WEB DESIGN TIPS

Web Design Tips : Why Hire A Designer

2007-12-27T03:30:00.000+08:00

Why Hire A Designer?

A lot of online business owners start with no money. They have to do everything themselves -- the preparation of a product, the development of a marketing strategy, the actual building of a website to cater to their product's marketing needs. As their business expands over time, they will find that their simple "homemade" site might not be enough to cover everything, and they will have to take a day or two away to simply dedicate that to the website expansion.

Sounds familiar? Chances are, you're someone who started everything with no money too, so you're pretty skeptical when it comes to giving away your money in exchange for something that you could have done yourself. However, there is a lot more to hiring a designer than just finishing up a job that you don't want to do.

When you hire a web designer to do your job for you, you are doing more than just handing over the "dirty job" to someone else. In fact, by paying a little money, you can let the designer worry about the little annoyances that always evade the main picture and only come haunting when you're halfway through the job. That way, you will be more focused and have more time to spend on your actual business strategy.

On the other hand, the designers you hire a professionals so they are good at what they do. By outsourcing your web design jobs to them, you won't have to worry when problems surface because you can always get them to fix it for you. Again, they will be able to pin point the problem and fix it faster than you probably will be able to.

Also, the work you pay for will turn out more professional than what you can achieve because the designers have been doing it longer than you have. After all, they do it for a living so they have to be good!

So, remember to not just work your business, but grow your business too!

Tutorials : Website customization

2007-12-21T08:17:00.000+08:00

Web design tutorials : Website Customization

Nowadays, in this trendy world, people get very uptight when they do not look entirely presentable. This would also be the case in web designing.

Every individual would definitely want their website to look good, if not, to the best they can. Here are a few things we could look out for when wanting to create a professional looking webpage.

Color Schemes and Themes

When designing, always choose matching colors. An example of a matching color would be to have a dark background, with visible words and designs. With the dark theme, try not to mix too many bright colors into the design. What we should NEVER do, is to mix two very different colors, such as purple and yellow. Now, of course, it would depend on the purpose of the website, but those two colors are too striking for one who wants it to look more professional.

Themes must always suit the company or rather, the organization / etc. If the website was made to cater for a food company, it would be wise to stick to that particular category, rather than to revert to a different theme, such as machinery.

Fonts should be used in regard to the formality of the website. A simple sans-serif font would suffice in most cases. Exceptional cases such as design and art groups might want to use fanciful designs and fonts. Of course, that’s only if you know what you’re doing.

Finally, we must always try to think of our visitors, see the way they see. The resolutions and file sizes of the pictures must not be too large in terms of size. This is to allow maximum compatibility and cater our visitor’s needs.

So, planning is something we should always do, before attempting something. And reading this web design tutorial in itself is planning so good work! ;)

Till then,

Jasa.

Tutorials : What is HTML?

2007-12-21T08:02:00.000+08:00

Is It Easy to Create our own Website?

With the numerous amounts of web design sites offering tips and tutorials available now, you'd have to filter some of them which are not reallly useful. But nevertheless, this web design tutorial would describe how easy it is to create our own website.

Creating a website is not so much a feat, if we compare it to the education of other technical skills. Most people tend to give up and pack their bags as soon as they hear the word “programming” and “technical”. They think it`s too much of a hassle to actually learn a whole computer “language”. HTML, the most basic computer language in building websites, is actually pretty simple to understand, as long as we have the interest in learning new things.

What is HTML?

HTML is the acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language. For learning purposes, just think of it as a language that the computer understands. For example, as humans, we were taught different languages; i.e. HTML as a language, is mostly and specifically used to create a website. The web browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox, will then decipher and interpret the code or rather, language(HTML), and display it in a way we can understand it, just like in a basic webpage.

Coding

Coding the HTML language might be a bit tough for some people, so we can actually purchase programmes, such as Macromedia Dreamweaver, or even Microsoft Frontpage. These programmes are solely created to help individuals in designing professional webpages/websites.

