Thursday 16 September 2010

Resources

Website Design & Web Development Resources

Website Designers Forum

A great online forum for all UK web designers and web developers!! A place to create your own identity in the online community as oppose to part of a business. Check it out, and log in today!!

UK Website Designers

Evosite are a leading Somerset Web Design agency who have a team of  skilled website designers will give your business website the credibility it deserves. Evosite will develop your website and enhance its development to be successful.

Customised Web Development

Agriya.com specialize in creating high impact websites and web applications in a variety of domains. Agriya will assist you or your business in developing your website to optimize its potential!!

Website Design Tutorials


Think Vitamin Membership! The place where you can learn Web Design and Development at Our massive resource library includes HTML 5 and CSS3 video tutorials! Enter & join Now?! New Videos updated throughout your membership!!

Website Designers

Ainsworth Studio  have been listed in a selection of graphic design companies lists but our personal favorite is at 'thriceallamerican'. If your company is looking for a graphic designer, then you've come to the right place to find one!!

Other Resources

Sales & Marketing

Rocking Zebra are one of the leading recruitment companies in Swindon, Wiltshire. If you are interested in pursuing a career in online marketing then we can help! A job in Swindon?a creative role in Bath? or a sales job in Bristol? Rocking Zebra can help you find the perfect role.

Marketing & Sales Jobs

Looking for a job in sales or marketing? Visit sales-marketing-jobs.co.uk now for the latest vacancies. We have vacancies for you today, what are you waiting for?!

Easy & Efficient Internet Divorce

Quickie divorce are one of the UK’s leading online divorce services. Our DIY divore are the cheapest anywhere online, with packages starting at just £45.. ! Proceed with your cheap divorce today simply visit the site now!!

Balustrading, Urns, Sundials

Torstone of Glastonbury supply an amazing variety of high quality garden stonework. From birdbaths, urns, planters, troughs and even ballustrading… all at amazing low prices! Check it out today!!

Power Tools, Hitachi Power Tools, Dewalt Power Tools

Online Power Tools Ltd is a family run business established over 2 years ago and our family has been in retail for 20 years, so we have strong foundations of customer care and satisfaction. We have seen year on year of successful growth and are fast becoming one of the leading Power and Hand Tool sellers within the UK

Zakłady sportowe

bet365 jest jedną z największych firm bukmacherskich na świecie, oferującą Zakłady sportowe, Finansowe, Kasyno, Poker i Gry.Oferujemy wiele zakładów sportowych, obejmujących wszystkie sporty, w tym piłkę nożną, tenis, koszykówkę, żużel i siatkówkę. Postaw zakłady na ponad 50 rynków na żywo na każdy mecz piłki nożnej Ligi Mistrzów, nasza oferta 100% Bonus Piłkarski ma zastosowanie.

Web Design Articles and Web Development Articles

Stratus Articles is the article directory where you can find interesting and useful information on most popular themes. Some of the articles available include web design articles and web development articles with great tips and help on your websites. Why not check out the articles today!

Monday 6 September 2010

Principles of Web Design

In designing a websites, many web designers normally follow a set of principles on how to properly design a website. According to many Web design Philippines experts, the standards of designing a website have introduced a number of changes compared to the practices in the past, such as assuring a website’s accessibility and usability through its designs.

So what are these principles or practices that web designers follow in today’s modern trends in designing a website?

Neatly Designed Navigation

The navigation is an integral part of every websites. It is used to assist visitors to navigate through the website without having to scroll down or look of an appropriate link to point them on the page they are looking for.

However, the navigation bar should also be designed as simple as possible. It should be easily used by any visitors, experienced or not. This can be designed with a drop down menu, normally to provide a quick way to get to a specific page under the same category, or just a simple link to another page. Using of Flash may help to beautify the navigation, but many experts suggest to only use simple animations, such as through the use of CSS or JavaScript.

Simple layout

The goal of designing a website, according to many Web design Philippines experts, is to help visitors get to their goal as much as possible. Try to minimize the use of images or Flash animations to not distract visitors. Medium length content as well as the use of header tags on titles is also required to assist visitors to quickly search for their information.

Using pure CSS

The use of CSS have become an integral part of designing a website, and the use of tables have steadily declined in today’s modern web designing practices. Other than for tables, the use of CSS have also replaced the use of Flash for simple animations such button animations.

