Web Design Trends

Top 10 Websites For Designers – April 2012

noreply@blogger.com (manik1383) — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 07:40:00 +0000

Every month HOW scours the web and pours through submissions from creatives to discover the top design websites. We’re looking for the best promo sites of talented designers and illustrators, as well as design tools,resources and fun sites for creative time-outs.

Check out the best design websites below. (You can also submit a site you think should be included in this list of cool design websites next month.)

Get The Web Designer’s Idea Book V. 2 and find inspiration for your web designs.
The HOW Interactive Design website serves up advice and inspiration for graphic designers working on the web. Check out our Site of the Day and the Push blog!

Type-o-Sketch
Designer Elaine Stephenson started the Type-o-Sketch blog to improve her hand lettering skills and compile a collection of different type treatments.
Yulley Co.
New York City-based “designistrator” Ian Culley has a drippy, goopy style that oozes charm and edge.
TypeConnection
Type Connection is a game that helps you learn how to pair typefaces. Start by choosing a typeface to pair. Like a conventional dating website, Type Connection presents you with potential “dates” for each main character. You decide what kind of match to look for by choosing among several strategies for combining typefaces. Along the way, you explore typographic terminology, type history, and more.
Dominique Falla
Dominique Falla is a designer/artist who works in a variety of tactile mediums and combines digital creation with analogue output for exhibition and publication. She is currently working on a series of tactile typography pieces.
Jon Contino
This Brooklyn-based illustrator and designer recently relaunched his self-promotion website with tons of new inspirational design work to see.
Chen Design Associates
Legendary San Francisco design firm Chen Design Associates just redesigned their self-promotion website in true Chen style, with a letterpress-inspired aesthetic and tons of amazing packaging and print design work.
Lab Partners
Lab Partners is an Oakland, CA-based husband and wife duo that combines an amazing retro illustration style with strong typography skills.
Pat Perry
Pat Perry is an artist and illustrator from Michigan who plies his hallucinogenic style for clients like K2 Skis and Bonnaroo. His cool design site features tons of amazing work, both personal and for clients.
Marta Cerdà Alimbau
Marta is an illustrator and designer based in Barcelona. The work on her self-promotion website is heavily type driven featuring tons of amazing typographic illustrations.
Behance
The Behance team has completely redesigned key features of the site—gallery browsing, activity feeds, member profiles, curated galleries and the follower experience—to provide a new level of discovery, efficiency and transparency. The best promo site for creatives just got better.

Blending Ads into your Website Layout

noreply@blogger.com (Tushar Arora) — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 12:29:00 +0000

Source - Jake Rocheleau

Advertising is the age-old medium which has been transformed via the Internet. Ads can be served on websites in different ways than TV or radio shows. Google AdSense is the most notable company, although there are plenty of alternatives to consider. Not to mention the growing popularity of in-video ads!

But there is a systematic process for blending advertisements naturally into any website layout. Designers who have little or no experience with ad displays would do well to follow through on even a few examples. There is plenty of money to be made on the Internet if you know how to do it. And genuinely incorporating advertisements into your layout is the best solution.

Segregate Ads from Content

This should be a no-brainer since most visitors aren’t coming to the site for advertising needs. Your webpage content is king and all advertising should take a secondary backseat.

Now this isn’t to say you should avoid ad placements in-between areas of content. This technique is actually a wonderful way to increase click-through rates as visitors are scrolling through each page. However you don’t want big Flash banners protruding over words and paragraphs. This makes the site appear very unprofessional and you’re sure to lose traffic over time.

If you have courage test out some ad placements 1-2 paragraphs into the article. Some layouts also work with a small square ad block floating to the left or right of each page content area. Though in most cases this will look tacky, and it’s much nicer to keep ads horizontal in-between key blocks of text.

Matchup Color Schemes

Every website design must have some type of color scheme. Your choice of colors and fonts will dramatically affect the overall feeling of the site. And because of this you want to blend in your text ads whenever possible.

This can’t always be applied to larger ad blocks with images or flash banners. But match link colors if you are using contextual ads or even selling a link list in your sidebar or footer. When you have colors matching together it makes each ad block appear more ingrained into the site. Your ad links won’t stick out like a sore thumb which will definitely garner more clicks.

Utilize a Sidebar or Two

Unless you’re designing for a minimalist layout you should have extra space to include a small sidebar area. This is perfect for additional navigation links and extra related content. But it also leaves room to mix in advertising where available.

A very popular network BuySellAds offers extremely reasonable rates for independent publishers. You can setup smaller squares and sell ad blocks for a going monthly rate. Not only is this a wonderful alternative to AdSense but the network itself only serves professional-looking adverts. You won’t be caught up with spammy animated gifs or Flash content.

Now if you have the room it wouldn’t be a bad idea to incorporate two separate sidebars. You can hold more important navigation links in one side and still keep some advertising above the fold. This is the best area on your page for marketing and making money through ad networks.

Decorate with Flair

Each ad block area can be dressed up with some additional flair. How creative you get will surely be dependent on the design itself, and not every ad needs to be flashy. But sometimes it can look nice to include a custom border and background around the advertising space.

This rule mostly applies to ads found within your main content area. You can use different styles such as sketching borders and arrow glyphs to point out the ad zone. Creativity like this will attract attention from your visitors. But it can also make your ads look at bit prettier squeezed into the layout.

Offer Open Ad Sales

If you have advertisement zones open on your site why not offer them for sale? This can be accomplished with a simple informational page somewhere on your site going over contacts and payment methods. But additionally you could design a generic graphic in place of some ad forms(such as a 125×125 block). This could read something like “Buy Ad Space” and would lead to your advertising/contacts page.

If you can manage control over the design then it’s simple to match these sale zones with your overall color scheme. This technique is a great way to attract attention from interested publishers looking to advertise around the web. It also gives you content to fill in the sidebar while waiting to acquire some initial advertisers.

Visitors aren’t expecting you to pretend like ads don’t exist. We all understand the purpose of advertising and how it makes money for webmasters. Don’t pretend like your visitors are ignorant and must be tricked into using your ads. Just place them in opportune areas on the page and blend as best you can with colors and possibly background patterns. Over time you will draw attention and may even turn a small profit.

Conclusion

These tips and tricks should get you started thinking about customizing with many different ad block areas. It requires time and practice in the design field to understand and build compatible web layouts. Advertising and marketing is just another facet to consider.

Stick with what works best and check out websites similar to your own for inspiration. If you have ideas or suggestions on web advertising feel free to share with us in the post discussion area below.

4 Game-Changing Trends in Web App Design

noreply@blogger.com (Tushar Arora) — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 14:32:00 +0000

Source - Blake Robinson

Web applications are one of the greatest revelations of the Internet. It’s a development that is largely specific to the Web 2.0 era, but their significance will be in effect for generations.

The web app is a signifier of a fundamental shift in computing. It’s representative of the cloud and our newfound ability to decentralize our technical lives and spread ourselves across desktop computers, mobile devices and pretty much anything else connected to the Internet.

But web apps are driven by trends, and trends move fast. So if you’re slaving away on a mobile app, here are four trends that you might want to consider before coding yourself into irrelevance.

1. Location

It’s not that location started with Foursquare, but it took Foursquare’s simple badge system to make the world pay attention. If your web app isn’t location aware, people are far less likely to be aware of it. With web juggernauts like Facebook launching Places and Google shifting product rockstar Marissa Mayer to location and local services, it’s safe to bet on geolocation.

These days, it’s easier than ever to to make your app location aware. HTML5 features a native location protocol (try finding yourself with an HTML5-compliant browser), and with a few easy lines of JavaScript, your app can be pegging latitudes and longitudes in no time. And, according to SimpleGeo’s Andrew Mager, HTML5′s location protocol is doubly useful for mobile web apps, because it doesn’t hog battery resources by constantly running GPS.

2. Data Portability

Internet dwellers have railed against the classic walled gardens of the web for years. It stands to reason then, that as we entered the Web 2.0 era, developers should have been prepared for this. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case and, while your data is your data, there was a long period where you could only use it in the place it was created.

Now, there has been a gradual shift toward portability and many of the once guilty parties are taking steps to enable you to take your data with you wherever you choose. Services like Posterous have strongly pushed the envelope here in getting developers to ease up, but those initiatives were still, in several cases, stonewalled.

It wasn’t until October 6, when Facebook got hip to data portability, that this became a true trend. That announcement should be considered a death knell to any web app hoping to make a buck while keeping user data proprietary.

3. Mobility

It’s happening so fast that it’s hard to see the lines beginning to blur, but web apps and mobile apps are becoming indistinguishable from one another. Sure you can install an app on your Android or iOS device, but some of the best mobile implementations have avoided coding unique apps and focused on the mobile functionality of their web apps.

Perhaps the most shining example of this transition is Shaun Inman’s Fever. This RSS reader installs directly on your web server and is arguably the best RSS reader on the face of the planet. It’s also fully functional on most modern mobile devices by simply visiting the same URL that you’ve set the reader up on. No extra lifting, just one unified experience.

4. HTML5

It might not be completely ready for primetime yet, but if you’re not preparing for HTML5, you’re preparing for obsolescence. Incorporating features that make many of the oldest bastions of web plugins redundant, HTML5 is the future of the web. Video playback, geolocation, drag-and-drop media and more are all built-in.

When the the World Wide Web Consortium finally ratifies the HTML5 standard, you’ll probably start hearing more talk of Web 3.0 than you can possibly stand.

These four trends are some of the biggest ones in the web app world right now. Add your own thoughts on trends that are revolutionizing the way we create and use web apps in the comments below.

Know Why Your Website’s Header Is Driving People Away

noreply@blogger.com (Tushar Arora) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:52:00 +0000

Source - Salman Siddiqui

Whichever website you visit, the first thing that you will notice is the header image of that website. Later on, scrolling down the page or admiring the header image is something that depends on the purpose of your visit. The point is that the header image (or, to be more generic, the header section) is a very important part of any website design. Header images have been an integral part of websites for a long time, but lately original designers have given a whole new life and excitement to header images. It is the header image that initiates the mission of any website and a dull header image might just kill the experience.

Today, we will go through the basic semantics of header image design and how the very default looking header images are still sitting on most websites. We will try to figure out what web designers can do to create jaw dropping header images and use examples to understand how designers are actually implementing original ideas.

Old is no more the gold

Gone are the days when a regular rectangular header image design will be good enough for your upcoming website design. Notice that if your website is very old and has its own fan following then you might not have to experiment with header images, but if you are new in business then you have to do something different so as to attract visitors. I am sorry to say, but the wrapper of the chocolate is an important reason behind you buying that chocolate. Get it?

There are plenty of default designs and plugins available that make it super easy for website designers to come up with a basic header image but that just isn’t helping you out. If you want to be part of this business then get real. Think. Out. Of. The. Box!

It will sound a bit weird if we tag something as default design in today’s website design industry, but unfortunately it is true. The structure that you see above has become, more or less, the default website design for those who want to go live real quick. Register a domain, pick up a template and you will be live within minutes. But, is that of any use? The ready-to-go designs help you go online but don’t help you get the attention of internet surfers. True?

So, how can we actually take our first step toward out-of-box looks? What can one really do with the default header shapes, sizes and designs? Aren’t they supposed to be what they are? Well, they are supposed to be the way they are, but with a little tweaking we can actually make them look super attractive. Here are my suggestions when it comes to tweaking your header images:

Submerge!

Don’t compare this tip with something that pops out of the screen due to its amazing design. Rather, what I am trying to suggest here could well be a simple but unique way to make your headers look different from the rest. This is actually the easiest too, once you are into it.

Look at the header image of Gary Nock. It is more or less merged with the rest of the website design. You will never find such kind of rectangular in shape header images. Rather, such header images submerge with the rest of the design which as a result gives the website design the clean and riveting look. So, when I say “submerge” then I mean merge your header image design with the rest of the website design in a fashion that the old rectangular look of the website is not around to turn off your readers.

Break The “Text Book” Definition of Dynamic Headers

Enough of the jQuery codes to make your headers look dynamic. Can’t we make them look a bit different considering the fact that almost everybody is either using a jQuery based header or a (good old) flash header.

Check out the above header design from Raskulls. The website has done well to balance the looks of a dynamic header with a clean header image. The end result is a sleek looking header image that does justice to the niche of Raskulls. See, I am not asking you to give up on jQuery or Flash either. What I want you to understand is that it is high time that we start looking for header image designs that are sleeker and different from the rest. You’ve got to stand out to attract visitors.

Ditch the Rectangle

I won’t give you an example in this case as my first tip of submerging the header image with rest of the website design was almost similar to this. See, we are used to the usual rectangular looking header images. As I said before, they have become part of the default website design which is of no use. What if you ditch the rectangle shape of header images and look for something which is different. This is when you will attract attention and that is the sole purpose of your website. True?

Ditch the Header Itself!

OUCH! What was that?

Well, that was getting rid of something that confuses you the most. If you are not happy with your rectangular looking header image design and you are not sure of anything different then why not just ditch the header itself? Why can’t we start with the content directly and use a small square in the sidebar for the name of the website? What is the real problem? There isn’t any hard and fast rule suggesting that headers are a must for a website design, and if it isn’t a rule why do we actually have to stick with them?

Have a look at Sony’s portal displaying its tablets. Sony has smartly left only a little amount of space on top for the name and menu while the rest acts as the place where content is displayed. Really, if you are not sure about the kind of header that you should use then you will be better off ditching the header. Try it!

Keep Thinking Different. Don’t Give Up!