Furthermore, one could also gain access to online web-builders, website builders that are inbuilt and can be directly controlled from the net. There are many different and specific builders online.

Books and magazines contain guides that can help in offering tutorials and ways to put up our own websites. Even online tutorials are credible, as in the modern world, information technology is the best and most cost efficient way in retaining knowledge, especially in this particular field.

So, you could start and build one right away. If you enjoy coding, it might even become a favourable past-time. So take advantage of this web design tutorial and learn away! :)

Till then,

Jasa.

Tips : Flash Sites

2007-11-14T01:41:00.000+08:00

Web Design Tips : Flash-based Sites
(The Pros and Cons)

Now here's a useful web design tip if you are ever interested in including flash into your site.
Flash-based sites have been a craze since the past few years, and as Macromedia compiles more and more great features into Flash, we can only predict there will be more and more flash sites around the Internet. However, Flash based sites have been disputed to be bloated and unnecessary. Where exactly do we draw the line? Here's a simple breakdown.

The good:

Interactivity

Flash's Actionscript opens up a vast field of possibilities. Programmers and designers have used Flash to create interactve features ranging from very lively feedback forms to attractive Flash-based games. This whole new level of interactivity will always leave visitors coming back for more.

A standardized site

With Flash, you do not have to worry about cross-browser compatibility. No more woes over how a certain css code displays differently in Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera. When you position your site elements in Flash, they will always appear as they are as long as the user has Flash Player installed.

Better expression through animation

In Flash, one can make use of its animating features to convey a message in a much more efficient and effective way. Flash is a lightweight option for animation because it is vector based (and hence smaller file sizes) as opposed to real "movie files" that are raster based and hence much larger in size.

The bad and the ugly:

The Flash player

People have to download the Flash player in advance before they can view Flash movies, so by using Flash your visitor range will decrease considerably because not everyone will be willing to download the Flash player just to view your site. You'll also have to put in additional work in redirecting the user to the Flash download page if he or she doesn't have the player installed.

Site optimization

If your content was presented in Flash, most search engines wouldn't be able to index your content. Hence, you will not be able to rank well in search engines and there will be less traffic heading to your site.

Loading time

Users have to wait longer than usual to load Flash content compared to regular text and images, and some visitors might just lose their patience and click the Back button. The longer your Flash takes to load, the more you risk losing visitors.

The best way to go is to use Flash only when you absolutely need the interactivity and motion that comes with it. Otherwise, use a mixture of Flash and HTML or use pure text if your site is purely to present simple textual and graphical information.

Hopefully you can now decide better on whether/how to incorporate flash into your site from this web design tips.

Till then,

Jasa.

Tutorials : Your Site Audience

2007-10-28T01:44:00.000+08:00

Web design tutorials : Your Audience?

A note at the start : This web design tutorial is one of those very important ones so keep your eyes open ;) Understanding the type of people who visit your site is a very important task because you can use that information to enhance your site to suit them. As a result, you will gain more loyal returning visitors that come back again and again for more.

What is the age level and what kind of knowledge does your audience have?

A layman might linger around a website on gardening, but a professional botanist might turn his nose at the very same site. Similarly, a regular person will leave a site filled with astronomy abstracts but a well educated university graduate will find that site interesting.

Take your audience's emotional state into consideration when building your site. If a very irritated visitor searches for a solution and comes across your website, you will want to make sure you offer the solution right up front and sell or promote your product to him second. In this way, the visitor will put his trust in you for offering the solution to his problems and is more likely to buy your product when you offer it to him after that.

When you design the layout for your site, you have to take into account the characteristics of your audience. Are they old or young people? Are they looking for trends or are they just looking for information served without any icing on the cake? For example, introducing a new, exciting game with a simple, straightforward black text against white background page will definitely turn prospects away. Make sure your design suits your site's general theme.

