Tag Archives: design process

Richard Vanderhurst

Web Design Is A Snap With These Techniques

Building a site from the ground up is intriguing and intimidating. It’s hard to know who to turn to for advice, how much money to spend and where to begin. By following the tips presented here, you will be able to set off in the right direction from the start.

A good website should display and function in any type of web browser, so it is vital that you test your website in every browser currently on the market. A webpage that displays properly using Internet Explorer, could appear incorrectly or poorly on a different browser such as Firefox or Chrome. Go through every page with each browser and correct mistakes for a user-friendly website.

Photoshop is a very effective and helpful tool when it comes to web design. Dreamweaver is less popular but is easier to master and is filled with useful tools designed for webmasters.

When using FileZilla as your file server, make sure that you program the quick menu settings with your domain, your username, and the correct port. By doing this, when logging back onto the server, you’ll just have to choose your own personalized settings off the menu. You will find this to be a time saver.

To become a good web designer, you need to set realistic and achievable goals that take into account the amount of time required to complete each task. Working toward an unrealistic deadline will cause poor work, and that will create larger issues down the line. It is better that you give yourself ample time to work carefully.

Do not feel that you have to hand-craft every portion of your website on your own. Great web design incorporates many different skills, including graphic design, programming, SEO, and the creation of memorable content. There is no shame in getting help when you need it. There are plenty of freelance web designers and web design firms who can handle any aspect of the web design process.

Building small websites can help you see what areas to get better at. Besides keeping them small, your initial efforts should also be simple. Avoid complex multimedia and advanced structures to begin with, and stick with basic pages of text and pictures.

Do not allow pop-up windows on your site. While popup adverts can help you to generate some income from your website, they are also likely to frustrate your visitors. In fact, you may drive them to leave your site out of irritation and frustration with your pop-ups. You could lose a visitor for life.

Stay in contact with friends who are knowledgable about design programs like Dreamweaver or Photoshop to make sure that you don’t forget how to use them properly. There is a lot to know about these programs, so make sure that you have absorbed the important elements and can easily utilize them when the need arises.

If you are using captchas on your site, limit the use to user registration. Being forced to use a Captcha frustrates users, as they simply want to use the website. Captchas are especially frustrating for website users with visual and hearing difficulties. Except for devoted members, most people will likely leave your site and look elsewhere.

Be conscious of your background. Remove obstacles to easy text reading by avoiding things like GIF backgrounds that move. Your audience will have a more pleasurable browsing experience if your background is conducive to reading your text.

Have a homogeneous pattern of color and fonts all throughout your website. When each page has different fonts and colors, your web visitors can get confused and think they are no longer on your site. Keep your graphics consistent, and you can avoid this problem all together. You can extend this strategy even further by making use of the same fonts and colors in your company’s printed materials, such as brochures and letterheads.

No matter how aesthetically designed your site is, make sure all files have smaller file sizes. This is because the speed of your website loading is directly influenced by the file sizes. You want your site to load instantly. Remember that there are still lots of people who do not have high speed Internet. Run tests to ensure that even dial-up users report a smooth user experience.

Your design process will be more successful if you are learning at each step of the way. Once you have figured out one aspect of the site design, tackle another. By doing this, you may create additional work, but the reward will be increased knowledge and skill that will make the next site design easier.

Focus on making your website an attractive and easily usable place to visit. If your website is not set up like this, there is not a person out there that will spend a lot of time looking at your site. While it is important to provide a sufficient amount of detail, you should strive to present things in a simple manner in order to avoid making your visitors frustrated as they use your website.

Using white (unused) space effectively can actually improve your website, so don’t think your website needs to be jam-packed with content. Blank space makes your site easier to read and navigate: your visitors will enjoy viewing your site if they do not feel overwhelmed by the quantity of information on each page.

Stay creative when designing your site. It’s okay to get ideas from other websites, but make your site as original as you can. Come up with features of your own, and enhance ones that you have found elsewhere. By doing this, you are taking advantage of a wide range of web design options.

Try using a grid host instead of dedicated VPS hosting if you’re creating your own site. It may not be possible for you to accurately predict traffic levels, but nonetheless you should not have to pay more money than is absolutely necessary.

