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Website design mistakes hurt usability when they make visitors work harder to find information, understand choices, or complete a task. Nielsen Norman Group (NN/g) identified ten recurring problem categories in a 2016 study of 215 participants across 43 websites. They remain useful diagnostics—not a current census, a ranking of today’s sites, or proof that a particular fix will raise conversions by a set amount.
Use the categories below to spot friction, then verify it with real tasks on the devices and assistive technologies your visitors use. As the article’s authors put it, “Modern design patterns and aesthetics change, but underlying user needs remain the same.” (NN/g, 2016)
What are the most common website design mistakes?
NN/g’s ten categories describe recurring ways that sites can frustrate visitors. Treat them as a checklist for investigation, not as a league table of the most widespread defects today.
1. Putting information where visitors do not expect it
A site organized around internal departments may not match how visitors think about their needs. Labels can also conceal what a section contains. Group information according to visitor goals and familiar language, then test whether people can find specific items without coaching.
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2. Offering competing links and categories
Overlapping categories or several vague choices can leave visitors unsure which path is right. Do not remove links just because there are many; observe where people hesitate, choose the wrong route, or backtrack, then clarify labels and boundaries.
3. Creating islands of information
A page disconnected from the wider site can make visitors unsure where they are or what else is available. Keep useful routes to related content and the main site structure so people can continue or recover their bearings.
4. Repeating links until they become clutter
Repeated navigation and link blocks can compete with the content and make a page harder to scan. Review duplicates in context: repetition may help when it provides a useful shortcut, but unnecessary repetition obscures other information.
5. Hiding material prices or fees
Visitors need enough cost information to make an informed choice. Show relevant fees, conditions, and total cost early enough in the decision process; surprises late in checkout can undermine trust and add friction.
6. Stranding visitors on microsites
A satellite site that drops the parent organization’s identity or navigation can feel like a dead end. Preserve clear orientation cues and an obvious route back to the main site.
7. Returning poor search results
Search is not useful if relevant information is hard to recognize or no-match cases provide no next step. Test realistic queries, write informative result titles and descriptions, and explain when nothing matches while offering a way to broaden or revise the search.
8. Making filters and facets hard to use
Filters fail when their labels do not match visitor language, choices behave inconsistently, or selected criteria and result counts are unclear. Check that people understand what each filter changes and can tell which filters are active.
9. Overwhelming visitors with information
Too much content or competing visual emphasis can hide the next useful action. Prioritize information around the visitor’s task, use scannable structure, and distinguish essential choices without making secondary information impossible to find.
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10. Hiding links in plain sight
Visitors may miss links that do not look interactive or whose destinations are unclear. Make interactive elements recognizable and use link labels that give a reasonable indication of where they lead or what they do.
NN/g’s 2016 article on the ten mistakes says such flaws can hurt business metrics. It does not give a general conversion-loss percentage or establish the causal effect of each individual flaw.
Why can’t visitors find what they need on my website?
Start by checking the path a visitor must follow: what they call the information, where they expect it to be, and whether each label helps them choose the next step. Internal organizational language, overlapping categories, detached pages, and weak search can all interrupt that path.
- Choose realistic tasks. Ask someone to find a product detail, policy, contact route, or other high-value item using the site as they normally would.
- Observe without leading. Note wrong turns, hesitation, repeated searches, and backtracking. Ask what they expected a label or category to contain.
- Make a targeted change. Adjust grouping, labels, links, or search-result information to address the observed obstacle rather than redesigning everything at once.
- Repeat the task. Check whether the revised structure makes the intended route easier to understand, including on relevant screen sizes.
This is a practical diagnostic approach, not a promise of a particular commercial result. NN/g’s evidence is useful for understanding usability problems; it does not show that every site has these issues or that one visual template works for all audiences.
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Do hamburger menus hurt usability?
Not automatically. A hidden menu can make navigation less discoverable, but the right choice depends on the device, task, and space available. In an NN/g study of 179 participants completing tasks on six sites, hidden navigation was used in 27% of desktop cases, compared with 48% for visible navigation and 50% for combined visible and hidden navigation. On mobile, hidden navigation was used in 57% of cases and combined navigation in 86%. These are study-specific observations, not universal benchmarks.
NN/g did not fully test a visible-only navigation condition on phones, and its measured task-time differences do not establish a business outcome. The practical takeaway is to show top-level navigation on desktop where feasible and test mobile navigation against the tasks visitors actually need to complete, rather than treating every hamburger menu as wrong. NN/g’s navigation findings
How can I make website forms easier to use?
Forms are important task touchpoints: confusion about fields, errors, or structure can make a purchase, signup, or request harder to finish. A useful review checks whether visitors can understand what is required, enter information, and recover when something goes wrong.
- Use clear labels that remain understandable while someone enters a value.
- Ask only for information needed for the stated task.
- Group related fields in a logical order.
- Explain errors in plain language and identify how to correct them.
- Make required fields and submission outcomes understandable.
NN/g’s web UX study guide is an index to recommendations on form usability, cognitive load, error messages, required fields, and visual organization; it is not a quantified experiment showing that a specific form change increases conversions.
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Yes. Technical accessibility standards are essential, but passing technical checks alone does not guarantee that people can complete real tasks comfortably. NN/g’s accessible web design report draws on observation of people who are blind, have low vision, and have motor impairments using websites and intranets; the studies were conducted mainly in the United States, with additional sessions in Japan. The report states, “Following technical standards alone does not ensure usability.”
Review navigation, forms, text, links, and page organization with practical tasks and assistive technology, not only an automated checker. The report’s landing page does not establish a current technical-standard version, so it should not be read as describing the requirements of a particular current standard. NN/g accessible web design report
How to investigate friction before changing the design
Prioritize problems that block important visitor tasks, then validate changes with evidence from those tasks. Depending on the question, that may mean moderated usability sessions, structured task testing, reviewing site-search queries, or examining where visitors abandon a flow. An expert usability review or user-testing service can help when a team lacks research capacity; NN/g lists consulting, user testing, and training offerings, but choosing a service is not a substitute for defining the user task and evidence you need.
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What the evidence can—and cannot—say about conversions
When people cannot locate information, understand costs, or recover from errors, they may abandon a task; that is a reasonable risk to investigate in a purchase or signup flow. But the cited NN/g findings do not quantify a universal conversion penalty or guarantee that fixing one design problem will lift conversion by a specific amount. Measure the usability problem directly and assess business outcomes in the context of your own site.
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