Archive for April, 2008

Your Image, Your Design

{ April 7, 2008 @ 5:06 pm } · { tutorials }
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Before finally putting up a web page and making it available to Internet users, one must ask the intent of the web page to be put up. More than a source of information, a website can solicit interest, intrigue, and admiration from viewers. So it is of utmost priority that one must consider the following in designing a web page.

 

What is it about?

 

Obviously, there will be no web page without anything to put into it. Web pages are classified into two according to their use. First is the business website, created mainly to inform visitors of a company’s products and services or an establishment’s events or special offers.

 

Designing a company website requires strict adherence to a company’s ideals and orders as approved by the department handling it. Company web sites are usually aimed at product and service marketing and client servicing. In addition, company web sites are made to present company profile, news, announcements, etc.

 

The same applies to designing a website for specific establishments. For example, a web design for a music venue must be well in tune to the music that particular venue supports. A web design for a café must apply the same look and feel of the café to the web site.

 

Personal web sites, on the other hand, allow more for artistic expression of the owner. Since it is used more for showcasing visual and literary works and communicating with friends and acquaintances, web designs for personal sites are allowed to more innovative, creative, and unconventional.

 

Who is it for?

 

It is important in the design of a web page to consider who it is being designed for. A web design, like any other form of art, tries to reach out to a particular audience and must, in all aspects, agree with what its chosen audience is appreciative of.

 

Children are more responsive to a design that is heavier in graphics and images than in text. They are visual learners and are interested more in that they see and what they hear.

 

The challenge in having children as the main audience is to keep their interest. Children generally have very short a very short attention span, averaging at less than three minutes. It is then necessary to keep their interest and enthusiasm alive.

 

Children are inclined to be fond of web sites that are interactive. Not only are they given the chance to participate in the game or task on the web site, they are also kept excited and energized.

 

On the other hand, adults are responsive to a text-heavy web design than to an image-heavy web design. This is so because adults mainly use the Internet for academics or work and are more interested in the information they need to get rather than on the entertainment it will provide them.

 

With more focused steams of thought, adults as an audience does not require having their interest constantly refreshed. Creating a more formal and sophisticated web design for them becomes the challenge.

           

What makes a good design?

{ April 7, 2008 @ 5:04 pm } · { General internet news, Website reviews }
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We all know perfectly well it is almost impossible to separate the best design from a whole bunch of good designs. A person’s needs and expectations are deciding factors in determining exactly which the best design is. And we all have different needs and expectations.

 

While the above is true, it also always important to keep in mind that there are already established, agreed-upon characteristics a website must possess to consider it good. To make sure that your web design passes the test, keep the following in mind.

 

  1. Decide on a general theme.

 

At the beginning of the web design process, a theme must be placed. This theme will serve as a backbone to which all other aspects of the web design are based upon. Having one theme suggests unity and harmony and therefore creates an impression of a well-balanced company or personality.

 

  1. Write honestly and correctly.

 

Text read on a website must be written with pure honesty. Viewers appreciate transparency and are always delighted when they are given their due. Also, proofread everything you put on your website. Make sure that your sentences are grammatically correct, your paragraphs are in order, and the flow of your essays or write-ups is fluid.

 

  1. Post relevant background and graphic images.

 

Make sure that the images you provide on your website are in tune with your theme and text. You simply cannot write about peace and order and have a picture of a gun as your background. You also cannot put up a site for young professionals and put a graphic image of a cartoon character in the background. Again, it really is all about harmony. Also, make sure that your background doesn’t steal attention away from the content of you website. If you want to exhibit your talent in the visual arts, do it in a separate web page.

 

  1. Link up.

 

Do not put everything you want to say in one page. Otherwise, your website will be a drag and will be too heavy for one’s sight. Use hyperlinks and name the accordingly. If you have more than twenty links, categorize them according to what they have in common. Put pictures in one category; services in another.

 

  1. Create different versions for your website.

 

You cannot expect everybody to be able to view your website especially if you make use of new plug-ins and programs. Be reminded that not everybody is given the privilege to keep their computers up to and you should be able to serve everyone. Also make sure that your website is readable by all web browsers – Internet Explorer, Mozilla, MSN, etc.

 

  1. Ask your audience.

 

Provide a way for your viewers to contact you. You may give them your email address and other contact information. Should they have comments and suggestions for you to further improve your website, allow them to express themselves. If you don’t feel comfortable with providing personal contact details, post a guestbook in your website.

 

            Put yourself in a viewer’s shoes. Evaluate and assess how you would want to see your site if you were a customer. This way, you may actually create the best design for you and your visitors.