You may be feeling ready to try your own hand at website design at this point. Figure out how much money you can spend, talk to others and start getting ideas about the look of your site. Once you get started, you can make a website without spending an arm and a leg.

Richard Vanderhurst

What You May Not Know About Web Design

You only get one chance to make a first impression, and this is as true of websites as it is of people. Like actual first impressions, this is the time to not deter people away because of a poor design. The information, ideas and insights of the following paragraphs will assist you in this.

Your background is the keystone of your design. Many sites make use of background images in the animated GIF format. Sometimes this provides an excellent effect; at other times it can make the text of your page illegible. Choose a background that accentuates what your site already has to offer, rather than works against it. This will help get your message across to your visitors.

Make your content globally friendly. Content on your website should be understood by many people, regardless of where they live. You cannot – and should not want to – restrict your site’s audience to the citizens of a single country, so plan for a global reach right from the start.

You are in the right direction if you are using a web host’s website building tools, but it is not ideal to rely solely on those tools. It is ideal that you add an element of uniqueness and personality to your website. This will mean that you need come up with new design elements that are not obtainable by using the provided options of the host’s WYSIWYG editor.

Keep in mind that your entire website doesn’t have to be all designed by you solo. Lots of knowledge from different areas must be known about web design, which includes user interface design, search engine optimization, web programming, content creation, and graphic design. Feel free to enlist professional help to make your website better. There are plenty of freelance web designers and web design firms who can handle any aspect of the web design process.

Do not have pop-up windows on your site. Although they may serve some function for your site, the average reader views them as a major irritant. When you annoy your visitors with these popup adverts, they will more than likely leave your website and vow never to return.

To help beginning web designers create good-looking site you should use Photoshop. Using this type of program will help a website look more professional in a short amount of time. Without a useful photo-editing program, you may have difficulty creating attractive, crisp content.

It helps in the site design process if you continue to learn as you go. When you figure out a certain portion of web design, you need to explore another one. While this may take longer, it will ultimately produce better results. Fully mastering these skills will make it easier to achieve your goals.

When you’re creating similar pages, use the copy and paste feature to speed up the process. Do not write new HTML code every time you start a new page. Copy and paste the main structures of your code and make small changes if you need to. You will be able to use this master copy over and over again.

Having an attractive and effective website is important. Visitors won’t stick around if your website is confusing or ugly. Make things simple so that the content is the focus of your site.

Start building the first page of your site with a template to keep the process simple and straightforward. Beginning with a no-frills site allows you to constantly innovate and change things as you learn new techniques.

Many people find pop-up windows extremely annoying. A large number of your visitors won’t even allow popup windows to load. Therefore, these approaches are something that you need to avoid using. If you want to use popups in your navigation, it’s probably a sign that you need to rethink your navigation scheme.

Set aside some time every day where you can focus on your web design work. Putting in a few minutes here and there is likely to be less effective than devoting larger amounts of time. The more time you invest in your site’s development, the more progress you will make.

If you are designing a website, think seriously about hosting it with grid or shared hosting, rather than VPS or dedicated hosting. This is because when your site is new you will have no idea how much traffic it will receive, and the last thing you want to do is pay for bandwidth that you don’t need. Remember, you can always upgrade your web hosting if needed.

Try using a newsletter for getting repeat visitors. When you allow visitors to subscribe to your website’s newsletter for updates, they will be more likely to come back to your site. Put the form in a convenient sidebar, and track the users who subscribe. Send your newsletter only to those who have signed up; doing otherwise is considered spam.

Free design software is a valuable tool for quickly setting up a website. Investing in powerful software packages like Photoshop is only worth it if you think they’ll pay off in the end. Instead, look around for a free product which has the tools you need.

Prepare a few concept sketches to show the way you hope your site will appear. Adjust your goals and direction by showing your overall sketch to loved ones and close acquaintances; this feedback is crucial.

Allow your users the ability to cancel something if they are not happy with what they typed in. An action may refer to signing up for e-mail notifications, newsletter subscriptions or filling out web forms. If your visitors can’t easily change their mind and back out of registering for a site feature, they may feel forced to complete a transaction. This isn’t good for your web traffic or your reputation.