This is supposed to be the usual tip of any inspiration pointers and it applies here too, but with a slight difference. The point that I want you to understand here is that if you keep trying the different looks for your header image then you are bound to come up with something which is a lot better than the rectangular looking header images. And, trust me on this one, any header shape will look better than a rectangular header image design.

Your hard work and your honesty should be reflected in your out-of-box header image design. This is when visitors understand the seriousness of your purpose and end up giving more time to your website. Also, keep changing your header images. Experiment with different looks and see what leads to a jump in your traffic.Try. Fall. Getup. Try. Succeed. Continue Trying.

Inspiration

Juan Diego Velasco – Web Designer Portfolio

Giancarlo Fajardo – Creative Graphic Design Portfolio

Duirwaigh Studios

N.Design Studio

Octwelve – Blog of designer MeryLuc Melgar

Pixel Cool

Shaun Groves

Conclusion

Header images have come a long way. I know plenty of websites that have successfully experimented with header image designs, but I know so many who still go live without proper design plans. Please remember that you might be better off with a simple looking header image design if your website is old with huge visitor numbers. In that case, the visitors are aware of the quality of content that your website produces and this is when an attractive header image is not that important. But, if you are new in business then better take care of the looks of your website design otherwise be prepared to end up nowhere.

20 Dark Websites For Your Inspiration

noreply@blogger.com (Tushar Arora) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 19:34:00 +0000

source - Joel Falconer

Dark websites can be hard to pull off. Making content readable, for one thing, can be difficult — we’re often reminded that black on white is the most readable setup. It’s also harder to pull off space without the whitespace, making poorly considered designs look claustrophobic. But these twenty designers have made it work. Take a look at their designs and jot down some ideas for your next dark website design.

James Garner

Unaghii

Moksha Design Studio

Private Grave

Colmar Brunton

SongClash

Stesha Doku

Eric Steuten

Jonah L

Ekin Yalgin

JOS Creative Studio

Bristol Street Art

Kike Riesco

tehCpeng

Scribble & Tweak

Todd Adams

Nue Media

Bond Makeover

Mr. Henry

Mathieu Clauss

Is Responsive Design a Good Fit For Mobile?

noreply@blogger.com (Tushar Arora) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 09:47:00 +0000

Source - Matt Henry

Since Ethan Marcotte put forward the idea of Responsive Web Design (RWD), it has been touted as a way to use one code base to support browsers of dramatically different resolutions and screen densities. Despite the good reasons to be cautious of this approach, designers and developers have continued to recommend using RWD as a solution for mobile.

Fortunately, the discussion about whether RWD is a good strategy for mobile websites/webapps has been rekindled over the last couple of months, and the consensus appears to be increasingly skeptical. Many critics focus on the idea that responsive designs would hide content on smaller screens that would otherwise be visible on desktop/laptop ("desktop," herein) screens. The problem with this, the critics say, is that this strategy implicitly assumes mobile sites should have less content than their desktop counterparts. At first blush, this assumption has at least some intuitive appeal. In the absence of data about how people expect and want to use a site on a mobile device, assuming that users want quick access to things like directions, contact information, menus, etc., doesn't feel obviously wrong. What does feel obviously wrong is building a site without data on how people expect and want to use it on a mobile device. It took the web community at large at least 10 years of making websites to realize that knowing something concrete about our users is pretty important. Why did we decide that we no longer need to have good data on users now that some browsers fit in our pockets and have touch screens instead of pointer devices?

If the thrust of the criticism is that it's generally wrong to make assumptions about what users want without supporting data, then it's both uncontroversial and laudable. Even so, it's still not the best argument for using caution in applying responsive design to mobile browsers.

LESS IS MORE?

The single best argument against using responsive design for mobile devices is still that it's almost always a bad idea to send a full desktop site's worth of mark-up, CSS, JS, and images over the wire to devices that won't use all of it and might have limited connectivity. If this point isn't readily apparent to you, go read Jason Grigsby's blog post on this, and you should come away suitably convinced.

It's worth pointing out, as well, that even Marcotte makes this point in his ALAarticle introducing the technique:

"[I]f the user goals for your mobile site are more limited in scope than its desktop equivalent, then serving different content to each might be the best approach."

In some cases, you'd even want to show more content to mobile devices than you would on the desktop. A site like Eightbit, for instance, isn't super useful on a desktop browser. If you go there after you've set up your account, it just has a page suggesting you go check it out on your mobile.

Of course, none of this is to say that it's never a good idea to use RWD for mobile sites. If your assets and information architecture are minimal, and you just need something simple that works everywhere (in the case of some blogs, for instance), RWD might be a fit. Once you get a couple big images or scripts in there or start thinking about what content you need to hide or show in certain contexts, you've outgrown the utility of responsive design.

CONCLUSION

So, what's the answer to the question, "Should I use a responsive design in my mobile strategy?" The somewhat unsatisfying short answer you probably saw coming is: "Maybe." The slightly longer answer is that it might be a fit, depending on your users' needs. But, how is that different from any other technique in our toolbox? Responsive design is a very powerful (not to mention extremely cool) method of putting a site together, and you should absolutely use it when appropriate. In order to figure out when that is, you still have to do the legwork to see who your users are, how they expect to be able to use your site, and how those expectations change (or don't) when they're using different kinds of devices.

Designing for the Web: Resolution and Size

noreply@blogger.com (Tushar Arora) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 08:05:00 +0000

Source - Felix Mak

As a graphic designer working in print, it is important to understand and work to a set of fixed standards. This ensures that what the designer produces will actually be usable as a print item and also printable! For example in print, designing a simple business card has its own factors to watch for — this is also dependant on who you use to print your jobs.

Some common issues to watch for would be if the job is of a standard size (and if the printer offers its own set of guidelines and sizes), if you decide to print in laser (which affects price as well as color), or offset, if you are using solid or process, how much bleed should you leave and if they have affordable metallics — the list could go on and on! Even with so many varied print issues, we feel comfortable ensconsed in our guidelines and the familiar set of difficulties.

Switching to the web world, the issues of design are just as complex and varied. To a graphic designer who hasn’t ventured into web design, it can be a freaky place where suddenly our long used guidebook of print design goes out the window!

Over the following weeks, I will cover basic as well as complex aspects of web design, but will not cross the threshold of coding. The aim is to arm the graphic designer with the knowledge and skills to design a solid website. There are many ways to design a website and this guide is one way.

Designing for the web gives you a freedom that you wouldn’t believe. However, there are certain factors that you need to keep in mind — depending on the job at hand of course! When putting pen to paper for your first design, or opening Photoshop or Illustrator, it is important to know what size the site is!

An important factor of website design is resolution as well as the physical size of the screen. It is important to know what sizes to design for as well as what affect the given sizes we choose for our client will have on the visitor’s screen.

The prevailing wisdom in web has been to design for the most common screen resolution that most people use and at the time of writing, it has been 1024 x 768 for quite a few years now. However, there is a relatively new and important factor that designers need to account for and that is the rise and prevelance of hand held devices. The popularity of the Android device as well as iOS (Apple’s operating system for most all things they manufacture — starting with the letter ‘i’) and the slow rise of Windows 7 devices, cannot be ignored and must be accounted for. These devices can be phone sized or tablet sized devices and their design size needs to be included in our new ‘guidebook’.

Resolution, Available Space and Physical Screen Size

Type	Desktop (avg)	Tablet Size (avg)	Phone Size (avg)
Resolution	1024 x 768 px	iPad: 1024x768 px	iPhone 4+ 640 x 960 px
Available Space	999 x 700 px (approx)	iPad:1024x664 px (approx) L	iphone: 640 x 707 px (approx) P
Screen size	230mm x 170mm*	iPad: 200mm x 148mm	iPhone: 50mm x 76mm

P = PortraitL = Landscape			*a quick measurement made on my laptop

In the above table, I have included the average resolution for desktop computers that is still in use by 14% of Internet users, and Apple’s tablets and phones (unfortunately, I do not have access to any other manufacturer’s goods at the time of writing). However, these resolutions are full screen sizes and the browser does take up part of the screen in the form of status bars, button bars, address bars, scrolling bars and the like. The “Available space” row in the above table is a good guide to design a site for. This helps us avoid scrolling — especially when we are designing for a space that is not intended to scroll.

*If you would like to read more on the usability side of the web, look for books by Jakob Nielsen. Some in the industry might see him as extreme, but he makes strong arguments and incorporating some of his ideals into your web design philosophy would not hurt!

However, we may have a problem if we design by pixel size.

The above figure illustrates the approximate size of all three screen sizes in pixels and shows the used space by button bars, status bars and the like. However, you might notice something a little odd — yes, the iPhone resolution seems out of proportion! I am sure that last time you looked, your phone was not taller than your monitor!

Referring back to the table, the “Screen Size” row shows you an issue with the actual size of a screen versus the resolution of the screen. Although, a graphic representation might be a bit better.

The above figure gives us a far better understanding and will help us design a far better website interface for phones such as the iPhone. While resolution is a very important aspect of design, it is not usable as a standardized measurement for site size, as it has been for desktop computers.

Important Points to Remember

Using resolution as a website size is fine for the desktop version of a design
Using physical size as a website size is better for hand held devices
It is likely that you will design three variations on the website design you use to account for the varying sizes.

How to Create a Website for Foreign Markets in 7 Steps

noreply@blogger.com (Tushar Arora) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:09:00 +0000

Source - Christian Arno

Creating a website in a foreign language is an essential part of entering a specific foreign market. However, when localizing your website, you’ll need to be aware that a lot more is involved in just simply translating the text from your native one. Below are seven points for consideration.

1. Tools for the Job

Translating a website is not straightforward and can be time consuming. However, there are tools that you can use to help with the process. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), for example, let you keep the content separate from the design. In using CSS, you can change the content for your chosen foreign language and not have to start each page from scratch. The direction of your text can also be switched, meaning that you will save a lot of time if you are working into languages such as Urdu or Arabic.

Another useful tool is Unicode UTF-8; it can work with over eighty written languages and their various distinctive characters. Non-Latin characters found in the Nordic languages like Swedish and Finnish are covered, as are non-Latin scripts such as Arabic.

2. Images

You’ll have to be culturally sensitive with regard to any images on your website. This is because what is considered amusing in some countries can be considered offensive in others. In Arabic, images, as with text, are interpreted right-to-left. So, if you are a washing powder company and you have two images: the first on the left being dirty clothes going into a washing machine and the second on the right being the clothes coming out clean, they will be interpreted the wrong way around.

3. Choosing the Right Colors

You’ll need to consider what colors will be best to use for your foreign website; everything from logos to text will need a lot of thought. The reason is that colors have different meanings in different countries. Xerox has an International Color Guide on their website, which is worth checking out in researching what colors to use for different countries. White, for example, is associated with mourning in China, while in the United States it is associated with purity.

4. Layout

Words in Finnish tend to be a lot longer than their English counterpart. For example, the word for ‘towel’ in Finnish is ‘pyyheliina’, which is more than double the number of characters. So, if you are making a website for the Finnish market, you’ll need to think about how much more space will be needed to incorporate the translation. For all foreign languages, you’ll need to consider their effect on headings, main text and text within images — all of which can result in changes to the layout.

5. Use the Most Optimal Domain

You’ll want your website to be perceived as local; a good way to add to its localization is by having your chosen foreign market’s top level domain. For example, if you are an IT consultancy based in England, having a version of your website translated into Japanese with the domain www.mywebsite.co.uk will not be as credible as www.mywebsite.jp. There is also the option of creating a sub-domain, for example, www.mywebsite.com/jp. This will also boost your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as search engine algorithms take location of the search into account, and local results are more likely to have a countries top level domain and will been seen as locally relevant.

6. Think about Keywords

You’ll need to be aware that the keywords from your home website might not translate directly into a foreign language, and their meaning might not be the same. Maximise your foreign website’s SEO by ensuring that your keywords mean the same thing after translation and that they’re suitable for that foreign market. For example, if you are a company that sells baby products and ‘baby stroller’ is your keyword, this can translate directly to ‘coche’ in Latin American Spanish without any initial problems. However, ‘coche’ in Spain is the word for a ‘car’ and the direct translation would instantly fail.

7. Localizing your Content

Following on from the keyword language problem, you’ll need to be aware that a language is not exactly the same the world over. For example, French spoken in France is not exactly the same as it is in Switzerland, Canada or Haiti. Dialectic pitfalls can be avoided with the right research and proper translation. A proper translation however, will not be the one that is found free online. Don’t rely on machine translation software as they only give a basic direct translation; the Spanish example in the keyword point highlights the problem with that. The same goes for dictionaries. The most accurate way of translating and best option in avoiding the dialectical pitfalls is to use a professional translator, who is a native speaker, and lives in the country your website is being created for.

7 Ways to Lower Your Website’s Bounce Rate

noreply@blogger.com (Tushar Arora) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:23:00 +0000

Source - Kelli Shaver

Bounce rate is the enemy of every website — it’s the percentage of visitors that come to your page and don’t go to any others within the same site. It can be frustrating and costly, especially if you’ve invested time and money into SEO and paid ads to get visitors to your site — you don’t want that hard work to go to waste once the person hits your page.

Businesses need to make sure their first impressions reel in the visitor in order to reduce bounce rate and to keep the person engaged with your brand. To help you combat pesky bounce rates, we’ve put together a list of usability considerations that can be used to lower your site’s bounce rate and improve visitor retention. From optimized page layouts to faster loading, there are a number of ways to keep web surfers hooked.

1. Be Mindful of Ad Placement

Let’s face it, no one likes looking at advertisements, but the reality is that many sites could not survive without them. Advertisements are a necessary evil that allows content providers to make money but too many advertisements can be a big turn-off to your readers.

