Web Design Myths

Content is king, No need of Sound/Java/etc: You have seen in many articles that say "Content is King and avoid the use of java/sound/flash etc.” Content is indeed the king but applications like flash, of java/etc. should be used to some extent. On the web, you have 5-10 seconds to grab the viewer's attention. Content-centric web pages are not able to capture the viewer's attention in such short span. Using Flash and sound effects definitely rev up the look and feel of the website by catching the viewer's attention and keeping it.

Good Web Design is all about Graphics: Some people believe that a good website design is all about colors and animations. This may be true in some cases but generally it does not provide any informative value. These graphics may create interest of the visitors in your website but if these graphics do not convey your message to the visitors then the purpose of using these graphics is defeated. In addition to this, graphics also increase the loading time of page.

Hence, the website design tip of the day is don't say no to graphics. Use small-size graphics that make the page look more pleasant and reduce the loading time of the page.

How To Design a Web Site

Select Color Scheme:Use colors that best suit your business and can express your business better. If you already have corporate colors like color of your logo, use these colors for your website design as well since your consumers are already aware of these colors. In case your company is a start-up, use a good color combination. The most common and popular color combinations are:

• Blue and White.
• Red, Grey and White.
• Red, Yellow and White.
• Blue, Orange and White.

Easy to Use Navigation: User friendly navigation controll is a basic web design tip that you should keep in mind while thinking of your website design. An easy navigation system is one of the most important factors in effective website design. Display your navigation bar where it can easily be found. In most of the web sites, the navigation bar is displayed on the left or top side of the webpage.

Special Effects: Using Special effects is a good web design idea to keep the viewer’s attention stuck on the web page. On the other hand however, it might also distract the viewer’s attention from the content. They also increase the downloading time of webpage. Hence, you need to optimize on the kind of special effects you want to use and the loading time when using any kind of animation on your page

External Link: Open links to external web sites in new windows to enable the visitor to return to your site after completing the work on the external site. Never include a link to your competitor’s site on your link page since this may divert traffic from your site to your competitors’ site.

Layout: The design and layout of your website are integral parts of website development. Bad web site design and layout could entirely spoil the show irrespective of how good your content might be and how much advertisement you do.

Place Your Business Name: Place the name of your business or website name at or near the top of page. If you have your company logo put that also on the home page of your site. It should not be too big or too small and should be able to fit into a particular area.

Avoid Excessive Scrolling: Different users use different screen-size monitors. Although Vertical scrolling on your web site is entirely acceptable, horizontal scrolling is undesirable to most users; it also makes the page look like a patch-up job. Keep the images small and divide the content into multiple pages, if need be.

Site Map and Search Feature: If your site contains more then 10 pages, it is advisable to include a “site map” or “search feature” in your site. This will reduce the searching time and visitors can easily find what they are looking for.

Last but not least take the help of free web design tutorials to make your website more appealing and eye catching .

Avoidable Mistakes in Website Designing

Visited Link: Navigation links on your website helps the visitor in understanding their current location. Knowing their already visited links and current location, they can easily make a decision as to where to go next. In some web sites, it's difficult for the user to differentiate between the visited links and unvisited links since no colors are used to differentiate between these links. When visited and unvisited links are of the same color, the user gets confused and ends up revisiting the page already visited.

Text Format: A webpage with a single text format looks monotonous and difficult to read. To draw the user's attention to the text, use the following formatting tricks in your website design:

1. Use Proper headings for your paragraphs or points.

2. Use bullets to indicate the points.

3. Highlight the keyword (example: Website Development)

4. Short paragraphs

5. Include some examples to make things more understandable.

6. Use simple language and avoid grammatical mistakes.

Page Title: Users use search engines for digging up different sites on different topics. The page title is the major tool that attracts more visitors to your site. The text written in the title tag is the title of that webpage and is displayed on the search engine's result. Search engines show the first 66 characters of the title. So create your title according to your webpage. Include information that specifies what the user will find on that page. For home page, begin the title with your company name followed by a brief description of the site.

Advertisement: Most of the web users do not pay attention to the advertisements in the form of banner ads and pop ups which rather get in the way of their specific objective. Users also ignore webpage that include lots of advertisements (banners ads and pop up) or give the feel of advertisements themselves. Hence, it is better to avoid website design that run like advertisements.

Not Answering the User's Email: Sometimes interested users send emails to the concerned company in order to know more about the product or services offered by it. It may happen that the user didn't get any reply to his or her email from the concerned company side. Although, this might happen for many reasons, it will leave the user with a bad taste and will create a negative impression on the user's mind, thereby making him or her drop the idea of buying the product.

Browser Incompatibility: A few years back, Microsoft internet explorer was the first choice of every internet user and all the web sites were designed to be compatible with the internet explorer only. Nowadays, however, lots of other web browsers are also available in the market (Mozilla Firefox , Netscape, etc. ) which do not support all the features that are supported by the internet explorer. So before putting up your website, check whether your web site design will be compatible with all the available browsers.

Web Design Basics

Marketing and advertisement are the important factors in the success of any business. Marketing involves speaking about your product, company or services to consumers. In the era of information technology, the best method of marketing and advertisement is Internet marketing. The most popular medium of internet marketing is a website. A website is a global medium of advertisement since it's capable of reaching every little corner of the world that has an internet connection. In addition to this, you can carry out online trading on your website.

As your web site represents your business, you need to pay proper attention to those factors that influence your website design. Some web design tips that would help you in making a better web site design are summed up below:

1. Analysis: This is the very first phase of website design. In this phase, you need to answer these questions: Why do you need a Website? Who are your competitors? Who is your target audience? It is of paramount importance that you answer these questions carefully since this phase is the foundation stone of your website.

2. Uniqueness: If your company is unique, then it requires a unique website as well. A website designed on the lines of plagiarism will only lead to an image that is a duplicate of the website where you had copied your design from. Your Company has a unique environment and a unique market image; hence keep it up by providing it a unique website as well. Duplicate designs only succeed in creating confusion in the viewer's mind resulting in a decline in your sales. Hence, before finalizing any design for your website, checkout some related (competitor's) site so that get an idea of how NOT to build your website.

3. Compatibility: HTML is a language which is used for website designing and a web browser is where it gets compiled. A study shows that 70-80% internet users around the world use Microsoft internet explorer for internet browsing. The rest use some other browsers such as Netscape, Mozilla Firefox etc. These browsers do not support some HTML tags which are supported by Microsoft internet explorer. It is, hence, important that your website should look good in all these browsers. In other words, your website should be compatible with all browsers. Check your website design in all the available browsers and make changes as per requirement.

4. Content: Make sure that the content displayed on your web site is related to the products and services that you are offering on your website. Don't use difficult words or long winded phrases and sentences in your content. The content should be kept as simple and understandable as possible. You can use links or examples to make it easy for the viewer.

5. File Size: Always go for a simple web design since a simple design not only looks good, but also helps in reducing the file size. A small file size reduces the loading time of your website.

6. Home Page: The Home page of a website is the first page visible to the viewer who visits the site. Hence, it should be designed in such a way that it grabs the viewer's attention. For this use font type that improves the readability of the content. Use colors which match with your business. Avoid writing all your content on the home page itself. Divide the pages according to different topics, e.g., products, services, etc; provide links to these pages on your home page.