People tend to notice site designs almost immediately, which can decide whether they leave or stay. It is important to make a good first impression. The tips in this article will help to guide you down the path to an amazing, effective website.

Richard Vanderhurst

Web Design Tips That Everybody Should Know About

Paying a professional to design a website for you can be very costly. Even after you have spent a small fortune, you may not have exactly what you hoped for. Explaining clearly what you want can be hard. You are the only one who truly knows what you want. Continue on for some great web design tips that will show you how to build a site that you can be proud of.

Most of your visitors will find popup windows and links that open in new windows irritating. Actually, many have disabled this function in their browser. These are techniques that should be avoided. If such techniques are part of your site navigation, you should consider reworking your navigation system to avoid them.

Choose a good background. You don’t want your text to be hard to read! A distracting background is…well, distracting. Choose a background that accentuates what your site already has to offer, rather than works against it. This will help get your message across to your visitors.

When you are in the process of choosing your web host, you want to be certain that you understand all facets of the package. What you are going to need to know is CPU usage, bandwidth, disk space, and some other areas that come with the package. Never buy a hosting package without understanding everything that’s included.

Good meta tags are a quick way to ensure your website makes it to a good rank on search engines. Quality meta tags describe your site for search engines. If you use meta tags that do not correspond to your content or to your target audience, do not expect to get a lot of visitors.

If you are going to be a website designer, unleash your inner artist. This means that you should be prepared to receive inspiration as it occurs. If you’re eating out and an idea comes to you, be sure to jot that idea on your napkin. Make sure you always write down, or draw your ideas, so you won’t forget them later.

Make sure to include a search function. This is vital to maximizing the usability of your site, and helping your vistors find what they need. These tools are easy to add to your site, and they provide a huge added value for your readers.

Most people know about Photoshop, and they realize that it takes some effort and knowledge to use it effectively in web design. Fewer people are familiar with the program Dreamweaver, which can be just as useful.

White is perhaps the best option for background color. White backgrounds make copy much more easily readable and give your site a more mature look. However, intricate background images are often difficult to pull off; more often than not they appear sloppy and distracting. For backgrounds, simpler is usually preferable.

Being in charge of your website and website design, will call for you to have your own secluded office space. Using an office space helps you avoid distractions and work more efficiently. You want to build yourself a work space suited to the needs of web design, where all the tools you’ll need are within easy reach.

If video-hosting is something you’d like to include on your site, you’ll first need to ensure that your web host accepts the idea. There are a large number of hosts in the world that do not permit video hosting to be on their servers. This is because the FLV files can take up a lot of server space, so it is prudent that you ask first before you waste your time.

While there will be plenty of attractive designs and strategies, you need to use your own imagination when designing your site. Come up with your own ideas and features or improve upon some that you admired on other sites. By doing this, you are taking advantage of a wide range of web design options.

Whatever your design is like aesthetically, be sure all your files are small. This is because the speed of your website loading is directly influenced by the file sizes. You want your site to load as quick as possible. The other factor to bear in mind is not all visitors access through high-speed connections. Run tests to ensure that even dial-up users report a smooth user experience.

Concept sketches are a fantastic design tool. You should take advantage of them for the initial phases of the web design process. This tool can be effective for designing the look and feel of the website, and also identifying any functional requirements that your website might have. Using this tool is a fantastic way to begin the design process.

When you include videos on your site, you need to be aware that not everyone has a high Internet bandwidth. While videos and graphic-heavy layouts might looks nice, they will only serve to annoy people if it is too slow to pull up. Videos with extremely high speeds like this will load slowly and buffer frequently for visitors on slow connections.

Make it easy for visitors to back out of a process if they change their minds. This could be a form that they have been filling out, registering for newsletters or emails, or even browsing the website for certain topics or archives. Forcing your user to complete an action they don’t wish to will ensure they never sign up for anything on your site again, nor are they likely to return at all.

Always be sure to make a visual sitemap. This is useful in planning ahead with accuracy. By using this, you’ll discover how the structure of your website is coming along. This will help you locate any area on your website that needs to be improved, as well as areas of neglect. There isn’t anything like a crystal clear visual of your project.