Advertising that’s too close to your site navigation can cause accidental clicks, which force visitors to leave your page — unintentionally, and in frustration. Too many ads above the fold means your readers have more to wade through before getting to the heart of your site. Also, ads that interrupt your content or present themselves as if they were a part of your website can cause confusion and frustration.

Keep advertising prominently placed but far enough out of the way that visitors can still use your site without having to navigate around a sea of ads.

2. Lazy-Load Third-Party Content

The more third-party services, widgets and content your site contains, the slower your pages will load — and the faster your users will leave. By lazy-loading third-party content (loading content via AJAX when it is needed, after the initial page load) can greatly decrease the perceived load time and allow visitors to start accessing your site’s content while other media loads in the background.

3. Contrast Is Key

No one will stay on a site they can’t read. Of all of the ways to increase accessibility of a site, perhaps the biggest and easiest is to simply use good contrast. Not only does this make the site more accessible to visitors who may have difficulty seeing, but also has the overall effect of making important content easier to find and focus on. Contrast can be a powerful tool for directing the reader’s attention to where you want it to go.

More and more people are accessing the web via mobile devices, which means your site will be viewed on a variety of screen resolutions — in any number of lighting conditions — so your site needs to be as readable as possible in these situations.

4. Have Clean, Accessible Navigation

Just as no one will stay on a site they can’t see, they also won’t stay on a site they can’t navigate. Navigation should be prominent, clear and easily accessible. Consider repeating sidebar or top links in the footer and make sure click targets for menus are large enough for use at small resolutions. Avoid drop-down menus or provide alternatives, since these are inaccessible on touch devices.

If your site has a large amount of content, include search functionality and a site map to help visitors easily find the information they’re looking for.

5. Your Message Should Be Immediately Obvious

One of the biggest causes of a high bounce rate is visitor confusion. If a new visitor to your site has to figure out or hunt down information telling them what your site does, that’s an immediate red flag. Your site’s purpose should be immediately evident, and expressed clearly in both its design and its content.

Tour pages and feature pages can be a great way to give additional information to users looking to learn more, but they shouldn’t be a necessity to understand what your product, service or site provides. Use headlines and graphics to highlight important features and key information. Your content should be organized and supplemented in such a way so that it guides the reader through the experience.

Finally, make call-to-action items descriptive and easy to find. Consider, for instance, the difference between the vague “Learn more” versus the more descriptive “See a list of product features.”

6. No Distractions, Please

Once you’ve gotten a visitor to your site and have managed to engage them with your content, don’t do anything to interrupt that! Keep animation to a minimum and, whenever possible, avoid serving audio ads and disruptive fly-outs.

Interstitial ads, pop-up ads within your text content, and interruptions to speak with live chat representatives and sign up for newsletters can all turn a reader away from your site in a matter of seconds.

Treat your users with respect. Allow them to use your site for its intended purpose by presenting well-organized information clearly … and then getting out of the way.

7. Have a Responsive Layout

Earlier, we touched on mobile site usage and how increasing mobile traffic creates new concerns regarding readability and navigation. If your site gets a large amount of mobile traffic, then you probably want to go one step further by building your site around a responsive layout.

Responsive design is a good (often better) alternative to having specific mobile and large-screen versions of your site. A responsive layout uses techniques, such as CSS media queries, to rearrange and scale content based on screen resolution.

For that extra attention to detail, don’t forget high-resolution images and stylesheets for retina display. This greatly improves image sharpness and fidelity, making your site much easier to see on a small screen on devices supporting retina display technology.

Depending on the purpose, complexity and functionality of your site, multiple versions for web and large-screen may be a necessity. However, for the majority of sites on the web, a responsive design is a great way to ensure that your blog, web app or ecommerce site is easily accessible on a wide number of devices.

Building Strategies for Written Website Content

noreply@blogger.com (Tushar Arora) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 13:18:00 +0000

Source - Jake Rocheleau

When you sit down initially to write out webpage content it may feel ultimately boring and a trivial task. But from a broader perspective you should understand just how powerful your writing will become. Each of your visitors interested in the content you write will spend at least a few seconds drilling through your pages. Often times even a couple minutes or hours over a few repeat visits.

It’s important to spend some time strategizing a successful plan for your content. Not only in grammar and presentation, but SEO also plays a huge role. Even as a webmaster or standard blogger your words may be read by millions of people via the Internet. It’s a big world out there, but luckily there are some techniques you can use to create brilliant content.

Plan a Hierarchy

It’s not too often you’ll find the time to sit down and write through pages and pages digitally. Editing becomes quite the chore after even a few hours time. Thus if you can try designing a page hierarchy which your website will follow the planning process moves a lot smoother.

This may be hand-drawn on paper or even created in digital art software such as Photoshop or Fireworks. The purpose is to build a brief collection of root pages and sub-pages each set with their own descriptions. The quickest way to accomplish this may also be in bulleted-list form.

As an example I’ve included a very crude mockup below. The bulleted list includes a few core pages with some highlights for how to design each sub-page. The great thing about building this on a digital platform is how quickly changes can be applied.

About – Company overview of who founded the corporation, when, and where. What are our missions? what can we do to help the customer in any way? Why should they work with us over any competition?
Services – How do we complete projects? do we use any special software, or tools? And if so what qualifications do we hold? Split page into segments for easy skimming and include proper labels.
- Website Design services – Adobe photoshop mockups with sub-pages. offer discounts: only $10 extra for each sub-page.
- Web Development services – Mention programming languages and completion time. charges will vary depending on language. Basic HTML/CSS pages offered overnight. If database is required only support MySQL.
- Icon Design – Fireworks and Illustrator capable. Client will be sent a vector file and PSD file if Photoshop was utilized. All layers are kept in-tact and can be re-sized.
Contact – Provide information such as e-mail and telephone. If possible include photo of self and employees. Also be sure to write up a brief paragraph about best contact scenario and how quickly we can respond. Contact form required!

Share and Critique your Copy

It’s often very difficult to take up writing. This is especially true to many native web designers who are accustomed in using Adobe Photoshop as their work station. In order to ease the stress a bit consider sharing your project with a friend or colleague.

When working in a team you are able to split content into segments and share out responsibility. This will make planning strategies much easier where “two heads are better than one”, as the old saying goes. You’ll also be able to review each-other’s writing and check for mistakes or possible changes.

As a design firm or larger company it’s possible to get a few people working in a writing team. This provides a huge advantage since you’ll have more than 2 sets of eyes darting over your digital copy. When presenting yourself online your clients will hold you to higher ideals in writing and proper grammar.

Google Optimizations

It’s impossible to ignore the big brother of search engines when it comes to content writing. In fact, many would argue becoming quickly indexed in Google is one of the most important aspects to building a website!

To get in cozy with Google SERPS you should outline important pieces in your content. Break down headings into H1-H4 or deeper if needed. Google will take these semantics heavily into consideration when scanning your pages for keywords or phrases. Also consider using bold and italics every once in a while to seclude important words.

Link building should also be a top priority within your content. If you have pages from a blog or another website consider applying hyperlinks into your text. Google is always interested in quality backlinks and it proves your website is able to reference credible sources. Link text is also penetrated deeply by Google’s web bots, so pick your wording carefully!

Granted these effects are not solely based on Google alone. Yahoo! and Bing also apply a similar set of rules for scanning documents. But they often adopt similar ideologies from Google, and thus optimization for Google is optimization for all.

Scan the Web for Inspiration

Depending on the type of business you’re in it may be required to check out a few examples online. For freelance web designers it isn’t too difficult locating a couple firms and scouring through their writing.

For similar businesses it’s as easy as a couple Google queries. When you can build a small catalog of websites it makes writing your page content a lot easier. You may even construct a brief plan or model as mentioned earlier based on a few well-to-do companies. Of course it’s not a good idea to blatantly copy writing word-for-word, so keep your written text unique and loosely based on a set theme.

Other companies may also provide ideas for imagery and content placement. How your pages are laid out present a very unique situation to each of your visitors. Scrolling through pages for your content dramatically reduces the odds your visitors will stick around to read it. Ensure both your page layout and navigation are simple yet efficient to portray your website’s message.

Responsive Web Design Templates and Frameworks

noreply@blogger.com (Tushar Arora) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:59:00 +0000

Source - Henry Jones

Eventually, we’ll all stop talking about responsive web design – not because it will go away, but because it will become what’s expected. Flashback ten years ago and we were all talking about CSS and tableless design, but today there’s no need to mention it. It’s simply the way modern websites are built, although sadly, I’m sure there’s a few out there still using tables.

Nevertheless, the concept of responsive web design is still relatively new. So it’s our job to help you learn about it and to help you find the stuff that makes building responsive sites easier. For this post we’ve gathered a collection of Responsive Web Design Templates and Frameworks.

Mobile Boilerplate

Mobile Boilerplate is your trusted template made custom for creating rich and performant mobile web apps. You get cross-browser consistency among A-grade smartphones, and fallback support for legacy Blackberry, Symbian, and IE Mobile.

Skeleton

Skeleton is a small collection of CSS & JS files that can help you rapidly develop sites that look beautiful at any size, be it a 17″ laptop screen or an iPhone.

Hardboiled CSS3 Media Queries

These hardboiled CSS3 Media Queries are empty placeholders for targeting the devices and attributes I’m interesting in making responsive designs for right now.

tiny fluid grid

The happy & awesome way to build fluid grid based websites.

FluidGrids

A CSS framework for rapid interactive prototyping.

Less Framework

Less Framework is a CSS grid system for designing adaptive websites. It contains 4 layouts and 3 sets of typography presets, all based on a single grid.

CSS Grid

The 1140 grid fits perfectly into a 1280 monitor. On smaller monitors it becomes fluid and adapts to the width of the browser.

inuit.css

inuit.css is built to work on smaller screens (such as tablets) and tiny screens (such as phones) straight out of the box with minimal effort.

flurid

A cross-browser CSS grid framework that doesn’t hide pixels in margins!

Fluid Grid

A web grid system designed by Joseph Silvashy and New Gold Leaf that allows designers to use the screen real estate on large monitors and retain great design on smaller ones.

320 and Up

‘320 and Up’ prevents mobile devices from downloading desktop assets by using a tiny screen’s stylesheet as its starting point.

15 top web design and development trends for 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Tushar Arora) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 07:45:00 +0000

2012 looks set to be an interesting year. The economic fallout continues to batter industries worldwide, seemingly with no end in sight; and many governments are doing their best to censor the internet, to deny citizens basic rights or prop up ailing media companies.

For web design and development, 2012 could be similarly turbulent. We’re in the midst of various skirmishes: mobile greedily gobbling up market-share from the desktop; native apps threatening aspects of the open web; paywalls barricading previously openly available information; the collision of consolidation and fragmentation; and skeuomorphism within interfaces contrasting starkly with new, innovative methods of designing and presenting information and content.

Short of owning a working crystal ball, it’s tough to predict exactly what’s in store, but a number of designers, developers and industry figures have given it their best shot. Here are their predictions for the industry over the coming year, and the trends you need to be mindful of in order to succeed.

1. Progressive enhancement

According to Happy Cog founder Jeffrey Zeldman, “the rise of mobile and the dominance of WebKit-powered smartphones over traditional desktop web browsing is convincing even die-hard skeptics to embrace progressive enhancement, HTML5, CSS3, and other tenets and aspects of standards-based design”. He adds that IE now more fully supporting standards should further bolster this “rush to embrace the shiny new”.

2. Responsive design

Zeldman continues that we’re also experiencing a “standards nightmare”, but in the hardware space: “There’s a plethora of devices out there with widely differing abilities – it’s never been more confusing or challenging to create brilliant interfaces that work across them all.” Because of this, he expects responsive design to play a big role in 2012, “bridging the enormous gulfs between platforms”.

Clearleft founder Andy Budd reckons this could be a means for “forward-thinking publishers to usurp Apple’s paywall on the iPad,” and predicts a gentle trickle of big responsive sites turning into a flood by year’s end: “It’ll be like the standards movement all over again.” ButFlat Frog Design user experience strategist Erin Jo Richey thinks it won’t be plain-sailing: “Just because a site can shrink in size, that doesn’t mean all the information is equally valuable on desktop and mobile. The type of information users interact with needs to adjust as fluidly as the size of the site itself.” She says 2012 will therefore find more project leads and clients see past screen size and demand an appropriate strategy dictates the content that appears at various resolutions.

Responsive design, as per the website of Elliot Jay Stocks, will be commonplace by the end of 2012

3. Flash will survive

Much was made of Flash’s supposed demise in 2011, yet designer Tom Muller forecasts that Adobe’s technology will have something of a resurgence during 2012: “Many people back the idea of not creating Flash sites, favouring web standards, and I’m less inclined to use it these days. However, I nonetheless believe it’s here to stay for a while.” Muller explains that during 2011 he was involved in three major projects that relied on Flash, simply because it remains the best tool for interactive video, animation and 3D online.

“Web designers and developers sometimes lose sight of what works and is demanded by a larger audience, due to preferring what’s considered ‘cool’ in their bubble,” he adds. “More big brands will shift from Flash, testing the water with HTML5 and CSS3 for focussed campaigns. But for entertainment sites, Flash is – and will remain – the predominant tool of choice to create engaging experiences. And that’s because those sites act as an extension of a movie’s universe, not only existing to serve cold information.” In gaming, Dull Dude Games founder Iain Lobb predicts an even bigger return to Flash: “Clients will try to steer things towards HTML5, because that’s where the hype is, but I think often the right thing to do will be steering them back towards Flash.”