Try to sprinkle colloquial language in your sites sparingly where you see fit and you will create a sense that your audience is on common ground with you. This in turn builds a trusting relationship between you and your audience, which will come in useful should you want to market a product to your audience. That's the end of this web design tutorials and like I mentioned, hopefully you're able to follow along.

Till then,

Jasa.

Tips : Improve Usability of Your Website

2007-10-19T03:07:00.000+08:00

Web design tips : Improve Usability of Your Website

No matter how brilliant your website design is, if it is hard to reach the content of your site then your site is as useful as an empty shell. Here are some web design tips to improve the usability of your website to ensure it serves its functions optimally.

Make sure the typography of your content is suitable. If you have large blocks of text, make sure to use CSS to space out the lines accordingly. The longer a single line of text is, the greater the line-height of each line should be. Also, make sure the font size of your text is big enough to read easily. Some sites have 10-pixel-tall text in Verdana font; while that may look neat and tidy, you have to really strain your eyes to read the actual text.

Make it easy for visitors to find content that they want on your site. If you have thousands of articles on your site and a certain visitor wants to find one single article from that pile, you have to provide a feasible means to enable visitors to do that without hassle. Be it an SQL-driven database search engine or just a glossary or index of articles that you have, providing such a feature will make sure your visitors can use your site with ease.

Ensure that your site loads fast if you do not want to lose visitors. Most internet users will leave a website if it doesn't load completely within 15 seconds, so make sure the crème de la crème of your website is delivered to the visitors as soon as possible to retain their attention.

Last of all, test each and every link on your site before it goes online. There is nothing more effective in tarnishing your professional image than broken links, so be very careful about that.

That's the end of this web design tip and till then,

Jasa.

Tutorials : Sitemaps

2007-10-12T05:19:00.000+08:00

Web design tutorial : The Importance of a Sitemap

A sitemap is often considered redundant in the process of designing a website, and that is indeed the fact if you made a sitemap for the sake of having one. By highlighting the importance of having a well constructed sitemap, you will be able to tailor your own sitemap to suit your own needs. Some benefits out of having a sitemap :

Navigation purposes
Conveying your site's theme
Site optimization purposes
Organization and relevance

Navigation purposes

A sitemap literally acts as a map of your site. If your visitors browses your site and gets lost between the thousands of pages on your site, they can always refer to your sitemap to see where they are, and navigate through your pages with the utmost ease.

Conveying your site's theme

When your visitors load up your sitemap, they will get the gist of your site within a very short amount of time. There is no need to get the "big picture" of your site by reading through each page, and by doing that you will be saving your visitors' time.

Site optimization purposes

When you create a sitemap, you are actually creating a single page which contains links to every single page on your site. Imagine what happens when search engine robots hit this page -- they will follow the links on the sitemap and naturally every single page of your site gets indexed by search engines! It is also for this purpose that a link to the sitemap has to be placed prominently on the front page of your website.

Organization and relevance

A sitemap enables you to have a complete bird's eye view of your site structure, and whenever you need to add new content or new sections, you will be able to take the existing hierarchy into consideration just by glancing at the sitemap. As a result, you will have a perfectly organized site with everything sorted according to their relevance.

From the above reasons, it is most important to implement a sitemap for website projects with a considerable size. Through this way, you will be able to keep your website easily accesible and neatly organized for everyone. That's the end of this web design tutorial.

Till then,

Jasa.

Tutorial : Efficient Layout

2007-10-02T06:14:00.000+08:00

I shall consider this as a web design tutorial because its rather more than a tip ;) Efficient layouts are of relatively high importance in todays sites but there are still some who do not take the necessary action needed to ensure that the layout of their site is user friendly.

Efficient :

"user friendly"
"gives what the visitor needs fast"
"fulfilling the purpose of the site"
"benefiting the owner of the site with whats intended eg. sales"

Not many people understand or bother to research on the concept of efficient layouts. It does not only apply to websites/Internet but everything that can be read examples being :

Books
Newspapers
Magazines
Brochures

This web design tutorial is going to zoom in specifically to creating website layouts that are efficient.