Besides the simplicity that you can see once you learn a bit about it, one very satisfying thing about web design is the great power it offers you to convert ideas into reality with nothing more than a little effort and software. The tips above are various methods you can use to create a great site. Follow the above directions and you will be able to create the website of your dreams.

Richard Vanderhurst

Making A Website? Heed This Advice For A Solid Design

Many people are very interested in learning the fundamentals of web design, but the prospect of doing so can be intimidating. If you are interested in developing your web design skills, this article should be of particular interest to you. Keep reading and you will discover more about what it takes to design an ideal site.

Be certain to ‘remember’ personal information that might have to be re-entered by the same site visitor. For example, if someone registers for your site, and some of the same information is needed to fill out another form, make sure data that they have already entered is preserved, so users do not need to re-enter this information. Developing “sticky” data like this streamlines the user experience, and your visitors will likely appreciate the convenience.

It is important to know that white (unused) space, on your site is a great idea and should not be cluttered. It makes your site easier to read, and your content easier to remember.

When you are making a number of pages that require the same template, the simplest way to do this is to use copy/paste. Rather than generating a HTML code for all pages, just copy the main portion of the code, change it when it’s needed, and save the code every time. By doing this, you can continue to use the master copy over and over again.

The design process doesn’t stop once your website has gone live. It’s important to actively monitor, adjust and update your site. It will not be necessary to update every day, but do realize that fresh content must be a priority. This goes double if your site covers fast-moving topics like politics or hosts videos. Unfortunately, updating a website is not as simple as updating a blog. It does require you to work at it.

If you develop sites that are functional across different platforms, you can attract more visitors. Learning Java, MySQL, PHP and other platforms is going to help you for years to come. Be a designer of many talents, whether you are designing a brand new site, or just helping your friend start one.

Put the search box up high on the page and give it no fewer than 27 characters. The button you use to start the search should also say only “search” to thwart any confusion. Taking these steps ensures that visitors can find and use the search box easily so that they can find whatever they are seeking.

Remember, designing a website does not need to be expensive. Every costly design application has a similar program that does the same job for much less. You can get the same jobs done with open-source no-cost software, for instance, that you can do with corporate-funded for-profit programs. Using these free options can save you tons of money in the design process.

Hire a professional to do your website design, not a friend or family member. Even if they are experienced in web design, firing them or telling them you are unhappy with their product will become much more difficult.

Learn as you go, adding new skills and techniques for web design. When you have mastered one aspect of web design, start with another. Although this can slow the process of building your site, you’ll receive the information that is needed to spit out dozens of sites as you learn.

You may find yourself wanting to hire the first site design company you speak with to save time, but you need to see examples of their work before employing them. You need to see proof that the company can produce high quality work. A companies portfolio will give you a window to see what kind of experience and knowledge they have in website design.

Dedicate a place where readers can give their input and feedback. When you have this area, your visitors can let you know if something needs fixed or if they aren’t sure how use some of the site’s functions. Making your visitors feel involved is a great way to ensure that they will visit your site again.

If you have hired a company to do your web design, be sure to pay them on time. The maintenance of your website is in the hands of the design company. If you are sporadic with payments there is a chance that they will not promptly fix situations that arise. Paying everything on time builds a good relationship with them, and they will be more likely to do the things they need to do quickly.

Make sure you have different designs from other designs of those in your particular niche. An easy way to watch for this is to check out the websites of your competitors. You will want to stand out in the midst of the crowd with a different style and design. If yours is too similar, then you may be seen as the generic version of a site that was there before yours.

Pay attention to the colors on your website to make sure they match. You need to ensure that the text on your site is easily readable against your chosen background. Dark text on light backgrounds are typically easier on the eyes than the other way around. When in doubt about the effectiveness of your color choices, solicit the opinions of friends.

If you plan to include video content on your website, you should first verify that your web host allows it. Many hosts do not allow for video hosting on the servers they provide. All of the FLV files occupy a huge amount of server space, so there is no point setting up a website to accept them if your web host can’t make the space.

After learning a few new things about web design, you can begin to experiment with new techniques and strategies. Keep this information in mind for web design, and be sure to never stop learning about it. Applying new ideas, like the ones found here, will help you move ahead int eh workd of web design.