Sites like Threaded show there’s still a place for Flash on the web

4. Native support for plug-in features

Even if Flash thrives in 2012, the march towards extra browser-native features and power will continue, says Opera web evangelist Bruce Lawson: “As support for the various aspects of ‘HTML5 and friends’ improves and comes to more browsers and platforms, we’ll see greater pressure for native browser support of features that we used to use plug-ins for: camera and microphone access with HTML5 getUserMedia, and other things further out, such as support for adaptive streaming of multimedia.”

2012 will find more browser-native features that once would have required plug-ins, such as Sean Christmann’s video demos

5. Appification takes hold

Remy Sharp, self-described ‘MasterChef of code and cookies’ maintains 2012 will see browsers get closer to the platform: “I’m expecting more high-quality, high-performance games running in the browser, in a way where you can’t tell if they’re native or not.” He also thinks we’ll see more sites working directly with files and other aspects of operating systems.

From a visual standpoint, Muller thinks this approach will find designers taking “major cues from tablet and screen interaction,” resulting in a “hybrid design that lives between ‘point and click’ and ‘touch and swipe’”. He also reckons 2012 will find skeuomorphic and heavily textured design lingering, not least due to Apple pushing it so hard on their devices. But publication designer Roger Black argues in a world of content, designers and editors will “have to shed this propensity to take what they know and convert it to something else”. He recommends: “Don’t think ‘newspaper on the tablet’ or ‘mobile magazine site’, for example, think ‘digital publication’.”

In terms of technology, social software consultant Suw Charman-Anderson reckons the convenience of apps is a boon for consumers but a pain for developers, in “having to create an app for every platform and deal with various store policies”. Beyond the native-versus-web-app row, she sees 2012 bringing about “widespread adoption of mixed native/HTML5 apps, where you can feed content to your apps across all platforms from a central source”. She cites Pugpig.com as an example: “They’re already merging iOS and Android with HTML5 and creating great user experiences. It’s only a matter of time before this tactic takes off as the only real way that smaller content producers can keep up with the demands of different platforms.”

Apple’s irritating penchant for skeuomorphic design will continue to influence designers, thinks Muller

6. Web app fragmentation

While web apps should find increased success in 2012, Lawson fears the year will also be one of fragmentation, replacing one group of proprietary systems (native apps) with another. “The spirit of co-operation between browser vendors will continue for the HTML5 spec, but not filter into other web stack specifications,” he says, sadly, noting that we’ve already seen Chrome-only apps. “A severe case of ‘not invented here’ can be seen in the 10 – yes, 10! – different app manifest formats invented by vendors instead of collaborating to make the W3C one better. This harms developers and, worse, lack of interoperability hurts consumers.”

Mozilla technical evangelist Rob Hawkes is optimistic that Boot to Gecko, Mozilla’s ‘operating system for the open web’ could boost the chances of web apps and “remove the reliance on proprietary single-vendor stacks for app development”. Initially focussed on mobile, it will implement a variety of Web APIs to access elements of mobile hardware.

Still in its early stages (the grab shows a UI mock-up idea from the Wiki), Boot to Gecko could aid in the fight against web-app fragmentation

7. Mobile gets bigger

Speaking of mobile, a no-brainer trend prediction is the continued growth of mobile traffic and usage. “Mobile web-based apps will dominate, and we’ll see the rise of mobile MVC frameworks like the one 37signals is working on,” opines Treehouse founder Ryan Carson.

In terms of market-share, mobile platform strategist Peter-Paul Koch expects mobile browsing to exceed 10 per cent in 2012. “Clients will clamour for mobile sites, and web designers and developers must be ready or risk losing clients,” he warns. Koch holds that making sites ready for mobile will also cause change for the good: “No more Flash, hover effects and pixel-perfect rendering in all browsers. Instead: responsive design, device APIs, and deciding which features are so important that they must be shown on the mobile site, along with an enhanced awareness that a website should work on any device.”

Mobile growth will increase the number of mobile-optimised sites in 2012

8. A device explosion

Easy! Designs Principal Aaron Gustafson thinks growth in mobile will lead to a major challenge: “Designers and developers will have to embrace the smaller tablet form factors – think Nook Tablet and Kindle Fire instead of iPad – as cheap tablet devices flood the market.” Lobb adds that this will lead to more developers “needing to own multiple devices, in order to check site compatibility”.

Designers will have to embrace smaller tablet form-factors in 2012

9. Respect beyond aesthetics

Designer and illustrator Geri Coady notes how we often say good design is invisible, yet “rarely take notice when a website or app shows incredible attention to detail not only in visual design, but in the choice of language and the behaviour of interactions”. She thinks that 2012 will find more designers and clients understanding that appearance alone isn’t everything: “We should treat style, content, and behaviour with equal respect – they must work together to strengthen the meaning and personality of a site, app, or brand.”

Such understanding will come from enhancing skill-sets (Carson reckons in 2012 that “any web designer who isn’t also a front-end developer won’t be able to find work”) or through collaboration. “I’d love to see more developers learning from designers, so we can do a better job of implementing designs. And vice versa, designers learning from developers, to understand what’s possible, and why some things are harder than others,” muses Sharp. The net result, says ‘Typomaniac’ Erik Spiekermann: “More designers will have an affinity with code and more coders will have an affinity with design”.

10. Social battles heat up

The importance of social networking sites will continue to grow throughout 2012, but opinions differ regarding potential outcomes. Developer Blaine Cook has an inkling that “Facebook will continue to wane in importance, and we’ll see more start-ups like Path, Instagram, Tumblr, and Spotify, where social interactions are being pushed out to the edges”. But Muller reckons “more social sharing networks and apps will try to take a piece of the Twitter and Facebook pie, but will actually end up integrating those into their service”. He also wonders whether Facebook will “offer tools to create sites, instead of just pages,” to satisfy people’s desire for “continued integration with social media, and services that allow you to share your life online”.

Social will continue to heat up in 2012, and Cook sees more start-ups like Path taking over from giants like Facebook

11. Growth of the two-screen model

“I think the two-screen experience will be big in 2012,” predicts Budd. With TV companies more aware of competition in the living room, they’re increasingly keen to push timely, relevant content to this second screen. “Examples in 2011 included the play-along version of a Million Pound Drop, and the Nature Watch tablet demo from the BBC,” continues Budd. “Numerous start-ups have moved into this space, including Shazam’s new TV-show tagging abilities, so expect much more in 2012.”

More companies will take advantage of the second screen in 2012

12. Distributed workforces

During the next year, Richey thinks the set-up of many companies will be atypical. “A new generation of young designers and developers entered the workforce in a time of lingering adversity. With a variety of technologies at their fingertips, many creatives have learned to find jobs, network, and acquire new skills from their bedrooms, the corner café, or a destination around the world,” she explains. “As the economy improves, many designers and developers won’t be willing to trade in their work style and relative freedom for a cubicle space. With a growing number of high-profile tech companies embracing a mobile and distributed workforce, employers looking for top-notch talent may need to re-evaluate their workplace culture.”

37signals CEO Jason Fried has condemned traditional office culture. Expect more companies to have atypical set-ups in 2012

13. Stronger customer service

Headscape co-founder Paul Boag reckons 2012 will be the year of customer service within the web industry: “As web designers, we like to think we just build websites. We don’t. We also offer a service to our clients. We are often so obsessed with user experience, code and design that we forget other important factors such as good communication, understanding business needs and exceeding client expectations. If we are going to prosper in 2012 we need to blow our clients away, not just their users.”

14. Better value, not lower prices

Budd believes that the web industry is on a “continuous march towards professionalism” and this means designers and developers need to “up their game or run the risk of finding themselves in a price ghetto”. During 2012, he hopes to see a different approach from more designers: “Stop compromising standards and rushing out poorly planned and poorly implemented projects. Stop cutting corners and instead put in the effort required to deliver your clients exceptional value.” Spiekermann adds that clients will increasingly learn to react strongly to such attitudes and also “understand that websites are never truly finished, along with being more accepting of an agile process”.

15. Pushing the boundaries

Ending on a high, Edge of my Seat founder Rachel Andrew thinks 2012 will be a year in which technological and skills evolution could be rapid. “Throughout 2011, we saw browser support for parts of HTML5 and CSS3 improve to the point where we can really start to use this stuff in our work, and so we’re having to work out the new best ways to do things,” she says. “I’m finding on every project I start now I need to check myself, making sure I’m not doing something because that’s the way it has always been done when we now have new and better ways to achieve the end result.” Andrew believes 2012 will increasingly find designers pushing the boundaries of new technology, “experimenting, throwing away what doesn’t work or that which has been replaced with something better, and working out new best practices based on what we now have to work with”.

Top 4 Reasons Your Beautiful Website Doesn’t Convert

noreply@blogger.com (Tushar Arora) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:04:00 +0000

Source - Kimberly Clark

There can be many pitfalls on the way to getting traffic to that beautiful site you created. All the design and creativity in the world won’t bring visitors to your site. You have to know a few basic laws of optimizing a webpage for search before the traffic will begin to flow in your direction.

Below are a few tried and true reasons why your site may not be converting visitors to customers and what simple steps you can take to fix the problems you may be encountering.

1. The Keyword Search Doesn’t Match The Landing Page

This is the most overlooked and perhaps the most important element if you want your PPC campaigns to pay off. Beyond doing the research and having the perfect set of keywords and keyphrases you need to make sure the ads you create for the keywords are pointing to the right page in your site and not just your home page. If your website sells bicycles you are going to want to group your keywords based on the mindset of the potential customers. For instance, you would group “low-cost bicycle,” “bargain bikes,” “cheap bike” separately from “best quality bike, ” best bikes,” “pro bike;” Of course this is a very simple explanation, but you get the gist. Create pages that appeal to both mindsets and aim your ads accordingly. For instance I recently typed “low cost bike” into Google. These were some of my results:

Pay specific attention to the “Bicycles at Target” ad that I’m sure Target is paying big bucks for. This is the page it takes me to when I click through:

What am I supposed to do with a tent when I want to ride a bike? I can guarantee Target did not convert that searcher to a customer!

2. You Don’t Have A Clear Call To Action

A focused call to action page will have your potential customers performing what you want them to do on your site. Make the page clear, uncluttered with simple enough terminology that gets the benefit of completing the action across as well as where to go to complete said action. A good example of a straight forward call to action is Spotify.

Here you see the benefit – “free music” and what Spotify wants you to do “Download Spotify.”

Another great example of a site that uses multiple calls to action without being overwhelming isFreshBooks.

Here you have a clear benefit of this product- “Focus on your work, not your paperwork.”Multiple ways to complete a call to and none overbearing in anyway. First most important call to action is “Try it Free for 30 Days,” you can see they put it in two spots. Second they give you an option to “Call Toll Free” in a very visible location and the last call to action would be to “Take A Quick Tour” which is tucked away neatly towards the bottom. Beautiful design and getting the conversions.

3. You Have A Flash homepage with little to no content and nothing that guides them further into your site…

Here is an example of a beautiful homepage:

I have no idea what this company does or what they want me to do. The only content is a “contact us” link. Why would I contact them when I don’t even know who they are or what they do.

There are instances of flash sites that have content and draw you into the site further so I don’t want to say you can’t use flash at all. Just make sure I know who you are and what you do on your homepage and there is a clear call to action. For example this artists site obviously wants me to “like” his Facebookpage and I know what I get for doing so!

4. They Don’t Feel Like They Know You

Here are some questions to ask yourself before you publish that beautiful site. Do your visitors see a personality behind your website or are you falling into the “strictly business” category? Have you added that personal touch that gives dimension to your website? Can people feel comfortable handing their money over to you? Can they hold someone accountable if they buy a product or service from you?

Create a great “About Us” page with a short but effective bio of your company and maybe a sentence or two about how you got started or who founded the company. Here would also be a great place to talk about your customer service reputation or add some testimonials. People will be more likely to buy from you if others vouch for you and have had a good experience with your business.

Adding social networking buttons will boost your “likeability” and accountability as it adds an extra way for people to be in touch with you if they have a problem with your product or service. To that end, adding a blog will also help people feel more comfortable with you as well.

Usability Design for Online Web Forms

noreply@blogger.com (Tushar Arora) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 13:03:00 +0000

Source - Jake Rocheleau

Designers aren’t just creating pleasing graphics for the Internet anymore. As a web designer you need to consider other properties of user interaction and coding. UX design is possibly the most important topic to cover, and this is especially true designing web forms. All webmasters should understand this message.

Your goal is to offer the simplest path for your users to move from filling out input forms to hitting the submit button. There isn’t a lot of special effects required, although jQuery form plugins have always been a popular topic. In this article I’d like to focus on the user interaction and how each visitor is experiencing your forms. There are techniques you can use to streamline the process which converts to less frustration in your audience.

Keep a Small Focus

I’ve heard dozens of users complaining about signup forms which require too much info. If you’re looking to increase user registrations then you want the form to be as simple to complete as possible. The same goes for newsletter signups and other similar types of input data.

The minimum number of fields will vary depending on your objectives. Registration forms may ask for a username, e-mail address, and 2 password fields. This is certainly reasonable and users looking to signup will be expecting about this length. But consider other signup forms such as the default WordPress style.

Here your visitors are only required a single username and e-mail address. The system then generates a password and sends an e-mail to the given address. This works to reduce original form size and keep spammers at bay. You don’t need to verify your e-mail through a link, but you do need access to your inbox to acquire your new login password!

Perform Actions as Expected

The one thing most users hate is unexpected page activity. You will absolutely want to keep your form behaving in a natural manner, and reduce any JavaScript extras to a minimum – popup guides and Ajax validation are key components. Usable forms shouldn’t be split into multiple columns and spanned across the page. This is just one example of poor technique.