This is what a good web design can do

{ April 7, 2008 @ 5:03 pm } · { General internet news }
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Imagine a university bulletin board. Post one teaser before class and you are sure never to find it again forty-five minutes later. Buried, already, in a sea of more attention-grabbing student advertisements, your message, read only by roughly five students, will never stick to anyone’s mind. Imagine this situation and magnify it one million times – one million more teasers, one million more messages, and one million more people.

 

The clamor for information dissemination has become more challenging and mind-boggling over the years, with so many products and services from thousands of companies trying to reach about sixty billion people across the world.

 

TV, print, and radio are no longer adequate for a global market. And the Internet has provided a solution. Pushing itself into the list of most utilized advertising media, the Internet has proven to be an effective tool in improving brand awareness and product sales, and providing relevant information for market research; therefore increasing client and customer satisfaction.

 

At the heart of this new-found advertising magic is Web Design. Defined simply as the creation of visually pleasing pieces or areas incorporating an established theme revolving around shape, lines, color, and texture, Web Design creates a totally new world for visitors of a specific website.

 

A company’s website is designed based on how the company presents itself to its clients and how the clients foresee the company. Technical know-how coupled with creative expertise creates a well-designed website, soliciting positive first impressions, allowing for effective on-line marketing, and increasing product and service sales.

 

A well-designed website communicates that a company willingly provides its clients an unforgettable experience. As manifested by the growing industry of call centers and customer services though e-mail, customer satisfaction no longer limits itself in meeting or surpassing customer expectations by providing top quality products and services, but is now extended to providing product assistance easily available to customers. A constantly improving quality of customer service sets a company apart from thousands of its competitors.

 

It is vital for a company to spend time, effort, and financial resources on the design of their website. It is of utmost importance that a company hires the designers and developers best suited for the job. A company pays for a domain name and web hosting and they will be available twenty four hours a day throughout the world, therefore expanding its business while its employees are home and asleep.

 

In addition to a graphically competitive web design, one must also recognize the advantages of utilizing other web-based marketing and advertising tools. An example would be pop-up windows which are basically windows that automatically flash while one is browsing through other related or unrelated sites. E-mail marketing is also an effective advertising tool by sending messages to people through their email addresses available to a company through their database. Finally, submitting completed websites to search engines such as Google and Yahoo makes a company site easily searchable.

 

In conclusion, a company with a website beautifully designed especially for their target clients gets better sales results. As more and more companies subscribe to this marketing tool, we as customers can only expect better designs, ergo more blithesome web experiences in the future.

The Lowdown on Web Design

{ April 7, 2008 @ 5:01 pm } · { General internet news }
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Design, in a general and large scale, is the creation of visually stimulating pieces or areas incorporating an established. Design employs shape, lines, color, and texture to be able to complete its intent. The creation of a design accessible through the use of the Internet is then called Web Design; also known as “web publishing”, “web development”, and “internet publishing.”

 

Web Design originally belonged to a broader industry called Graphic Design but given the constantly increasing demand for high-caliber web-based visual arrangements, Web Design is slowly establishing itself as a completely new field.

 

The end product of Web Design a website, which is a collection of information – text and images – available for reference and use over the Internet. This is created through HTML, XHTML, or XML encoding. A web page is an extension of a web page containing more specified topics that can be accessed through a hyperlink. The home page is the first page that greets visitors when they view a web site. It serves as the portal to which all other sites connected to it are accessed. Think of a web site as a house, the web pages as the rooms, and the home page as the front door.

 

Web Design also involves the conceptualization of a web page intended for either business or personal use, to the planning of how to go about the making of a web page, and finally to the execution of putting this web site up for the Internet. In order for websites to be available, they have to be supported by hosts and search engines such as Yahoo and Google.

 

Considered both as an art and as a science, Web Design requires that its practitioners are not only adept at creating aesthetically strong layouts but also at utilizing a number of computer languages to create different programs. This is so because Web Design consolidates a person’s both creative expression and technical know-how.

With more and more people logging on to the World Wide Web and with the increasing boost in their hours spent using it, many companies have recognized the potential of Web Design as an effective and innovative marketing strategy, providing information and profiles on their products and services. Companies, with the help of both their marketing department and their advertising agency, are now encouraging their clients, customers, and end-users to acquire news, instructions, and reports on the company.

 

Web Design also allows for personal expression in that anyone can put up his or her own web site. Web sites intended for personal use are more informal and caution-free. The emergence of a number of networking sites such as Friendster, Facebook, and Multiply allows everyone to create a web page using readily-available web addresses and templates.

 

The Internet has truly redefined the way of life of the people it touches. It presents itself as a separate world, yet dependent on the world in which its creators move about. We can only sit back and witness the many more surprises it may bestow upon us.