Web design is a very useful tool for companies of any size. One of the main problems is that a lot of people are unsure of the best layout that can be used to communicate effectively with the visitors. When websites are designed there is five common mistakes, which are made.
The first common mistake that is made is that the text is not right for the overall niche or mood of the website. It can be very hard to find the best text for using on the website. If you feel that this may be the problem with your website there is some sites on the internet that can assist to sort this problem.
The second mistake that is commonly made is that the website is not actually compatible for working with multiple browsers. There is a lot of website owners that are surprised when they receive feedback stating that the website does not work properly in Google Chrome. This is very unfortunate if this is the case because this browser is one of the fastest growing browsers available online. It is worth taking time to ensure that the website is working correctly so that customers can access it.
Another thing that is very important to spend time looking at so that you do not make a mistake is the colour scheme. It is very important to take time to look into the colour scheme so that you get something that is suitable. There is some useful sites on the internet that will help you to get the correct colour scheme for the website. There is over twenty different colours that can be used in order to design the website.
The fourth mistake that is commonly made when it comes to designing a website is that the navigation system is not set up correctly. There is not really a tool that can be used to sort this problem however there are some guidelines that can be followed in order to make sure that it is set up correctly.
One of the biggest mistakes that are commonly made by website owners is with regards to the order of the navigation. If you take time to look around you will find that there is a lot of websites have the home tab at the top of the navigation bar and then it is followed by about us.
It is very important to avoid making this mistake because no one really cares who they are as they care more about what products are offered and how much they are. It is best to put the products or services tab after the home tab.
The fifth mistake that is commonly made is that the call to action is not in the correct place. It is very important to put your call to action within the centre and front and also on nearly all the other pages. If you would like the potential customers to call you on the telephone then put the contact number on all pages.
There are a number of vital website design tips that all website designers should follow to generate a striking first impression for visitors to their site.
The main problem that often occurs is when people log onto a website and then find it takes far too long to load. It does not matter how fantastic the site may appear, if it takes more than a few seconds to load, then you will quickly lose your visitors.
In order to achieve this, it is vital to minimise the use of images. They may enhance a website page, but it is best to avoid placing too many on a page. Instead, keep things simple by using HTML. You will see that major sites have very few images and this is because for them the load time is very important. Simple is often best. Optimise the images prior to placing them on your site. They should be in jpeg of gif format. You can also minimise the size of an image by choosing the colours you need from the colour palette, so the less colours you choose, the less the size of the image.
It is possible to use tables in a creative way because they load very quickly being simple HTML code. You can use tables on your home page, for menus, or wherever you like. Try to reduce animated gifs unless it is absolutely necessary. They take a long time to load and many people find them very irritating. However, used correctly they can be attention grabbing, so minimal use of small ones may add interest to your site.
Experiment with CSS styles and achieve some interesting effects. Once again, CSS is simple code and will load very quickly. Try not to over use Flash. There is a great deal of hype about this subject, but whilst it may look fantastic, it can take a great deal of time to load and may well put off your visitors. Design the majority of your site in HMTL, use tables, experiment with CSS, minimise the use of animated gifs, Flash and bulky images.
Unambiguous navigation is essential. Once a visitor has come to your website, they need to stay on it and look at the pages. All important links should be in prominent places, preferably right at the top of the web page, which is where a visitor usually looks first. Make effective use of the menus on the right and the left, whilst trying to link to as many pages of the site as you can. You should allow your information to be easily accessible from all part of the sit because you never know what a visitor may be interested in.
Links on the web pages should be well organised in accordance with the order of importance. Visitors should easily be able to find what they are looking for under varying categories. Once you have decided on how the site should be navigated, you should then think about the best place to have them. The navigation should both clear and consistent. Designers should try to design navigation at the top or on the left, as this is the first place our eyes visit. Furthermore, the primary links should high enough on the page so that they are clearly visible, without scrolling. Any navigation images used should be seamlessly integrated into the site design. Placing the main navigation links at the foot of the page should be avoided, but it is quite a nice idea to have navigation links both at the top and bottom of the page, so visitors do not have to scroll up and down and in this way, visitors will not miss important links.
Consistency in navigation is essential, with the most important links on a website being on every page in the same location and the same sequence. If you place them in differing places, visitors will become confused.
All resolutions should be catered for so your site is browser compatible. These range from 640 x 480 to 1024 x 768 and may go even higher. The most effective way to do this is in terms of percentage rather than pixels. As time goes by, more and more people are going to switch to higher resolutions so it is vital to design for this. Prior to starting a design, you should decide on your lowest screen resolution. Once you have done this, you then design your site for that resolution.
Readable and professional looking fonts are a must. Therefore, do not use Comic Sans and other fanciful fonts that are not available on many computers. If the font you have chosen to use is not available on the site visitor’s computer, the website will use the default font of your computer, which is far worse.
The use of white space is important because visitors will not want to see a site cluttered up with far too many images, background and colourful fonts. This is too confusing for the eye. Once again, keep things simple by minimising the amount of graphics and using a lot of white space, which will give a sense of spaciousness and overall neatness to a website.
Always check for broken links within a website prior to uploading it to the server. This is fairly straightforward in Dreamweaver and several other packages of this kind, so there is no excuse.
If these simple guidelines are followed, then your site visitors will have a rewarding experience when they visit your web pages.
The words website design and website development are basically two sides of the same coin. A website to be complete and running in the World Wide Web needs both designing and development. Thus, for a person to create a proper web page, the difference between the two needs to be clearly defined and differentiated.
Designing as we know includes the whole gamut from planning to execution. In the web world, designing a website usually refers to the process of coming up with ideas and incorporating them, usually through graphic software like Adobe Photoshop. When a web designer designs a web page, he actually provides the framework for the look and feel of the web page. This includes the whole appearance of the website, i.e., the colours used, the layout, were to put what images, interaction and interactivity and so on.
It is thus vitally important for a website designer to be very imaginative and creative in his outlook. At the same time he should have some basic understanding of the back end development work that goes behind developing a website. Having some prior idea on the technicalities of developing a website helps in the process of coming up with the best designs for a web page. Thus the designer should use his artistic talent and knowledge of the savvy designs to design a website page which is what the clients usually look for.
On the other hand, website development deals with the ‘how’ part of converting the website design to something that is LIVE and viewable to the users of the world wide web. In other words, it is the where the developer uses different programmes and codes to construct the back end of a website, like Notepad, Dreamweaver and so on.
Simply put, web development refers to the non-designing aspect of developing and building a web page, using various forms of scripting languages like JavaScript, PHP, ASP, ASP.NET and Coldfusion and so on to name a few. The web developers uses all this various scripting languages to put functionality to a otherwise dormant website design. It is the job of the website developer to use good web development principles, which will ensure the website to load smoothly and without any glitches.
Another point that the website developer needs to keep in mind is the usability of the website that he is developing. Here ‘usability’ means how the website will be viewed by the user in their environment. This is something very important because the website developer has to take note of all the different website browsers available and thus will have to do a lot of testing to see that the website looks the same in all the different platforms. Though sometimes very time consuming, this is something that just cannot be ignored.
Either way, to make a great success of a website, the website designer and the website developer needs to work in unison. Even though both of them have different roles to play in the overall development of the website, a proper co-ordination between the two is very essential.