Another mistake I run into often is misuse of the tabindex HTML property. This attribute is wonderful from a usability standpoint since your visitors can fill out forms even without a mouse. But if you have these numbered out of order, or only fill out a few input fields then the whole system is thrown off. This is certainly true with signup forms but even more-so with other types of input – especially online shopping carts.

Security is Priority #1

Whether you’re dealing with customer credit card numbers or simple e-mail addresses you should always put website security first. Visitors are trusting your website and backend code to process each form properly and store user data in a secure database.

If possible I recommend using an SSL certificate on your entire domain. This way users won’t just be protected during signup, but their entire viewing session will be protected via https. It can be a bit of work, but some web hosts like Fat Cow will actually aide you in the setup process. It’s certainly not a requirement for every site but it doesn’t hurt to go that extra mile for security. Your users will feel much safer, and it builds a level of trust going forward.

Additionally don’t fall for some of the more obvious ploys to detect data. Always use a POST data type in your forms unless the information isn’t exactly “private”. GET requests should only be used if the URL structure can benefit from the data(ex. search pages like search.php?q=my+search+terms).

Both of these methods will pass backend data in a similar fashion. But GET data is processed openly in the URL and is susceptible to hijacking. POST data is much more secure, especially behind an HTTPS connection. This fantastic guide by Think Vitamin explains the differences in an easy-to-digest format.

Large, Spacious Inputs

I have listened to a lot of arguments surrounding the sizes of web forms. Standard CMS brands including vBulletin, Joomla!, and Drupal use fairly smaller text sizes for input fields. These are generally default 10px-12px fonts with very little padding.

The signup form on Diigo has a very spacious layout! You need to alleviate room between the many different input elements. Also bold text lets you know which fields have been entered and which are still untouched. As you highlight each field the form responds with a faint blue tint – just a marker to let you know where your cursor stands.

The classic Digg registration form was designed and built in a very similar way. Twitter’s registration formis also oversized so you can’t miss a beat. They are not afraid to use extra white space which gives prominence to the input fields. Their system of labels is also very unique by setting placeholder text when the field is empty. By dropping the color to a light grey you can easily distinguish between user-added text and the field presets.

Dos and Don’ts of Web Design [It pays to be simple because it pays to be understood.]

noreply@blogger.com (Tushar Arora) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 04:14:00 +0000

Since the emergence of the Internet, the demands of web communication and web design has never been this demanding. Internet communication has come a long way since the series of memos written by J.C.R. Licklider of MIT in August 1962 discussing his “Galactic Network” concept. He envisioned the very initial concept of the internet that comprised of interconnected set of computers through which everyone could access data and information from any site.

Today we collectively stand on the edge where there is a need to find the next social structure that will potentially guide the internet into the future. It requires vision and motivation, and not only the use of technology in web design to direct its course into the future.

The essential ‘Dos’ while building your web design- for the savviest online customers in the history

1. Strategy and Planning: We need to realize that a great web strategy does not arrive from a cognitive boardroom. However, it’s guided by your customers. Conventional design strategies reacts of the choice people are known to make online, whereas a carefully thought strategic web planning anticipates the fundamental needs and desires of your customers to make those choices.

2. Involving advanced customer research as well as getting on-board deep analytics that helps to accentuate web communication and engagement of your Brand through your web-design.

3. Use the web media convincingly to start a compelling conversation between your brand and your customers… thus using this mode to interact and attract your customer through engaging web design presence.

4. Today’s web design is all about engaging with social media and social influencers to effectively position your brand through interactive web design.

The essential ‘Don’ts ‘while building your web design

1. Remember, that innovation cannot be forced. It has to be fostered. Therefore, by being too-innovative with your web design, you may end up annoying your customers.

2. Do not steal content of design concept from other sites. As all solutions need to be grounded to the realities of the business that the website is catering to, therefore it is quintessential to be original in both content and concept.

3. Do not overcrowd your web design. As the ability to extract value and enable the construction of meaning in the abundance and complexity of data and digital information has become poor. Therefore, do not over-complicate your website design. It pays to be simple because it pays to be understood.

10 Key Considerations for Your Mobile Web Design Strategy

noreply@blogger.com (Tushar Arora) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 09:14:00 +0000

Source - Brian Casel

There’s no turning back now. The web has gone mobile. More users are accessing the web from more places on more devices than ever before. What does this mean for web designers and site owners? It means that in every project we do, we must address a mobile strategy.

Your strategy will differ depending on what type of project you’re working on, but make no mistake, you do need some kind of strategy for how your website (or your client’s website) functions in the mobile space. Whether you’re designing a site that is mostly static (is anything on the web really static anymore?), a content-driven news site, or an interactive web application, it’s best to pursue a well-rounded approach — one that includes a thoughtful look at your mobile website user experience.

In this article, I aim to highlight 10 crucial items that you, as the web designer, developer or site owner, need to consider at the outset of your mobile site design project. These ideas touch on all aspects of a process, from strategy to design and implementation. But it’s important to be accountable for these points up front to ensure the successful launch of your mobile site.

1. Define Your Need for a Mobile Site

Usually a mobile website design project comes about through one of the following circumstances:

It’s a brand new website in need of both a desktop and mobile strategy.
It’s a redesign of an existing website, which will include a new mobile site.
It’s an addition of a mobile site to an existing desktop site, which won’t be changing.

Each of these circumstances brings a different set of requirements, which will help you determine the best way forward as you consider the items discussed below.

2. Consider the Business Objectives

In most cases, you, as the designer/developer are being hired by a client to design a mobile site for their business. What are the business objectives as they relate to the website, specifically the mobile site? As with any design, you’ll need to prioritize these objectives, then communicate that hierarchy in your design. When translating your design to mobile, you’ll need to take this a step further and focus on just a couple of top priority objectives for the business.

Take the website for Hyundai as an example. If you load hyundai.com in a desktop browser, the first thing you’ll see are big, bold images that evoke an emotional connection to their vehicles. In addition, you see a robust navigation, callouts to various benefits of owning a Hyundai, site search and social media links.

Now load hyundai.com in your mobile browser and you have a stripped-down version of the website. Yet the most prominent feature is still the same: a relatively big image of their latest vehicle model, followed by several other (mobile-optimized) images of vehicles. You don’t see the complex navigation and other callouts in the mobile version. They chose to focus their mobile site on their primary business objective, which is to evoke an emotional connection with their cars through bold imagery.

3. Study the Data of the Past Before Moving Forward

If this project is a redesign (most web design projects are these days), or an addition of a mobile site to an existing website, hopefully the site has been tracking traffic with Google Analytics (or another metrics tracking software). It is wise to study the data before diving into design and development.

Analyze things like which devices and browsers your users are accessing the site from. While you want to be sure the site is built with device support in mind, you can target these browsers as high priorities when you go from design, through development, testing and launch.

4. Practice Responsive Web Design

With so many new mobile devices being released every year, the days of checking your site in a few web browsers and launching are over. You’ll need to optimize your site for a vast landscape of desktop and mobile browsers, each bringing a different screen resolution, supported technologies, and user-base. As recommended in the well-known article Responsive Web Design, you can craft the desktop and mobile site experiences simultaneously. To quote from that article:

“Rather than tailoring disconnected designs to each of an ever-increasing number of web devices, we can treat them as facets of the same experience.”

Utilizing the latest and most forward-thinking web technologies like HTML5, CSS3, and web fonts, you can design your site to scale and adapt to any device it’s viewed on. That’s what we call responsive web design.

5. Simplicity Is Golden, But …

As a general rule of thumb when converting a desktop site design to mobile format, you want to simplify things wherever possible. There are several reasons for this. Keeping file size and load times down is always a good idea for a mobile site. Wireless connections — while faster than years past — are still relatively slow, so the faster your mobile site loads, the better.

Usability considerations on the mobile web also call for a simplified approach to design, layout, and navigation. With less screen real estate at your disposal, you need to choose your placement of elements wisely. In short: Less is more.

However, we can still create beautiful designs that are optimized for mobile. CSS3 gives us an amazing set of tools for creating things like gradients, drop-shadows, and rounded corners, all without resorting to bulky images. That’s not to say you can’t use images at all.

Check out these examples of mobile sites that strike a great balance between simplicity and beauty.

6. Single-Column Layouts Usually Work Best

As you think about layout, a single-column structure tends to work best. Not only does this help with managing limited space on the smaller screen, it also helps you easily scale between different device resolutions and flipping between portrait and landscape mode.

Using responsive web design techniques, you can take a multi-column desktop site layout and adapt it to a single-column layout. The new Basecamp mobile website does a great job of this.

7. Vertical Hierarchy: Think in Collapsible Terms

Does your site have a lot of information that needs to be presented on the mobile site? A good way to organize things in a simple and digestible way is to set up a collapsible navigation. Taking your single-column structure a step further, you can stack chunks of large content in folding modules that allow the user to tap open the content that they’re interested in and hide the rest.

Check out the mobile site for Major League Baseball. At the top of the page is a button labeled “Teams.” Tapping this extends the page, listing the 30 teams vertically in the single-column page.

8. Go From “Clickable” to “Tappable”

On the mobile web, interaction is done via finger taps rather than mouse clicks. This creates a very different dynamic in terms of usability.

When converting from a desktop to mobile site design, you have to revisit your “clickable” elements — links, buttons, menus, etc. — and make them “tappable.” While the desktop web lends itself well to links with small and precise active (clickable) areas, the mobile web requires larger, chunkier buttons that can be easily pressed with a thumb.

In addition, on the mobile web there is no hover state. Most of the time, when something is set up to occur on hover (like a dropdown navigation menu), it actually occurs on the first tap when viewed on a mobile device. The second tap on the mobile site does what the first click does on the desktop site. This may cause confusion for mobile users, which means you’ll need to re-work hover states for mobile.

9. Provide Interaction Feedback

Speaking of interaction, you’ll need to make sure you provide obvious feedback for any actions that occur on the front-end of your mobile site.

For example, when the user taps a link or button, it’s good practice to have that button visually change states to indicate it has been tapped and the action has been initiated. It’s common to see a white-colored link turn fully blue on the iPhone when tapped. This visual feedback is familiar to most users and you’d be wise to take advantage of it.

Another good practice is to include loading states for actions which may take a bit longer to load. Use an animated loading image to indicate something is in progress. Basecamp Mobile does a great job of this by showing a spinning loading gif as it loads the next page.

Remember, the desktop browsers have various indicators built-in to show that something is in progress. Mobile browsers don’t make it as obvious, so it’s important to build visual feedback into your mobile site design.

10. Test Your Mobile Website

As with any project, you’ll need to test your mobile website on as many devices as possible. Without owning all these devices, it can be somewhat tricky to find ways to accurately test for each. It will involve a combination of installing the developer SDK for the platform (like the iPhone SDK and Android SDK) and using web-based emulators for viewing other mobile platforms.

HTML5 Essentials and Good Practices

noreply@blogger.com (Tushar Arora) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:55:00 +0000

HTML5, together with CSS3 and responsive design are the new buzz around web technologies these days. This article will help you get started using HTML5 on your projects today and show you some good practices to put what you learned to good use.

Lets see a typical HTML5 page markup:

<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
   <title></title>
</head>
<body>
   <header>
       <h1></h1>
       <nav>
           <ul>
               <li><a href="#">link 1</a></li>
               <li><a href="#">link 2</a></li>
               <li><a href="#">link 3</a></li>
           </ul>
       </nav>
   </header>

   <section>
       <article>
           <hgroup>
               <h1>Post title</h1>
               <h2>Subtitle and info</h2>
           </hgroup>
           <p>Content goes here.</p>
       </article>
       <article>
           <!-- Another article here -->
       </article>
   </section>
   <aside>
       <!-- Sidebar here -->
   </aside>
   <footer></footer>
</body>
</html>

With some styling the structure of our page will be like the image below

Doctype

If you come from an HTML 4 or XHTML background, the first thing you might have noticed on the sample markup above, is the new doctype declaration. Really simple, just type it as you see it. And no reasons to worry, it is backwards compatible with all browsers. You can actually change it right now on all your html pages.

Apart from the new simple doctype declaration, you will see many new tags. Most of them are pretty much self explanatory but lets see them in detail.

Block level Elements

In HTML5 we no longer have to resort to “div-itis” to give structure to our page. We have a great selection of new block level elements that help us to create a semantic structure quickly and of course our code becomes more readable and maintainable.

With the new structural elements we can begin to forget about <div id=”header”> and <div id=”footer”> and start using the new <header> and <footer> tags. They work the same as a div but hey, less writing, more semantic code. We are also introduced to other new elements such as <section> <article> <nav> <aside> <hgroup> <figure> and <figcaption>.

The use of <header> and <footer> is obvious. The <nav> tag specifies the navigation links of our page instead of having <div id=”navigation”>. <aside> refers to a section of the page that is separated from the main content. It is mostly used for sidebars today, though some developers suggest it could be used to contain some secondary information for example, for articles.

<section> is used to give structure to our page and contain parts related to a certain theme while <article> can contain a blog post, news post, comment etc. A <section> can contain many <article> elements and an <article> element can contain many <section> elements.

We also have a new container for our headings <h1> to <h6> which is the <hgroup>. Finally we have a <figure> element which is container for a representational image, related to the content but its presence is not mandatory. The <figure> element can also contain a caption using the <figcaption> element.

Inline Elements

HTML5 introduces some new inline elements too. <time> and <mark> are a couple of these new ones that help to make our markup even more semantic.