Web Users Do not read

Web Users do not read, they scan. Research findings by Jakob Nielsen shows that users of the internet/web do not really read in depth but scan through. It has been analysed that these people read a particular web page in an F shaped pattern from left to right.

Go over to the following page for a more detailed explaination on the F-shaped pattern theory : Jakob Nielsen's F-shaped theory.

From this F-shaped theory, it is found that having in mind the following while planning your site's layout is important :

Users would only scan your text in general
Place the important stuff at the top as that is the most concentrated time spent
10 seconds is what it takes to make an impression on screen

Visit the site above for information on web usability, I highly recommend it as the guy is qualified and recommended by many magazines.

Plan, plan , plan

Planning is very important and I cant stress how further important it is. Some tips/steps on planning efficient layouts :

Get a paper and a pencil. (Yes it is worthy of a step because it is important ;))
Write out your target audience.
Research on the net regarding behavior patterns of your target audience. Include also reading patterns and attention spans.
Mark out areas on the "paper site" where you are almost sure your audience would not miss.
Put labels of the purpose of your site in these areas. (for example : content, sales, images. But STRICTLY NOT ADS.)
Block in other less important areas like navigation, ads, branding, logos.
Make sure your layout sort of conforms to the rough F-shaped pattern for your important stuff. Also, do not forget behavior patterns and such of your target audience.
Open up a graphic editing program like Photoshop and mark in what is on your paper on screen.
Your layout is done. You can move on to designing now!

Sealing the deal

To ensure that your site works as how you planned it to be, gather a group of friends, be it offline or online, and get them to go to your site. Ask them questions after that like "How easy was it to get to -insert important stuff here- ?" or "What did you wanted to do with the site?" and if the general consensus was what your site was intended for, then congratulations.

Otherwise, spend some more time researching and coming up with a final layout that works. It takes time yes, but think of the benefits you would be getting off it. After all, Time is of an investment. ;) I hope you've gained something from this web design tutorials.

Till then,

Jasa.

Tips : A web designer learns code

2007-09-20T02:12:00.000+08:00

Ever felt that all you need to be is a web designer who only designs uncoded web templates or a coder who only codes those uncoded web templates? Well, here thee I tell yee, you're wrong. A mistake many newcomers to the web development industry take is just that. Going along with their niche, be it coding or designing, they think they can make big bucks by sticking with it. Are you one of them? Then you definitely gotta listen (see : read) to this web design tip.

Well, I definitely do not deny that you can make money by being either one only but if you do so, you're going to be that ONLY. Get my point? I'll elaborate. As a budding web designer, you start to get to know sites such as Sitepoint, which is the perfect spot for you with its uncoded web template contests. What have you got to lose? You only need to design a layout, throw in a bunch of graphics and voila, you got yourself an uncoded design template awaiting a win from the contest maker. Lets say that you indeed win(miraculously), all you have to do is to provide the client with the neccessary files needed(.psd, .eps, .gif, etc2) and await the financial transaction and you're done. No more hassles of staying in contact with him or such. You can move on to a new contest or better still you might have a few contests being done at the same time! Easy life? You bet.

Now, my dear budding web designer/coder , thats where you're wrong. Tell me, how far do you think you can go by being just an uncoded web template designer? Dont you think you think you'd earn more by being the coder to that design as well? Make sense? "I'll learn it in the future when I get better at designing" or "Coding is not for me, I'll hire a coder and split profits with him" is probably what some of you might say or justify yourself with as being a web template designer.

Well let me tell you one thing, you can get absolutely NO WHERE by having that mentality. Sure, you can charge like maybe 1k for a simple 1 page design and split it with your coder and you can earn a profitable living by sticking with what you do best. But why stop there? Why stop at earning 50% for every project you do? Why not earn 100% and if opportunity comes by, you might be able to start up a whole project from an idea you generated and hey, 100% all yours baby.