Richard Vanderhurst

Web Design Tips That Will Make Your Site Stand Out

Hiring a web design company to handle your website can be an incredibly costly venture. You might not even be happy with the results. You might not be able to get a design firm to know exactly what you want. You are the only person who knows exactly what you want. So when you want to design a website, use these web design tips to create something you’ll be proud of.

Make sure you have enough details on your company page to allow your visitors to know more about who you are and what you can offer them. These pages are often dull and uninteresting. Try to make yours interesting! Let people see a bit of your personal history. Try including items like, how you entered web design, who inspires you, and what your wishes for your business are.

If you are designing a very large site, you should always include search capabilities. This is commonly located in the topmost-right corner of the screen as an empty bar, which users can insert a search term or phrase. You can get a search bar from Google or FreeFind.

Make sure that you thoroughly check the code on each webpage that you design. If you use an WYSIWYG editor, your code is not clean. If you use those programs, take an extra step to validate your code with a validation service. The W3C website has a tool you can use for free, so make sure to bookmark it.

Use Photoshop if you want to create stellar websites. Using a program like Photoshop can help amateur web designers create professional looking sites really fast. You will expend a lot of extra time and lessen your chances of creating a professional site if you neglect investing in programs such as Photoshop.

Making sure to proofread may be obvious, but it’s vital to the success of your website. Proofread every page you add to your site for misspellings and grammatical errors before you send it to your server and make it available to your audience. If you post sloppily written content or content riddled with mistakes, you will appear extremely unprofessional. You’re likely to lose many visitors quickly if your site’s appearance isn’t professional looking.

User-friendly web design programs, known as development platforms, can make building websites easier, but they are just not as trustworthy as hand-written code. What a platform does is help you paste the code onto features that you have made. If you hope to gain a real understanding of coding, though, then a text editor is a good learning tool.

Selecting a professional looking font is an important web design consideration. People judge your sites professionalism by the fonts you use. Fonts that are overly artistic may seem like a good idea, but often aren’t accessible on all computers. If they don’t have that font on their computer, it might be subset to their default font. This often looks terrible.

Domain auction websites can be excellent sources for domain names. Check out a domain site like SEDO to see if domain names they may have for sale would be suitable for your website. Although it’s sometimes pricey, the advantages of a relevant domain name are worth every penny.

Pay attention to the way the different colors you use on your website interact. If the text fades into the background due to poor contrast, the text will be hard to read. Choose a dark color for your text, and use a lighter color for your backgrounds. Ask someone to look at your color schemes to ensure you are making the right choice.

Keep personal information handy in the event that it must be re-entered by a repeat visitor of your website. For instance, if a user registers at your site and another form requires the same information again, be certain your website preserves this data to prevent them the useless and annoying hassle of filling it in again. Developing “sticky” data like this streamlines the user experience, and your visitors will likely appreciate the convenience.

You should aim high when setting your goals for your web design projects. While the “perfect website” doesn’t really exist, the mindset of striving towards creating the best possible website will help you to continually improve. This can help you design any kind of website.

The use of captchas can be beneficial, and they should be utilized for certain tasks such as user registration. However, you should limit their use in general, and avoid them whenever possible. The captcha makes visitors do too much work. Most visitors will leave a webpage that requires too much personal information or the completion of difficult tasks.

Your background is the keystone of your design. Your background should not be too distracting and allow your reader to read the text easily. Choose a background that is not too distracting for your readers, and that goes well with the rest of your design.

One way to simplify the web design process is to collect a wide variety of checklists and cheat sheets, that can be looked at when there is an issue with your site. These lists can also help you improve your site.

Let visitors cancel actions if they want to. An action may refer to signing up for e-mail notifications, newsletter subscriptions or filling out web forms. If you don’t let visitors back out of an incomplete action, it can be perceived as forcing them to do something, which will probably make them go elsewhere.

The design process doesn’t stop once your website has gone live. Be prepared to keep busy with your site. You don’t have to constantly update it, but you must do regular updates. This is especially true if you’re hosting videos or working with current events. When you update your website, it’s not the same as updating your blog. You may need to implement a more diligent regime to be successful.

One of the most appealing aspects of web design, besides its simplicity, is the fact that it is fairly easy to turn what you envision into a real and functional site. The tips above are various methods you can use to create a great site. Keep these tips in mind as you create.