<time> is used to display time semantically. You can choose to display time, date and both. Example below

<time datetime=”20:00”>8pm</time>

<mark> is used to highlight parts of content for example when a user searches for a specific term. Its difference from <strong> or <em> is that it gives no special meaning or importance to the content it highlights.

Media Elements

HTML5 also brings us some new media elements. We have <audio>, <video> and <embed> tags together with the <source> tag to specify media sources. The simplest way to use them is below

<!-- simple audio use -->
<audio src="audio-file.ogg" controls>
</audio>

<!-- simple video use with multiple sources-->
<video controls>
   <source src="video-file.mp4" type="video/mp4"/>
   <source src="video-file.ogv" type="video/ogg"/>
</video>

Unfortunately, support is not so great yet. Browser makers chose different filetypes and encoding for the sources they support so you have to use multiple versions of the same media with different encoding and you need a flash fallback to support even older browsers.

Canvas Element

One of the other great new features HTML5 has to offer, is the <canvas> element. It gives you the ability to draw shapes dynamically or even manipulate images. <canvas> by itself provides vast possibilities in modern web design and development but it is not a matter to discuss in this article.

Good Practices

With all those new elements some people are bound to get confused. Should we use a header inside an article to contain all the title info? Should we wrap every heading with an <hgroup>? To help you out, here are some good practices about these new elements.

The less is more motto stands in HTML5 markup too. For example when you have a single <h1> heading in your <article>, there is no need to wrap it with an <hgroup> tag. If you have two or more headings, then wrapping both of them with an <hgroup> would be a good use of the <hgroup> element.

<!-- incorrect use of hgroup -->
<article>
    <hgroup>
        <h1>Heading</h1>
    </hgroup>
    <!-- rest of content here -->
</article>

<!-- correct use of hgroup -->
<article>
    <hgroup>
        <h1>Heading 1</h1>
        <h2>Heading 2</h2>
        <h3>Heading 3</h3>
    </hgroup>
    <!-- rest of content here -->
</article>

Do you really need to have a <header> and a <footer> element on your <article>? Depends. Do you have many info regarding the article like multiple headings, date information, comment information etc? Then the <header> would have semantic meaning and would be used correctly. Again refrain in using too many elements when they are really not needed. No need to nest a single <h1> in a <header>. Same goes for the <footer> element. Do you have post information, author information etc? Then a <footer> would be appropriate.

<!-- incorrect use of header -->
<article>
    <header>
        <h1>Heading</h1>
    </header>
    <!-- rest of content here -->
</article>

<!-- correct use of header -->
<article>
    <header>
        <hgroup>
            <h1>Heading 1</h1>
            <h2>Heading 2</h2>
        </hgroup>
        <p>Date and Author information</p>
    </header>
    <!-- rest of content here -->
</article>

Should you use <section> or <article>? There really is only one way to tell whether you should use one of these elements. <section> refers to a structure that contains related content. <article> on the other side, contains independent content. So a <section> can have many <article>s and an <article> can have many <section>s. It all gets down to what the content is.

Do you use <aside> only for a sidebar structure? <aside> started out that way, but the specs have changed since then. Nowadays <aside> gets another semantic meaning when used inside an <article>. It denotes secondary content related of course to the main content inside the <article>. When used outside of an <article> it is still considered secondary content but for the page as a whole, sidebars being a perfect example.

<!-- aside outside of article -->
<div>
    <aside>
        <!-- use as sidebar for example -->
    </aside>
</div>

<!-- aside inside of article -->
<article>
    <!-- main article content here -->
    <aside>
        <!-- secondary related content -->
    </aside>
</article>

Browser support

Support is great for most of the new HTML5 tags, especially the block level ones. All you have to do to enable all the modern browsers to understand them, is to include the code below in you css file.

article, aside, figcaption, figure, footer, header, hgroup, nav, section
{
    display: block;
}

For IE, this is, of course, not enough. Still all you need to do, is include the html5shiv script when the page load in IE. Use the code below

<!--[if lt IE 9]>
<script src="http://html5shiv.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/html5.js"></script>
<![endif]-->

And that’s pretty much it. You can start using these new HTML5 elements today and make your markup much more semantic, readable and maintainable.

Optimizing your Website for Social User Experience

noreply@blogger.com (Tushar Arora) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 06:07:00 +0000

Source - Jake Rocheleau

Social web 2.0 trends have taken over many of our modern static websites. Nowadays it’s difficult to find a company who isn’t on Facebook or Twitter or Foursquare, or any of the other increasingly popular social networks. It’s important to consider this experience and how you can portray social connection in the eyes of your visitors.

I’ve provided a few ideas for sprucing up any web design for a positive social UX layout. You’ll need to consider a number of factors such as interactivity and page elements for user interaction. From what I’ve experienced your visitors will be noticeably more interested in branding than anything else. And this interest always leads to more signups, conversions, and sales.

Form a Community

One of the first tasks you can perform is to surround your visitors with a sense of membership and community support. There are a number of ways you can synthesize this feeling with different web elements. Facebook lets you create a small widget you can embed into your sidebar, and FB users can “Like” your website right within the page. Additionally this widget catalogs the number of Likes as well as recent users & profile pics. Check out the Facebook social plugins menu to see what I’m talking about.

This opportunity grants users a chance to connect with each other and consider the Internet community as a whole. If you run a blog through WordPress or Google Blogger it’s easy to update the comments form with Facebook connection as well. This means users can respond to each-other in real time and hold dynamic conversations.

Allow OAuth Connection

Most websites these days have some type of registration or login process. Members can sign up with their e-mail address and log in for extra functionality. But more web developers are getting into OAuth support for popular sites including Facebook and Twitter. These big players are of course a good option – but even smaller networks such as Instagram and Tumblr have support for Open Authentication.

You may be asking how this can really affect the user experience? Well for one thing it can dramatically cut down on registration time. Additionally users are not storing sensitive data such as passwords or e-mails within your database. OAuth connection verifies the user on the external party’s website and thus requires no personal account information on your end.

This also means your visitors won’t need to update any profile information to leave a comment on blog posts. All their personal data including username, display name, and avatar icon can be pulled from whichever network they use. Try reading a bit more about OAuth in our “Future of Web Design” article published last November.

Threaded User Comments

Threaded comment displays are a bit difficult to implement with your own code. If you have built a website around WordPress or another similar CMS you may be lucky enough to find a workable plugin. A quick Google search for WordPress threaded comments is likely to find at least a few results.

The biggest benefit is that you gain users interacting with one-another in detailed conversation. You’ll find a lot of different opinions about the content you publish, and with different threads you allow users to chain along in a few conversation topics. If you feel more comfortable with a dedicated comment system I recommend Disqus for WordPress.

They have plugins for other CMS engines such as Joomla! and Drupal. However WordPress is easily the most popular of the bunch and I feel this plugin is great for building up social interaction. Users aren’t required to log into your website at all – in fact as long as their Disqus account is logged-in they can comment immediately with their full credentials.

And while we’re considering custom comment systems I might recommend adding a variation of user voting. Digg really hit home with their old comments system, and Reddit threads are most valuable with user participation. In this mass-controlled system spam naturally gets buried while insightful and helpful remarks float towards the top.

Widgets & Badges

We’ve all run into the popular Digg-style voting badges around the web. These type of in-page widgets allow members of such networks to share and vote on your stories. The most popular examples include Reddit, StumbleUpon, Google+, Twitter, and of course a few others.

What social experience could be complete without direct access to social media sharing? Your visitors are likely going to use at least one of these services, if not many! If they enjoy your content these badges(when properly placed) make viral marketing just a few clicks away. But you certainly don’t want to go overboard with this trend.

It’s best to test out the waters and include a few different badges over a couple of weeks. Using this knowledge you can best choose which badges have the most impact based on your visitors. I’d limit to using 3-4 vote badges at most, unless your layout can support more.

Include Your Profile Links

And finally you want to include links back to your own social media profiles wherever convenient. As mentioned earlier you should definitely sign up for a couple of the most popular networks if you haven’t already. Twitter and Facebook are the biggest, and you can choose from other alternatives based on your niche.

Small businesses will likely see no point in a Friendster account or mlkshk. But joining LinkedIn may be a good idea for both networking with friends & possible customers. The mobile check-in serviceFoursquare could also prove helpful in drumming up local business.

Conclusion

These are just a few popular ideas for additional social outlets on your website. The Internet is a constant buzz of attention and information. More people are using the World Wide Web than ever before, and thus we’re more connected globally through alternative media. Your website will stand out among the crowd if you can successfully follow with the trends and keep your visitors connected in new and exciting ways.

21 Examples of Subtle Textures and Patterns in Web Design

noreply@blogger.com (Tushar Arora) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 07:26:00 +0000

Source - Gisele Muller

To kick things off for 2012, we’ve gathered some amazing examples of subtle textures and patterns in web design. The web sites in this collection demonstrate that you don’t always have to over do it to make a big impression. Sometimes it’s better to use subtle design elements so that the focus is on the content. In many of these examples you’ll notice that the textures and patterns used are barely noticeable at first glance, but just enough to add an extra layer of interest and depth.

I know you’ll get plenty of inspiration from these web designs, and hopefully they’ll help you come up with new ways to use subtle textures and patterns in your own projects.

create

Percival

Cast Iron Design

Beckin

The Neighborhood Studio

STRBK

dwd co

St Kilda High Hopes

Freitag

decode

Tabspresso

radoor & co

workdiary.de

Berg Cloud

Brad Evans

Viljami Salminen

What Happens Next?

John A Jacob

bloom

Preeti Cakes

bluebell giving

5 Small Biz Web Design Trends to Watch

noreply@blogger.com (Tushar Arora) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 11:02:00 +0000

Source - Grace Smith

The importance of having an attractive website that converts visitors into buyers and helps cleverly promote your small business is essential in these fiercely competitive times.

Your website has to capture a visitor's attention, entice him or her to stay and browse around, create an interest in your product or service, and result in sales. For small businesses with limited time and budgets, design is an essential factor in both attracting and converting potential customers.

With this in mind, here are five current design trends that most small businesses can utilize to great effect.

1. Minimalism

While this web design style has been popular for some time, it's worth revisiting as no small business owner wants to turn visitors away with a cluttered, overbearing and hard to navigate website.

Minimalist design effectively strips away the excess and helps the user concentrate squarely on the content. If a page has too many elements, the user will easily become confused about where to focus on, with many elements vying for attention.

With page weight now affecting your Google search engine position, it's the perfect time to reassess how streamlined your design is.

There are several principles and steps you can follow to create a more minimalist design:

1. Go through your site and prune any unnecessary widgets or elements which aren't serving a real purpose.

2. Make good use of whitespace, which is the space between different elements of a design. Used well, it will allow for easier scanning of your site and help frame the elements on each page.

3. With fewer elements, choosing the right color palette or accent color is critical. As color has great significance and meaning, it's best to test how certain colors interact with each other.

4. Browse your site through the eyes of your visitors, evaluating if there is too much information, confusing or off-putting elements, or sufficient calls to action. Answering these types of questions truthfully will help you prioritize the essential elements.

A minimalist design doesn't have to be bland and boring; it can easily be modern, fresh, sophisticated, elegant or refined, based solely on the details within the design.

2. Unique Photography

Two men shaking hands, a group of people in suits sharing a joke, the call center girl: these are all tired, clichéd images that litter thousands of business websites. These types of images fail to convey either information on the company or a sense of the site's character, and are essentially meaningless.

Using custom photography or artwork whenever possible is recommended, though for small business owners, both time and budget are limited and stock photos are a relatively cheap and accessible resource.

So when choosing stock imagery, it's best to keep in mind these four tips:

1. Research your competitors and industry and take note of the images used. You can then find a unique way to represent your product or service.

2. Avoid being too literal in your choice of imagery as abstract compositions often give a more dramatic and memorable effect.

3. Don't always opt for the cheaper low-res image, as pixelated imagery devalues your overall design and looks unprofessional.

4. Veer away from the bland and predictable and let the images 'break out of the box'.

Imaginative imagery will reinforce your brand message and add greater character to your website. So, when you must use stock imagery, do so with great care and take the time to find the right piece that will convey the true personality of your service or product.

3. Bold Typography

Web design at its core is about communication, and typography is a vital component of that. Great web typography helps bring order to information and creates a coherent, visually satisfying experience that engages the reader without their knowing.

A recent trend is the use of big, bold typography which helps to create contrast between other text while grabbing a user's attention. Oversized text can help create hierarchy and ensure users understand your message loud and clear.

In order to utilize typography to create a bold statement, keep in mind the following tips:

1. Determine the single most important message you want to emphasize, as too many messages can lead to choice paralysis. Understand the qualities of the message you are trying to convey, and then look for typefaces that embody those qualities.

2. Choose a typeface that will match the character of your work. For instance, if your company embodies the feel of an Old Style font, you should consider Bembo, Garamond and Sabon. It will also greatly depend on what you want to convey with the type, because legibility is as important as the character of the type.

3. Give the typography the prominent position it deserves by surrounding it with a generous amount of whitespace. This will add emphasis and create even more focus on the typography.

4. Test out some of the various font replacement options such as Typekit or Typotheque. These allow you to license fonts to embed within your site, and help you to experiment with beautiful typography.

Typography is an art and the decisions you make are subjective; however, carefully selecting a typeface can make a huge difference to the quality of your design.

4. Clear Calls to Action

As a small business owner you want your visitors to complete a certain task when they land on your page. It could be to download, sign up or checkout, but these calls to action are one of the most important (and overlooked) elements in a small business website.

You want to grab your visitor's attention and move him or her to take action. Crafting a clear, concise call to action is essential.

