checkout Optimization and Form Length