Richard Vanderhurst

Tips To Make You A Better Web Designer

Are you looking to create a webpage but you do not know how? You want your website to display pictures and videos, but actually setting it up is beyond your skill level. This is why web design trips are useful. Look at the following tips to see what you’ve been missing out on.

When utilizing FileZilla for your file server, you should ensure you’re programming the settings for the quick menu with your domain, username, and the right port. That way, the next time you log back into your server, you just need to go to the menu and choose personalized settings. That is a wonderful time saver.

Hosting a website yourself is seldom a good idea. As much as is practical, the web design should be your responsibility. But arrange for it to be hosted elsewhere so that you are not tied down into focusing on the website’s security.

You’ll need some office space to design and manage a website. By doing this, you get rid of any distractions you may encounter, and allow yourself to focus on your work. Have your office tools and everything else located where you have easy access, and make sure you have an optimized space for your website design needs.

From the onset, it is best to avoid using free web hosting services if you own a commercial website. These services can cause you a lot of problems and lost business in the future. Although it can be tempting to save money, particularly for someone just starting out, free hosts slam your site with a lot of ads, and you will have no input into which ads appear on your site. This can interfere with business practices and design, which can deter customers.

Checking out domain auctions allows you to grab up a good name that you wouldn’t be able to buy new. These sites can offer a wealth of site names that are up for sale or abandoned.

Any web designer who has recently started designing a website can benefit from a concept sketch. This is a useful tool to help you decide what your site needs, and what you want it to look like. It’s an excellent way to start the design process.

When you are a newcomer to the web design process, make things easier on yourself by sticking with a simple, basic site layout while you are still learning the ropes. This basic design will help you grasp the easy stuff, which will prepare you to tackle more advanced web design principles in time.

The beginning web designer can use Photoshop to make their website look great. Using a program like Photoshop can help amateur web designers create professional looking sites really fast. When you are working without something similar to Photoshop, it will create a steeper learning curve for design, and increase the time it takes to reach your goals.

As a web designer, it’s imperative to set goals that are attainable and realistic. Doing a “death march” to meet an unrealistic deadline will just reduce the quality of your work, which will mean you get sued or have to redo the work. You want work that you can handle and you don’t want to overload yourself.

A visual sitemap can help you with advanced planning. With a visual sitemap, you will see exactly how your structure is developing. From there, you’ll be able to identify any areas that need improvement, or have been neglected. There isn’t anything like a crystal clear visual of your project.

A number of resources are available for anyone who is interested in learning about web design. There are many types of magazines and books about website design and they can be great places to learn more information. It’s a good way to learn more about web design and to get better at it.

A favicon should be created for your site. A favicon will help users who add your website to their bookmark see your page more easily. A favicon will make it easy for your customers to pick your site out of their list of bookmarks. Try to design a favicon that is consistent with your logo and theme.

Checklists, reference cards, and “cheat sheets” are all tools that smart web designers do not hesitate to rely on, in order to create, maintain, and troubleshoot great websites. It is also a great way to get advice on how to improve your site.

Try writing a good “About Us” page. These pages are often dull and uninteresting. Make it a little more exciting! Provide some insight about your own story. How did you get inspiration? What are your goals? What led you to web design?

Begin small when you start off building your websites. This way you can ascertain what works well and what does not, and you will be able to improve your skills based on that. Start out by making a few pages that just have basic information and some easy text, then asses how it works for you.

Keep in mind that you don’t need to create the whole website alone. Great web design incorporates many different skills, including graphic design, programming, SEO, and the creation of memorable content. Don’t be afraid to get help if you need it. Hire professionals who specialize in the areas that you are least familiar with if you need to.

White space is a key element in web design, so many sure you have some! White space improves readability for your visitors, and they will be able to better read and absorb the information you are providing if your site is not cluttered.

Using shared hosting is an affordable alternative to buying your own server. You will not get enough traffic to justify paying for dedicated hosting at first and shared hosting will work fine until you start getting more traffic.

Designing a website need not be so difficult. There are some bottom-line fundamentals that deal with web design and once you learn them, it helps you put the entire group into its proper place. These tips should make it much easier for you to start developing an attractive, user-friendly website.