Faster load time

The reason why CSS became a standard in website development and design is because of its bandwidth saving capabilities compared to the use of tables. However, there are also other reasons why many websites today load slower compared to others.

One reason that affects the speed of websites is the use of Flash movies on their websites, which significantly takes a lot of bandwidth. The use of high-resolution images is also one of the cause. Another the use of too much codes, such as the heavy use of JavaScript.

Browser compatibility

This is important because not all users only use Firefox nor Internet Explorer as their main browser. In today’s trends, websites should be 90% compatible to all types of browsers available in the market, particularly in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari. And because of the growth of mobile browsing, websites should as be as compatible to mobile browsers as much as possible.

Website scalability

Websites should be able to re-size itself in any type of screen resolutions. According to many Web design Philippines experts, this is normally achieved through the use of CSS.

When it's time for new web design...

There are a huge number of business websites on the internet that do not even get a hundred visitors per day. They should be declared as useless since it is quite obvious that either people do not need its contents or the business is not really pushing the website in the right direction. However the most common reason for this is that these website designs are poor and not so user-friendly. 

Unfortunately most small businesses do not even realize that they have a bad web design and that their website has become ineffective. 

Web is a very power tool which can be used to do almost anything. Whether you want to promote your products, find new clients, or simply create awareness about your brand. You can do all that on your website. But if your website is not doing anything for you then perhaps it is time for you to think about getting a new web design. However the question is that how do you find out that it is your web design that is making your website ineffective? 

Well the first obvious sign is the number of visitors you are getting on your website. Once I met a small business owner who needed advice on his website and they did not even know how many visitors they get on their website. Unfortunately they didn’t know how to use traffic analyzing tools such as Google Analytics on their website. 

You have a bad design if you notice that people do visit your website but they do nothing at all there and leave without saying hello. Most probably your website is not very user friendly so visitors find it difficult to navigate and understand what to do here. Secondly it is also possible that the content on your website is really boring and people find it uninteresting and leave to browse better websites. 

Colors play a very important role in design. They are used to enhance the visual appeal of a design and they are also used to make design more useful and user friendly. Bad color combination is a very common bad web design practice. Dark background colors are specially considered a very bad design practice. So you need to make sure that your web design has colors that match and are still easy on the eyes of the visitors. Another aspect of color scheme on your website design is the color of the hyperlinks. Is the color of your hyperlinks makes it clear to the visitors that these are hyperlinks? Sometimes designer mix colors so badly that links get mixed up with text. 

Brand identity is not a feature of HTML and CSS, for that you use marketing images on your website design such as your logo design. Sometimes these images of your logo, your profile pages on social networking websites, your contact pages, they all look different from each other. In order to maintain a proper design consistency you need to make sure that your logo design matches the theme of your web design. So that it does not look aloof on your website. Also make sure that a design consistency is maintained on your website. 

Remember there is always room for improvement so keep an eye on your website and if it is not doing as it was expected then you should consider getting a new web design.

Wednesday 11 August 2010

Important Web Design Aspects

A website design combines various elements to make the website successful. The websites serve the purpose of bridging the gap between a company and its target audience online. And online medium has become one of the most important ways to communicate a brand or a product to the audience with high dependency on the internet. Thus it takes just more then one aspects of a website to work up on and develop an actually satisfactory website for the users as well as the owners.

Some of the aspects of website design are navigation, color scheme, design, graphics and the content. But all of these elements combine and crystallize the website’s design to two basic schemes: appearance and usability. Designers can well relate to the fact that I am going to refer here now. A designer faces the challenge of striking the balance between appearance and usability of the website whenever he begins a new website design. 

The appearance of the website is undoubtedly one of the prime factors of a website design. The word design itself entails the very purpose of a website design where the designers are required to create an attractive website. The visuals and aesthetics of a website must be striking enough to appeal to a visitor and explore the website further. 

But what’s the use of a visually rich website that confuses the visitor and doesn’t serve the purpose of information sharing? The website’s content should be accessible for the user by using well defined information architecture. If the visitor finds slightest of confusing in finding the content he wants, it won’t take him more then 5 seconds to close the website or open a new one.

With such a fierce competition on the web, the website design has become a specialization. Every one who calls himself a designer is not necessarily a website designer because designing involves logical thinking to satisfy the audience in every possible manner.