Here are four tips to keep in mind when designing a call-to-action button or advertisement:

1. Language: Keep the wording short and snappy (always start with a verb), but also explain the value behind the action the user is taking. In some instances it also helps to create a sense of urgency using words such as 'now', 'hurry' and 'offer ends,' with 'free' being the number one incentive.

2. Positioning: Ideally, calls to action should be above the fold, and be placed on every page of the site in a consistent position. For instance, Squarespace (shown above), not only has a large call-to-action button at the top of the page, but also has a slightly smaller button in the footer of every page.

3. Color: The color should make the call stand out from the rest of the design. Brighter, more contrasting colors usually work best for smaller buttons. For larger buttons, you may want to choose a less prominent color (but one that still stands out from your background), so as to balance out its size.

4. Size: The call-to-action button should be the largest button on any given page. You want it to be large enough to stand out without overwhelming the rest of the design

It's vital you test different combinations of call-to-action buttons and see how each affects your conversion rates (see A/B Testing below). It's also best to make sure they fit within your overall design.

5. A/B Testing

With competition growing fiercer online, it's important for small businesses to have a website thatconverts visitors to buyers and creates a competitive edge. That's why it is important to continually measure and improve site performance, usability and conversions.

One of the foremost ways of optimizing your web design is via A/B testing (sometimes referred to as split testing). An A/B test examines the effectiveness of one landing page over another. The two versions are randomly shown to site visitors to see which generates the best results. You then evaluate the performance of each and use the best version.

Various elements can be tested, including, layouts, copy, graphics, fonts, headlines, offers, icons, colors and more. Here are a few tips for A/B testing:

1. Clearly define your goal before beginning any test. For example, if you wanted to increase sign-ups, you might want to test the following: type of fields in the form, length of the form, and display of privacy policy.

2. Start with elements that will have the biggest impact for minimum effort. For instance, you could tweak the copy on your checkout button to see if conversions can be improved.

3. Don't use A/B testing in isolation as this alone won't give you a well-rounded picture of your users. Instead, use other feedback tools, such as Feedback Army or User Testing, in conjunction with A/B testing to get in-depth analysis of user behavior.

A/B testing won't make a bad design great, but it will prove an effective aid in optimizing your current design's usability and conversions until you decide to overhaul your website design completely.

These are just five web design trends that small businesses can take part in to enhance their websites. Which web design changes would make the most sense for your small business? Let us know in the comments below about any additional design trends that you have spotted in the small business world.

Top 5 Web Design Mistakes Small Businesses Make

noreply@blogger.com (Tushar Arora) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 08:47:00 +0000

Source - Grace Smith

If you're a small business owner, your website is the central hub of your company, and it's a pivotal part of your marketing and branding.

Potential customers visit your site specifically for its content—its appearance and usability are critical to its success and how those users view your company. Getting your Web design wrong can have a very negative impact on your business.

Here are five common design mistakes to avoid in order to create a great user experience and grow your bottom line.

1. Poor navigation

Many small business websites fail to make navigation a priority, but without careful attention to how people navigate your site, you could unintentionally be creating a frustrating experience for any potential visitor. People visit your site for specific information, and if they cannot find it they will quickly go elsewhere, leaving with the impression that your business is disorganized in more than just its website.

A good navigation structure should be seamless and will keep visitors on your site longer, which means potentially more readers, subscribers, sales or leads.

Website navigation affects usability and accessibility, so make it a primary concern. Most websites and blogs use fairly common navigational techniques that are expected by the average visitor. The pages and sections of the site should be easy and logical for visitors to maneuver. Don't make your visitors think about how to navigate your site: It should be effortless and natural.

There are several principles you can follow to create an effective navigation structure:

• Use icons to aid navigation, as these are both visually appealing and easy to use and understand.

• Create logical groups of related links, with the most important links on the top-level navigation bar and functional (dashboard, account, settings, etc.) and legal (copyright, privacy, terms) located elsewhere.

• Provide location information so users know where they are on any given page and how to proceed to another area of the website. This can be achieved by using Breadcrumb navigation.

2. No Clear Calls To Action

The fundamental error of many small business websites is the lack of a clear call to action. We've all seen bland small business brochure websites with nothing but endless descriptive paragraphs. If you aren't leading the user to commit to an action—buy a product, contact you or subscribe—then you are losing them.

Driving traffic to your website is important, but that traffic is useless if your primary call to action is a plain "click here" link buried in a sea of text. Call to action buttons are a great way to grab the users attention, and they can be the key to higher conversions. Investing time and consideration into creating successful calls to action can help guide the user and address their needs while achieving your own business goals.

It's important to keep the following best practices in mind when creating an optimal call to action:

• The design of a call to action can be broken down into 4 simple elements—size, shape, color, and position. Each plays a vital part in determining how effective the call to action is in directing the user.

• Don't make your users work or think, or they'll leave. It's not that they aren't smart, it's that they want access to information quickly without spending unnecessary time searching for it.

• Don't overdo it with multiple, competing calls to action on every page. Decide what your primary target is and then define a clear objective per page. Your content should have answered, "What's in it for me?" and your call to action should now answer, "What do I do now?"

3. Color & Contrast

Color and contrast aren't usually high up on the list of priorities for a small business owner when it comes to creating a website. But it should be, because if your website text does not have sufficient contrast compared to its background, people will have difficulties reading your content, especially people with poor vision or color-blindedness.

Aside from plain readability, color and contrast are important because they can be used to create visual interest and direct the attention of the user. It can equally be effective in organizing and defining the flow and hierarchy of a page, and it's therefore an essential principle to pay attention to during the design process. Here are some tips:

• Using a free a Color Contrast tool, which conforms to accepted standards, you can easily check to see how the contrast on your website measures up.

• Research how major sites use color and contrast to improve readability and highlight specific sections, and use this knowledge to experiment with color schemes.

• One of best ways to create contrast is via a size difference between two elements, making some things appear larger than others. This works especially well within a minimal color scheme, and it means you don't have to necessarily rely on color.

4. Content, Content, Content

People visit your website for its content, and how that is structured is a huge factor in its success or failure. Unfortunately, an overwhelming number of small businesses get so caught up in overloading the user with information that they overlook how that information is presented.

Most people do not read unless it's absolutely necessary, and they prefer to scan through information quickly to get to the points of interest. This is why it's so important to establish a strong visual content hierarchy so users can quickly scan your site and sifting through relevant information. A logical content hierarchy also acts as a guide through each page and creates a more enjoyable user experience.

So when focusing on your content, it’s best to keep in mind these three tips:

• White space is possibly the most important factor to consider, as it will allow the user to focus on the meaningful content within each section.

• Break up lengthy pieces of information into digestible blocks of text, utilizing headings, sub-headings, bullets, blockquotes and paragraphs.

• Readable content is important, so use a good line height that is large enough to make content scannable. Margins and letter spacing also need to be taken into consideration.

Of course, when talking about content, it goes without saying that spelling and grammar cannot be underestimated.

5. Clutter

We all know at least one small business website that seems to include everything but the proverbial kitchen sink. Many small business owners tend to cram as much as they can onto a single page—the end result is a busy, cluttered and unreadable page.

The more extraneous items there are on a web page, the more unprofessional it looks, and it becomes overwhelming, confusing and distracting for the user. A cluttered website will also affect traffic because visitors won't return if they can't understand or follow the content, which leads to low traffic, a high bounce rate and possibly a poor page rank.

Clutter also applies to images, as too many can be a huge distraction and just plain annoying. Images should be used to illustrate, capture attention and guide the user where required.

Follow these guidelines for a more streamlined visitor experience:

• Challenge every item on each page and ask, "Does it really need to be there? Does it serve a specific purpose? Can I live without it?"

• The key is to aid the visitor in finding the information they're looking for, so make sure to differentiate between areas of content, advertisements and promotions.

• Prioritize your content and decide what is the most important to your visitor and potential customer—and sell it well.

Even the greatest content can become lost in a mess of words and graphics, so de-cluttering is essential.

These are just five web design mistakes that many small businesses make. What other mistakes have you noticed on small business websites?

How people view websites differently : Facebook Example

noreply@blogger.com (Tushar Arora) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 06:22:00 +0000

Source - Sarah Kessler

Your social media profiles have morphed as the sites they live on have changed. So has the way people view them.

To get a better idea of how profile design affects profile viewers, Mashable asked eye-tracking research startupEyeTrackShop to compare visual statistics for Twitter, Facebook and MySpace profiles before and after major site redesigns. The company had 30 people to look at the profiles while tracking their eye movements. Here are some interesting observations from the resulting data:

Facebook Timeline cover photos get noticed first. However, study participants still spent a longer time looking at the Facebook Timeline profile photo than the cover photo.
Facebook ads get noticed more in Facebook Timeline. While 43% of participants noticed Facebook “sponsored stories” in the old profile format, 63% noticed the ads in the Timeline format. Participants spent the same amount of time on average looking at the ads in each profile.
Personal information such as employer and location gets more attention in the new Facebook Timeline. Viewers spent an average 2.2 seconds looking at this section in the new format, which includes images, but only 1.6 seconds looking at this section in the old format

Hence, we can say website designing holds important stage in actually driving business to right places on your web-page.

20 Inspiring Examples of Colorful Web Designs

noreply@blogger.com (Tushar Arora) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 05:43:00 +0000

Source - Web Designer Ledger

We will show you how colors can give your design a nice and personal style. From small details and colorful typography to completely colorful backgrounds, there are a lot of colors to inspire you.

The Neighbourhood

Shelton Fleming

Captain Dash

Dangers of Fracking

10 years in type

Brooks – Shoe Advisor

Shoppub

Life in my Shoes

espacio creativo

Macquarie University – Green Campus

La Maddalena

Kinetic

Pioneer Steez

small studio

Adrian Baxter

Gimme

Nike Vision

Formfett

Foundry Collective

Protest

Latest trends for website design in 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Tushar Arora) — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 09:59:00 +0000

Source - Web design Ledger

It’s that time of year again, where we look into our crystal ball to see what will be the hot trends in web design for the upcoming year. It’s no secret that trends come and go, with some hanging around longer than they should. (Yes, splash page, I’m talking about you.) But trends are a necessity in the development and growth of our craft. Trends are born, improved upon, and often spawn other trends. So as a web designer, when you apply trends to your projects, challenge yourself to expand upon them and make them your own.

As you read this article, keep in mind that the shift in trends from one year to the next may be subtle, and you will probably recognize some of these trends already. But it’s our estimation that the concepts we mention below will grow and become even bigger in 2012.

1. Responsive Web Design

I believe eventually, we’ll all stop talking about responsive web design – not because it will go away, but because it will become what’s expected. However, I don’t think this will happen in 2012. It’s still too new of a concept, and there are many web designers that are not familiar with it at all.

The continued introduction and adoption of more an more mobile devices is what will make 2012 the year of the responsive web site. Web designers and developers will move to the use of fluid layouts instead fixed width, and media queries will find their way into many more stylesheets – allowing more sites to easily be viewed across multiple screens sizes and devices.

2. Fixed-Position Navigation

We have all run into this technique at some point, mostly on personal websites or individual blogs. I have seen a large drop in this trend during 2010-2011, but a resurgence has been appearing over the last few months.

If your website doesn’t have a lot of main navigation then you only need to provide a few small links. So why not keep these visible to each user at all times? This can dramatically improve website performance and even blend into the overall page layout with ease. The concept idea is to keep the navbar and internal links/logo locked in place as your visitors scroll through the content.

jQuery has allowed for very rapid prototyping of this effect. And even without JavaScript enabled you can apply some fancy CSS code to replicate the sticky nav effect. Most of the static navigation bars in 2011 have followed the user’s movement around from page to page. Yet in the example below Simon Wuyts has taken fixed navigation into a new level.

You never consider keeping your webpage content set into a slideshow-like panel for easy display. Not only does this remove the worry of screen resolution, but the navigation system is easy to work with and carries over nicely into mobile browsers. You may seriously consider this technique and all the major benefits during a 2012 site layout re-design.

3. Circles

This trend has actually been noticeable in web design for a bit, yet it recently had died down to lay low for a couple years. During the web 2.0 boom designers were focusing more on desktop-based trends such as drop shadows and rounded corners. But with CSS3 it’s now easier than ever to create these fancy box effects.

Additionally you can design circles and shapes without the need for any images. The impact of these features has caused designers to look at photos in another light entirely. I constantly check out portfolios for web designers and have noticed a dramatic increase in circular-shaped elements. These archetypes can be setup as navigation links, footer icons, or even displaying important portfolio works as seen below.

But the most extreme examples aren’t always the best. Circular shapes are smooth and encourage eye contact from your visitors. Use these to single out specific areas in your design such as listings to helpful resources and pages. Just the shape itself is pleasing enough to be dropped into the background and still hold a delightful effect.

4. Big Vector Art

The goofy oversized mascots you can spot throughout websites have begun to claim a brand of their own. Just a few years ago you could not find very much illustration work tied into web branding. But the quality of individual designer’s talent has improved greatly. And I can think of no better marketing brand than a lovable vector-based creature.

The many faces attributed to Mozilla and Firefox are just the tip of the iceberg. MailChimp is another great example which has set the bar higher than ever before. The infamous mailman monkey is featured all throughout the website and also throughout their iOS and Android apps.

Additionally the small businessman found throughout Freelance Switch really sticks in my mind. There are a slew of unique vector dudes to be found in their layout. This kind of practice has adapted into a whole new realm of website aesthetics. And if the year 2011 has shown anything it’s that 2012 will be chock-full of these adorable vector logos!

