What makes a good website? Many people will say it is useful and exclusive content that matters. That’s true, however, the design is equally important. The truth is that nobody will ever reach your unique content if the site’s usability is poor. Most visitors will just close it and look for something else. The creation of an impeccable design is impossible without a good website mockup. In this guide, we are going to shed some light on the common pitfalls in website mockup development.

Website Mockup: What Is It?

The website design process involves four consequent stages. Each stage supposes the creation of an intermediate product:

• a wireframe;
• a website mockup;
• a site prototype;
• a final product (website).

A wireframe is just a sketch of a future website, which is often drawn by hand. A website mockup, in turn, is a realistic website image, which shows the colors, shapes, and styles of all design components. It helps understand how the whole site is going to look, estimate its usability and design. A site prototype is a so-called minimum viable product – a working clickable website version for testing and estimating.

Why Do You Need a Website Mockup?

While you may skip the stage of a site prototype if you believe that the product requires little to no testing, developing a website mockup is a mandatory step. Let us explain why and what benefits it provides to both web developers and site owners.

From the perspective of a web developer, a website mockup helps solve a range of tasks.

1. Early detection of problems. It can suddenly turn out that the design that seemed to be perfect has serious flaws. The earlier you reveal and improve these drawbacks the better.
2. The possibility of comparing different variations, for example, several color schemes, and choosing the best one. This is important when a customer and a developer can’t agree on some points.
3. Advertising and promotion. The best way to prove your skills and explain your ideas is to demonstrate them. After all, а picture is worth a thousand words.

From the point of view of a product owner, developing a website mockup has the following benefits.

1. A way to attract investors. If you are looking for someone to invest in your product, you may want to show it to potential investors first. A wireframe is definitely insufficient, while a site prototype is too expensive. A website mockup is just what you need.
2. A mockup serves as a guide. If you look at a mockup page and understand how it will work, you won’t face any difficulties with using a real site.
3. It helps understand what is wrong and change it. At the stage of website mockup development, it is easy to make changes. When you see a real picture, you can better understand what particularly you want to change.

What’s most important, a website mockup helps the two parties agree on all the details before it is too late.

How to Create a Website Mockup

The main goal of a web developer at the stage of mockup creating is to find a perfect balance between the design and functionality. Sometimes, cool design can turn useless, if it doesn’t meet potential users’ expectations. A good site must be pleasant to look at.

However, it is equally important to make it easy to navigate through: all the key elements and buttons should be visible and easy to access from any page.

Before making a mockup, it makes sense to get as much information about the product as possible. Try to find answers to the following questions.

• What is the purpose of website creation and its idea?
• What goods or services will it sell?
• Who are its potential users/visitors?
• What’s the average age of the target audience?
• What sort of content the site will contain?
• In what form the information needs to be provided?
• Will there be a mobile version and what should it look like?

The collaboration of the customer, the developer, and the designer at this stage is crucial. When all the details are arranged, it’s time to start planning. The more preparatory work you will do the less you will have to change or add in the future.

The main elements of a website mockup you need to think of include:

• style and color scheme;
• the company’s logo;
• the site’s structure;
• call-to-action elements and buttons;
• the layout.

These are mandatory elements for simple websites. Large complicates sires and portals can have a lot of extra elements to consider.

Common Pitfalls and Mistakes in Mockup Development

Sometimes, one small detail can kill the whole project. Regardless of the type of project, try to avoid common developer mistakes.

1. Excessive details. If you are not sure whether you need an element or not, chances are you don’t. Get rid of anything unnecessary to keep the interface clean and uncluttered.
2. Inappropriate colors. Wrong, non-matching colors look awful, as well as a too bright parrot-style color scheme. Using Photoshop for mockup development is also a bad idea.
3. Unreadable texts. It’s crucial to choose the right font, style, and color of the text and the background. A classic solution is a dark text on a unicoloured background. At the same time, you may highlight links by using colors different from the rest of the text. Using too bright, lurid colors and black backgrounds you are risking to get something unreadable.

It’s also important to make sure the site mockup is displayed correctly on various screens, and interactive elements will work properly on touch screens.

The Bottom Line

Making a mockup is a crucial stage in the process of website development, as it helps address multiple issues as early as possible. As a result, it saves time and money in the future. To do it you may choose one of the numerous Mockup builders available. We hope our recommendations will help you make a really user-friendly and nice-looking product.

Vitaly Kuprenko is a writer for Cleveroad. It’s a web and mobile app development company with headquarters in Ukraine. He enjoys writing about technology and digital marketing.