What I've just explained to you, is in fact, the financial benefits of learning to code your design. Basic common sense that you can earn double from what you might be earning by simply learning another skill and that is to code. Not a difficult thing to do with the vast amount of resources/tutorials available for you on the web. There are sure to be a web design tutorials or web design coding sites suited for you just like this web design tips and tutorials site. Get up there and find it.

Maybe you indeed have read all those other tutorials and you understand what they're talking about. BUT you simply cant put your fingers to actually coding designs because somehow, someway, you just suck at code. Well, here's some other important reasons for making sure reading that tutorial isnt a waste.

Your coder would have an easier time coding
You'd know the limits to a web design to make it validated code
You'd know to optimize your design for faster loading time
You'd have an idea on how complex a code is going to be and can gauge pricing more effectively
You would not get cheated by your coder who'd say that all your designs are practically uncodeable when they're just in actual fact, a few lines of extended code
You would be able to skin web applications like forums, blogs, and maybe some Content Management Systems
You can take charge of your business and be a web developing tycoon who owns several big sites
You'll feel good knowing that you've just followed one of my wonderful web design tips. :)

See where I am getting at now? These tips, are to be hardcoded into your head(pun unintended) as I see many budding web designers not using their skills to the best of their ability. Remember, they're just tips to help you become a better web developer, not rules or laws.

As you learn more about web design, you'd realise how those web templates that you did in your younger days arent really useful but the code that you learn or your ability to make your design very easily codeable are what matters. You might not want to code your own design, but like I have emphasised earlier, its very essential that you at least know and comprehend it.

And trust me when I tell you this, learning to code is easier and faster then learning to design. No creativity is involved. No art is involved. Just code, code and more code. ;) So do the right thing and follow today's essential web design tip : Learn to code.

Tips : Web design to be Simple

2007-09-17T15:53:00.000+08:00

This but one of the web design tips passed on to me by a mentor.Simplicity? or graphic heavy design? This has been a debate of the web development community for some time now and one can argue his way through either point. However, I'm for the simple design because I simply believe that simplicity is essential, especially when it comes to web sites/web design.

Some web design tips are good while others are not but I dare say that this is one that you have to really get in your head. Lets go through the importance or rather the function of a website.

A website functions to provide users of the web with relevant content or products that they may require

As such, nothing is more important than what is on a certain website. That put, heavy loaded graphics and images are not neccessary in a web design.

I am not saying that its against the law or sinful to do so, but its almost as good in doing so. True that web designers who are adept at digital graphics and imaging would naturally want to show off whatever skills they might have in that department. Not a wrong to do and naturally one could always use an ego boost by that. However, taking from web design tips 1 I have posted, its important to think of the end user first.

Therefore, if the end user seeks to find information regarding 'dancing shoes' for example, it would be really inconsiderate to make him wait for images to load just to read a small section. At which, he only cares about the content and gives no appreciation for the beautiful images set up. A good thing?

Not quite as it reduces visitor satisfaction. Which is a very important thing to ensure they keep coming back to your site for more. An example of a site that adheres to this web design tip and with a beautiful simplistic design would be the following : CSS Zen Garden. It makes full use of CSS to carve up its layout and design and most importantly, its simple. :) It still has beautiful graphic and imagery to compliment its layout, yet still able to keep the design simple, to the point and satisfy visitors.

However, why do I mention that its possible for one to argue the benefits of a graphic heavy site in return despite being in favour of the latter? Well, I have been a victim of the former once upon a time. And I appreciated those beautiful imagery very much. I still do, but after spending more time on the web and receiving these useful web design tips by my mentor, I realised the need for speed and sites which load in 2 seconds or less are in my good books. These sites tend to have simplicity as their theme in their web design/layout.

