We’ve all done it: clicked on a website that looked fantastic and then left immediately because something didn’t feel right. The buttons might have been playing hide-and-seek, or the slow loading time might have made you think your internet connection wasn’t working. As we get closer to 2025, user experience has never been more vital for your digital success.
We’ve seen a lot of businesses lose consumers at Peak Media Consulting because their websites weren’t easy to use. The good news is? It’s easy to avoid most of these blunders. Here are the top ten UX mistakes you should avoid this year.
1. Not paying attention to the design that works best on mobile devices
Here’s a reality check: more than 60% of people who go to websites do it on their phones. There are still websites that don’t put mobile first. Your users are looking through their phones while they are on the bus, in a queue, or just relaxing at home. If your site doesn’t look good on a small screen, most of your visitors won’t be able to see it.
The answer is to make things for mobile devices first, and then make them bigger for desktop. Making a site that operates properly on all devices isn’t enough. You also need to make it feel like it fits in with the device your user is using.
2. Making it too hard to go around
Have you ever gone to a store and not been able to find what you were looking for? That’s how people feel when they have to deal with navigation that doesn’t make sense. In 2025, simple wins. Your visitors should be able to find what they want in three clicks or fewer.
Think of how you move around as a discussion with your user. Would you give someone ten different methods to get to the same place? Not sure. Check that your menu is tidy, easy to use, and makes sense. And please, don’t put dropdown menus inside of dropdown menus. That’s a hole that no one wants to go down.
3. Choosing elegance over speed
Yes, that cool parallax effect looks wonderful. If your page takes five seconds to load, most people won’t stick around to see it. Page speed doesn’t simply affect how people feel about your site; it also affects how well it ranks in search engines and how many people buy from you.
Every second counts. Studies show that a one-second delay can lower conversions by 7%. Use browser caching, make your images smaller, and get rid of those big scripts. Your users and your bottom line will be happy.
4. Not paying attention to how easy it is to get to
It’s not just about doing the right thing, but that is vital too. Accessibility is making things that everyone can use, even the one in four adults who have a disability of some kind. If you don’t think about accessibility, you’re not only leaving people out, you’re also losing money.
Adding alt language to pictures, ensuring colours are easy to see, making your site easy to browse with a keyboard, and using clear, informative link text are all simple adjustments that can have a large effect. These reforms are good for everyone, not just those who have disabilities.
5. Asking people to do things that aren’t obvious
Your call-to-action (CTA) buttons should be like a friend saying, “Hey, this is what you should do next!” Instead, we regularly encounter buttons that read “Click here” or “Submit” that don’t say what they mean.
Be clear about what you want to do and stay focused on it. Instead of “Learn More,” try “Download Your Free Guide” or “Start Your 30-Day Trial.” Visually, your CTAs should stick out; they should be the most significant thing on the page. Also, remember that not every paragraph needs a call to action. Placement is highly crucial.
6. Sending users a lot of pop-ups
We get it. Pop-ups can help encourage people to sign up for your email list or for advertising deals. But it’s easy to cross the line between being helpful and being obnoxious. If a user can’t even access your content before they have to sign up for a newsletter, see an exit-intent box, and see a cookie consent banner, you’ve gone too far.
It’s all about timing. Before you ask for someone’s email address, let them interact with your content. Use exit-intent intelligently, and make sure that any pop-up can be simply closed with a button that is easy to discover. You want to get along with the other person, not make matters worse.
7. Using stock photographs that don’t have anything to do with your business
The greatest way to express “we don’t really care” is with those too-perfect stock photographs of individuals in suits pointing at laptops with teeth that are too perfect. People can see things from a mile away, and they lose trust right away.
Buy authentic photographs that show off your brand and help you connect with your audience. If you’re short on cash, even good pictures of your genuine team or items on your phone are preferable to stock shots. Realness builds relationships, and relationships lead to sales.
8. Not paying attention to white space
White space isn’t space; it’s space for your stuff to move about. When you cover every pixel with text, pictures, or calls to action, it makes things look cluttered and makes it hard for people to focus on what’s important.
White space is like the space between sentences when you talk. It offers readers time to think about what they’ve read and tells them where to go next. Some of the top websites are incredibly easy to use. They use white space in creative ways to give the site a clean and professional image.
9. Parts of the design that don’t go together
Imagine reading a book where the font changed with each chapter or viewing a movie where the colour grading altered at random points. That’s how people feel when your design isn’t the same all the time. Your brain may find it tougher to interpret these little changes, including varied button styles, fonts, and spacing.
Make a design system that is easy to understand and has the same colours, fonts, spacing, and interactive elements throughout. This doesn’t mean your site has to be boring; it just means that you need to make sure that everything fits together in a way that seems organised and professional.
10. Not paying attention to feedback and testing from users
This is the thing: what you think works and what really works could not be the same. In 2025, the worst thing you can do for UX is to presume you know what your people want without asking them.
Do user testing a lot and early on. Use heatmaps to see where people actually click. Check your analytics. Check support tickets to find out what problems users are encountering. And if someone says something isn’t functioning, listen to them. Your ideas about your design are vital, but what your users think is even more crucial.
Moving Forward
You don’t just do user experience once and forget about it. You keep doing it to learn more about your audience and how to better serve them. The digital world is continually changing, and things that function now might not work as effectively in the future.
The good news is that you don’t need a lot of money or a new design to avoid making these blunders. Start with little steps, put your audience’s requirements first, and continuously making modifications. Every tiny modification, even if it appears small, makes the whole thing better.
At Peak Media Consulting, we believe that a great user experience is the most important thing for success online. It’s not about just going along with the crowd; it’s about creating experiences that genuinely help your users and your business realise its goals. Not only will you make your website better by avoiding these frequent blunders, but you’ll also gain your audience’s trust and develop long-lasting relationships with them.
Your website isn’t about you; it’s about your consumers and how you can help them have more fun, get more done, or make their lives easier. Keep that in mind, and you’ll be well on your way to creating experiences that not only don’t make these mistakes but also make your visitors very pleased.
Are you ready to make your UX better? Make 2025 the year your online presence really stands out.