Logos: Logos are very important in corporate world. There are numerous examples of companies that can be identified all over the world from their logos. Everybody knows Nike logos, same for Apple and Windows. On a website, a logo should be placed so that they receive maximum attention.
Spacing: Music is not just sound but the time between the sounds. Similarly, white space on a web page is very important. White space highlights the logo and content.
Colors: Colors play important role in making a site attractive. Specify primary and secondary colors and when and where to use them.
Fonts: A website needs to be readable. The size, type, spacing, color and line height of the texts are crucial and any one elements can make or mar the site. Headings, sub heading and content should be different to make the site more user friendly.
Layout: A neat effective layout which conveys the website’s message effectively is what is required. Over the top designs may frustrate a user.
Copy writing: the website content should be simple, error free and consistent.
Icons: Another way to promote consistency on the site is by defining the use of icons and correct spacing between them.
Navigation: Perhaps the most important aspect of a website that can attract or drive away readers. The menu should be in such a way user is able to navigate easily without getting lots in maze or not been able to find the relevant content.
Although all web browsers understand and render HTML, they don’t follow the same rules. Each web browser has proprietary extensions to HTML and CSS that it uses to create special effects. The result is that code that looks and works great in IE may crash Firefox, Opera or Safari and vice versa. Unfortunately, many web designers choose to code for IE and ignore the other significant percentage of web surfers. There are hundreds of different browsers and more appearing as PDAs, cell phones and every other imaginable electronic device is being built to be “internet compatible”.
It is impossible to test your web pages on every browser and platform. While testing on the major browsers is more than sufficient for most designers, web designers who want their websites to work on as many different platforms as possible can check the code they write to see if it meets the standards. They can verify the code on W3C website.
All businesses need a website. A business success and marketing depends on how well your business is presented through your website. But how to get a website designed. Should you hire a freelancer or professional web design firm?
One of the biggest advantages to hiring a web design freelancer is cost factor. Freelancer may be available and directly accessible to you. Hence, you can directly communicate your needs to him. If you website is simple and doesn’t involves other technologies like animation or CMS or shopping cart then hiring a freelancer is a good option.
The advantage to working with a web deign company is reliability. Web Design firms have a reputation to maintain and hence are more perceptive to client’s needs. Also, they have a large pool of resources to work on your project. They can offer a much larger range of designs. Also, if you want many other services like SEO, animation, CMS or shopping cart then a web design firm with web designers, SEO consultants and web programmers will be a much sensible option. Generally, we website needs regular maintenance, which a freelancer may not provide. Many times freelancers shutdown their services, get in to some regular jobs or change contact addresses. In these cases, reliability and permanency of web design firm is a clinching factor.
Website design like any field needs quite a few tools. Some of the essential tools which make task easier are:
Photoshop: A product by Adobe is a favorite with graphic designers used to create website layouts and also image editing.
Illustrator: Another product from the Adobe stable of the popular with designers to create and edit vector-based images and graphics quite efficiently.
Dreamweaver: A WYSIWYG editor by Adobe used by majority of web designers to create webpages pages using CSS, HTML, PHP and JavaScript.
Flash: Used for creating interactive and animated banners and menus. This is amarket leader.
Image Optimizer: Helpful to designers to resize, compress or even optimize an image in gif, jpg or png formats and also assist in convert one image format to another.
Media Cleaner: It helps in streaming video in the highest quality possible and in very less time.
1. Web Design Appearance is not the #1 factor
A website’s looks though vital is not the make or break factor in a site’s success. Many website designers fret and fume over a website design and give it more importance at the cost of other important factors.
2. Usability is Vital
A site which is easier to access and use for a site visitor will be much more successful than a fancy site that is difficult to navigate and use. Does a website for photographer effectively showcase his profile? Is the ecommerce website easy to navigate and allows ease of shopping? Make sure information is available. Equally important is information accessibility. A user should not have to look hard finding the information.
The site should be easily navigable with standard navigation system. The navigation system should be usable to all. Avoid using JavaScript or flash for entire navigation system or even if you have to then also provide alternative navigation system.
3. Search Engine Visibility
Search Engines are a major source of site traffic and hence search engine friendliness is of paramount importance. Search engines use spiders to index web pages. A site that uses JavaScript or flash based menu system may provide obstacle to spiders. Provide sitemaps both xml and html for increased search engine friendliness.