On the other hand, the increase of fibre optics in the connection around the world has resulted in higher internet speeds for customers and these result in more people being able to appreciate those graphic heavy site. Thus, like I mentioned, the debate can go both ways, with me, and alot other webmasters preferring to stick to the essentials of simplicity.

Never can I, or other webmasters stress the utmost importance of simplicity in web design. Why you may ask? Well there are ALOT of benefits in doing so and I will try to name a few. But it really is up to you if you'd like to follow up with this web design tip.

Faster page loading times -> Visitor satisfaction
Beautiful , organised layout -> Visitor satisfaction
Ease of optimising for the search engines -> Self and search engine spiders' satisfaction
Ease of validation for WC3 -> Recognized site

There are lots more benefits and they even include gaining income for yourself! You have to try it to experience that benefit for yourself. As you can see, just by keeping your site design simple and to the point, you can gain a lot.

So the next time you feel like showing off your design skills, think about this web design tip for a moment about the benefits and visitors you would be losing by doing so, and keep those skills for your art masterpieces and post them up at deviantart or the likes. :)

That said, I am not your king or emperor to command what you do with your site's design, but my web design tip, as are many other webmasters : Simplicity is essential and that, is one of the very hardcore advice you could ever follow. It might even change your life. Try it. :)

Disclaimer : Take note, that as much as simplicity is essential and avoiding graphic heavy design is good, over simplicity is equally as bad as the latter. Know the limits to these web design tips. :)

Till then,

Jasa, Web Design Tips Tricks

Tips : Web design End User

2007-09-14T21:17:00.000+08:00

In this web design tutorials, I am going to emphasise on this very essential web design tip.

THINK OF THE END USER IN MIND.

Get that tip into your head because a website would not gain consistent traffic or even repeated ones if visitors to the site find the design inaccessible. A dumb and probably even useless fact some of you might say but people still forget it. You have to agree that the end user is the most important person when drafting out a design. If you can successfully draft out a design thats appealing yet easily accesible to the end user, then I assure you that your client would feel the same. (with the exception of 0.0001% :p)

Can't wait to get into what this web design tips was intitially for? Here's some ways you can actually implement the web design tip in your future works :

Imagine you're the end user every single second of your design phase
Have friends test out your layout after you're done with drafting
Dont think whether you or the client would like the aesthetics of the design but more on whether a visitor would know where to go to get what he wants.
Place aesthetic criterias aside and make sure you have a sitemap so that everything is easily accesible.
What's the purpose of the site?
Target Audience?
Get outside opinions, critiques, especially those NOT adept at web design.
Last but not least, would you re-visit the site (with your design) considering you're an outsider?

I just cannot emphasise the importance of this web design tips, namely, to imagine yourself in the shoes of a visitor of the site you're designing. Without doing so, its rare that one is able to churn up a design for a site that will keep visitors coming back for reasons that include aesthetic appeal as well as accesiblity.

As a web user yourself, I'm very certain none of you wants to go combing through the whole site just to find that link that says "Contact Us" or even wait minutes for images to load on a site. Therefore, thinking of the end user in mind while drafting out your design would ensure that you go to great lengths to ensure a pleasant visit for your visitors and it would show indefinitely.

Some people prefer simplicity, some like those beautiful graphics, but the fact remains that if a visitor does not enjoy his time while on your site, you're most definitely not going to get him to visit your site again lest he's forced to. So it doesnt matter what kind of web design/layout you go for, just remember the web design tip I have been emphasising since the start,

Your target audience/end user has to enjoy their stay while on the site.

I can assure you a 100% gurantee that you would be getting revisits on your site. And that is always good because then, word of your site would spread in time to come and that concludes this web design tips.

Till then,

Jasa, Web Design Tips Tricks

Web Design Tips Tricks

2007-09-14T07:05:00.001+08:00

Welcome to Web Design Tips Tutorial. This site provides tutorials and tips for budding web designers to make web sites that work. If you have questions not covered in Web Design Tips Tutorial please feel free to email your question to alzidaney@gmail.com