5. Multi-Column Menus

Contrary to our previous example, there are times when a website consists of way too many links to handle. Reasonably the standard type of navigation gets too messy and congested unless you move links into the sidebar. But user experience testing has shown very good results in keeping core links towards the top of pages.

This new year of trends offers designers a new chance at rebuilding. Ideas are often so black and white, but there is a whole realm of creativity waiting to be tapped into. Multi-column layouts are elegantly brilliant in their own regard. You can easily display numerous links to your visitors and keep this section fitted squarely around your logo.

The best way to get comfortable with this style is practice. Check out some recent articles on the topic to educate yourself about trends in web navigation. Designers are eagerly jumping into the testing arena with new ideas every year. Clearly the reform of standard navigation is a big one on everybody’s plate.

6. jQuery/CSS3/HTML5 Animation

I have always recommended jQuery effects when applied in small portions. Web design must encompass the whole user experience as well as fancy aesthetics and bonus animations. Luckily advances in the jQuery library as well as CSS3 specifications allow for some really outstanding effects with much fewer lines of code than ever before.

In just this past year alone I have run into some educational tutorials to be found all over the web. jQuery is the master of frontend browser effects but unfortunately doesn’t boast 100% major support. Thus using a fallback method tied into CSS means your website is compatible with mostly all visitors and still provides an exceptional experience. I can only imagine what developers are planning for new ideas to roll out as we move closer into 2012.

7. Ribbons & Banner Graphics

This is one design element which I had begun noticing a lot more in 2011. Designers began to write simplified tutorials for creating page ribbons, banners, bookmarks, or other types of display badges. Because of the massive emergence of free information more designers have begun jumping into the trends, too.

You would be surprised how many websites have included this style of design in just 6 short months. Beta testers often use these ribbons to classify the current release version of software and mobile apps. Additionally you’ll find banners wrapped around free downloads or featured articles in blogs. I’ve collected a few of my favorite ribbon PSD downloads below, so check them out and be sure to keep your eyes peeled for additional freebies in the coming months.

8. Custom Font Faces

The free online font library Typekit provides a free trial for any interested web designers. With this tool you embed a bit of JavaScript which allows you to write any custom font into CSS styles. In 2011 this trend has shot up in popularity, especially among WordPress designers trying to keep their blogs unique from the rest.

Typekit was however a buggy system with very little support up until a few years ago. Now Google Web Fonts has been giving them a run for their money, and it appears to be more popular than ever! You simply go through a library of supported fonts and Google will output the code you need to include. Then you simply reference each font by name when declaring CSS font-family properties on an HTML element.

What I find so exciting about this trend is how recently it has shot into the mainstream. It seems now even developers are creating free plugins to make custom fonts just that much easier to install. There is no uploading of fonts required, no stress involved and very little to go wrong. Bloggers should take notice of this and check out some of the alternative fonts available to them.

9. Infographics

This trend certainly doesn’t affect the overall web design, but as for user experience and content presentation infographics have blown the roof off new-age media. Never before has information been presented in such an easy-to-consume manner. Even if you barely understand the topic most infographics provide data, charts, and supporting imagery so that a 5 year old child could follow along.

Depending on the type of website you may find this trend not all too useful. It can take a lot of practice and time spent slaving away in Photoshop to perfect these works of art. Yet if you have the talent ordrive to teach yourself I say go for it! Now more than ever before the Internet has become a place we can all gather and share information. Infographics have expedited this process using the World Wide Web as a presentation medium.

10. Focus on Simplicity

Ultimately the goal of any website is to get your visitors from point A to B as quickly as possible. Simple, intuitive interfaces are the way of our future. In just the past 5 years I have noticed most of the popular design trends stemming from minimalism. This idea is not ill-founded, as the lesser number of page elements to distract visitors will naturally keep them focused on their goal(s).

We can provide so many examples of this, and there are so many areas to cover. Earlier this May we covered a fine gallery of minimalist websites which pose as examples to perfection. Depending on the type of website you have there may be too many required interface pieces to coordinate a simplistic overtone.

But to rearrange a layout into a clean setup doesn’t require minimalism at the heart of it all. Spend some time writing and drafting out ideas for your navigation, page hierarchy, headings, content area etc. I find that a little bit of pre-planning can go a long way towards simplifying everything.

Conclusion

These design trends are just some of the few to keep up with as we move forwards into 2012. The year is unpredictable and nobody can say for sure what to expect. I think the facts are obvious that your average web designer has been learning much quicker in recent years than ever before in history. As such we could only expect plenty of innovation and new semantics ushering us into a golden age of technology and massive Internet awareness.

Latest trends for website design

noreply@blogger.com (manik1383) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 12:14:00 +0000

Source - Web design Ledger
There is a thin line between design and development, and as we move into a new decade, this line is becoming extremely blurry. Is it enough to draw beautiful mock ups in Photoshop? Maybe 5 years ago. These days, the average internet user requires more. All beauty, with no substance, gets boring after a while. If your only goal is to impress a community of fellow designers with your flashy designs, you’ll find yourself quickly beneath the tide. 2011 is not about beauty, it’s about function. The trends for this new year and emerging decade are responsive design, constant connection and virtual reality.

How will you stay relevant as a designer in 2011? The ultimate goal of a designer is not to dazzle but to entangle. Any designer can get ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ that are easily forgotten. The supreme designer is able to create an environment which charms and captivates the user to the point where he does not want to find the ‘Back’ button. Several elements come together to forge such a wonderland: harmonious color scheme, intuitive design, easily accessible information and fast response. Additionally, one can never under-estimate the power of simplicity. Of course, this has always been the case, but in 2011, you are no longer at the forgiving discretion of the desktop, or even laptop, computer. Now, your design must contend with smart phones, netbooks, tablets and the like. Are you ready?
Take a gander at the top 11 trends for 2011.

1. More CSS3 + HTML5

What a gratifying sigh of relief! CSS3 and HTML5 have been on the distant horizon of web design for the past couple of years, but now, in 2011, we see an explosion of it. Designers are finally starting to let go of Flash. However you may feel about Flash, you do know that it does not play well with some of the hot, new technology available to your current and potential visitors. In 2011, you will slowly step away from Flash and embrace the magic known as HTML5. Look at the amazingly similar comparison:

Now that’s shown, please understand that Flash and HTML5 are not equal opponents. There is plenty of room for both in 2011. The problem is that designers in 2010 (and before) misused Flash. Case in point, very rarely should your entire site be made of Flash, especially these days. HTML5 alleviates some of the burden we have placed on Flash. However, HTML5 cannot (yet) replace the extraordinary design elements we can achieve through Flash.
Perhaps even more exciting is the fact that CSS3 is available to us in a real way this year. Move over Photoshop (wow, Adobe just cannot rest), because CSS3 is making short work of text shadow, border radius and image transparency. If you have not already begun, now is the time to really delve into understanding CSS3 and HTML5.

2. Simple Color Schemes

Simplicity. There’s nothing quite as impacting as an honest message on a quiet backdrop. Quiet can be interpreted several different ways. Forget black and white or shades of gray. Think of green, yellow or even red as your primary color. However, limit your palette to two or three colors. Work within the shades of each color for variety. It can be truly remarkable what a few colors can do for your message. Observe:

Shades of green create this Twitter visualization tool. Side note: this site was created with XHTML/CSS and Javascript.

Red can be jarring if done incorrectly. This site gets it right by subduing the color’s overwhelming personality with easy-to-read high contrast text.

3. Mobile Ready

Smartphones, iPads, netbooks, oh my! There’s a dizzying amount of mobile products available to the consumer in 2011. This means your web design must be responsive to multiple viewports.
Creating a mobile ready website is not simply removing the bells and whistles from your design. This can create a vacant and impersonal design. Although not impossible, distilling the magic from your original design into a pure representation of your brand is tough! Fortunately, technology is quickly removing this burden.
With the help of CSS3, primarily media queries, mobile web design has taken a big leap forward (more on this later). One of the most important advances is that you can design a whole site and allow your coding to conform to the user’s viewing medium.
It may be tempting to just create a dedicated mobile site, but that may no longer satisfy your audience. Increasingly, mobile sites include the option to visit the original site. If you do not offer this option or if your original site is not optimized to mobile standards, you are simply not ready for 2011. Forecasters predict that smartphones will outsell personal computers this year. Bulletproof your design to meet this demand.

4. Parallax Scrolling

Parallax scrolling: not just for old school video games. As aforementioned, the hot web design trend for 2011 is creating a sense of depth. What better way to create that than with parallax scrolling? The parallax effect uses layers to present the illusion of a 3 dimensional space. It can be accomplished with some simple CSS tricks or the help of jQuery plugins like Spritely. Parallax scrolling can be most effective as a secondary element on your design, for example, as a header, footer, or background. Making it an integral part of your navigation may prove frustrating for your site visitor.

The Old Pulteney Row to the Pole website uses a top down parallax scrolling effect for the background. This adds a nice subtle amount of depth and lots of interest.

5. Designing for Touch Screens, Not Mice

Technology has become much more tactile. Usability is shifting from abstract to tangible. This means that instead of navigating your mouse to remotely connect, your destination is literally at your fingertips. Tablets, most smartphones and some desktops use touchscreens. Does your design accommodate fingertip navigation?
How much of your design is mouse-oriented? As designers, we worship mice. Our links light up when the mouse hovers over. However, there’s no hovering in touchscreen. How will your design indicate links to your visitors? What about drop-down menus? That’s also a no-go in touchscreen design.
Similarly, how will visitors peruse your site? As controversial as it may be for standard web browsing, horizontal scrolling may be more appropriate for touchscreens. Fitting nicely into this niche is a magazine-like layout where visitors virtually flip through your site.
Lastly, consider using liquid layouts as part of your commitment toward responsive design. In 2011, you are no longer dealing with screen resolution size. Visitors can change their viewing orientation from vertical to horizontal. Your design must be flexible to meet any challenge, or you will be a relic of 2010.

Baby sees the iPad Magic, Copyright Steve Paine, Flickr

6. Depth Perception in Web Design

No, we are not dealing with the aerial ‘I can see your coffee cup and keyboard on your website’ design of two years ago. Depth perception is about creating dimension in your web design, so that parts of your site looks nearer than others. It conjures a faux 3D effect when done masterfully. Remember what it felt like watching the blockbuster 3D movie, Avatar? The elements jumped off of the screen, quite literally.
Although 3D technology has no yet made it to web design, you can still replicate depth in your design.

This playful website features a rotatable, 3D planet and makes use of depth with well-placed shadows and layering.

Eye-catching and smart, this celebration of Jordan (both the man and shoe) is thoroughly entertaining. The 3D elements are crisp and simple, which what makes them so stunning.

7. Large Photographic Backgrounds

Large scale backdrops will surge in 2011. These images will be high resolution, and covering the entire site. Large photos are an instant way to grab your audience– they cannot help but to see it and have an opinion about it. The background photo must be content-appropriate. Simply having a pretty image in the background without any context will disrupt your user’s experience. Trends point to soft and slightly transparent imagery that does not over shadow your content, but harmonizes with it.

This site makes use of high-resolution photos and the predominant color is yellow throughout.

This site adds playful animation with its grand scale imagery. Warning: auto-play music.

8. Adventurous Domain Names & Integration

Although not in the strictest sense a web design issue, look forward to seeing more creative domain names. The once-coveted .com domain has lost a lot of its appeal– primarily because you have to think up words in Na’Vi in order to find a domain that has not been thought up yet. 2011 will see a more wide-spread venture away from .com and into more whimsical domains like .me or .us. Think of the possibilities and scoop it up before it’s gone.

.me is a great domain to use for personal portfolios, or blogs, especially if you want a seperate identity from your corporate brand.

Another example of .me integration.

9. QR: Quick Response

If you have noticed those square barcodes popping on business cards, magazines or else where, you may already know that they are a hot trend for 2011. How exactly does it translate into web design? Amazingly well, in fact.
The barcodes are called QR, short for Quick Response. Simply take a photo of the unique barcode with your camera phone. Like magic, your phone will call up the website associated with said barcode. The beautiful thing about QR is that you can use it in a myriad of ways. Feature your QR on your website, in order for site visitors to have a shortcut to your mobile site. You can also track your visitors through QR, by placing a special referral code on your URL. When you are leaving comments on sites such as this, use the QR as your avatar.
2011 is all about mobility and it will be smart to take advantage of this new medium.

This is the QR for the author’s personal website. Create your own code here.

10. Thumbnail Design

The ever-enterprising folks at Google have introduced the average user to thumbnail browsing. Gone are the days of clicking through to see the content of a website. These days, you just click on the magnifying glass and hover (assuming you’re not on a touchscreen). Magically before you is a glimpse of what waits on the other side of your click.
If your design is Flash-based, that is definitely going to be a problem. The preview will not display those elements of your design.
As the average internet user becomes more surfing-savvy in 2011, expect to see more people navigating by these means. It is just too great of a temptation not to judge a site by its thumbnail.

11. Constant Connection/ Life Stream

Last, but certainly not least, is the focus on constant connection in web design. The internet is, by nature, a sterile environment, and we make it human by sharing our lives in an open forum. Expect to see more intimacy through the form of lifestreaming. Personal blogs and portfolios in 2011 will prominently feature live Twitter feeds (not just a link to the Twitter page). People will let you know where they are at any moment of the day via Foursquare. In fact, expect to see a dedicated lifestream for all of one’s online activity. 2011 will definitely bring out our inner, creepy stalker, no doubt about it.

A personal site that utilizes lifestreaming.

About the Author
Jacqueline is an artist and a writer who spends an inordinate amount of time playing Super Nintendo and watching Star Trek. You can find out more about Jacqueline on her website, and follow her updates on Twitter.