Web
page design has become quite complicated due to the rapid advances in
technology. Still, you can make your life much easier if you plan your
web site in advance of building it.
1. Who is Your Audience?
Before you even begin to build a Website, consider your audience. Before you spend a lot of time and effort, it is necessary to do some do keyword research to see if your product or service is a viable solution.
2. Create a Storyboard
There is an old expression in programming which states: "The sooner you start to code the longer it takes to finish." With that in mind, the first step you should observe is to create a storyboard, essentially a flow chart that you build on paper. If you run into problems, they are much easier to fix here than during the process of building your Web site.
3. Visit Forums and Blogs
Another important research technique is to find out what users actually want. In this case, visit forums and blogs that cater to your interest and find out what users have to say on the subject.
4. Viewing Size
Viewing size is how the user will see your finished design. Unfortunately, this can vary widely depending on the size of the viewing area and whether the browser is maximized or not. According to some online research, a good starting point is to design your Web pages for a maximum viewing size of 776 x 424 pixels in order to reach 95% of visitors. If you decide to design for a larger viewing size, be aware that some users might have to scroll to see the entire page, which will detract from your overall design.
5. Consistency
A big problem with Website design is a lack of consistency. To fix the problem, consider using templates. In many cases, you will save yourself a lot of time and effort. One option to consider is to use Wordpress to build your sites. It offers many templates, both free and professional.
6. Use CSS
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) are very important for maintaining consistency. Simply making a change to your CSS will immediately update the entire site (assuming that the CSS document is linked to all pages).
7. Keep it Simple
Too many Web designers are seduced by technology and wind up building unnecessarily complicated sites. In reality, simple is better. Your message will be clearer and more direct.
8. Image Slicing
Occasionally, a web designer will want to use an image that covers the entire page. The down side is that such an image is likely to be quite large and could take quite awhile to load. This poses a danger because if the image takes too long to load (roughly ten seconds), you run the risk of losing your audience. The solution is image slicing, which breaks the image into sections that load a bit at a time. This lets the user know that the image is in the process of loading and they are more likely to wait until the process is finished. Another option is to consider creating a web gallery. In this case, one page would show a number of thumbnails, which, when clicked upon would open another page which contains a larger image.
9. Use Stock Photography
Building a Web site is often a time intensive process, especially when it comes to creating images. One simple (and often inexpensive) solution is to use Stock Photography. Many options exist, such as rights-protected or royalty-free imagery.
10. Use Comps
A comp is a low-resolution image that you can download from many Stock Photography sites and use as part of your layout. With such an image you'll be able to see if your design "works," or not.
Ease of Maintenance
Just about the time you think it’s all finished, you get new ideas, new products or services – things change. There are lots of changes you’ll be wanting to do with your website as time marches forward. Sometimes you’ll want to add new content, remove old content or just make some changes to existing content on your website.
With content management system, making changes like these is as easy as using a word processor. Type your content and use the editing menu to add styles, color, hyperlinks, and so forth. Browse with your mouse to upload images to include in your articles. You can even include multimedia.
Think about what this means. You can log into your website's administration area, and add a new article or change an existing one. You can add a new product or change a description or price - all in less than five minutes!
Joomla won't just save you money, Joomla will save your organization TIME! And you know that unlike the old saying, "Time is money.", time is actually more valuable than money.
Being able to keep your website fresh and up-to-date will also mean that visitors to your site will have more trust in the information they find there and they'll be more likely to check back frequently, knowing that things are constantly being updated. That has to transfer into more customers and more profit.
Even big changes like adding new features, is as easy as finding the particular extension you want; downloading it, then installing it onto your website and configuring it to your tastes. If that’s more work than you want to do, at least a web developer can do this for you in just a tiny fraction of the time it would take for him to create this new application.
Even having a custom feature programmed for you is a simple matter because of cms’s popularity and the number of web developers who are familiar with various content management systems, but chances are you’ll never need a custom feature because there are thousands of extensions readily available – most of them for free.
You can read reviews from others who have tried an extension and you can install it on your website with just a few mouse-clicks. If you decide later that you don’t like that particular implementation, uninstalling is just as simple, so you can try another extension until you find the one you like.
Adding a new feature can take as little as five minutes and you can’t beat the cost – if you’re willing to DIY, and even if you hire someone to do it for you, it will cost just a fraction of what it would take to write a custom script.
Not only is adding extensions fast, easy and usually free with content management systems, but since these are programmed modularly, you don’t have to worry about a new extension causing a problem elsewhere in your application. That’s a common problem with custom web applications.
When you want a new look for your website, installing a new design template is often as simple as installing an extension. Many cms templates are free. Some of the more intricate designs may require some experience with html, css or Javascript to initially setup, but many will install with your current content automatically.
Go Daddy Deal of the Week: 30% off your order at GoDaddy.com! Offer expires 11/6/121. Who is Your Audience?
Before you even begin to build a Website, consider your audience. Before you spend a lot of time and effort, it is necessary to do some do keyword research to see if your product or service is a viable solution.
2. Create a Storyboard
There is an old expression in programming which states: "The sooner you start to code the longer it takes to finish." With that in mind, the first step you should observe is to create a storyboard, essentially a flow chart that you build on paper. If you run into problems, they are much easier to fix here than during the process of building your Web site.
3. Visit Forums and Blogs
Another important research technique is to find out what users actually want. In this case, visit forums and blogs that cater to your interest and find out what users have to say on the subject.
4. Viewing Size
Viewing size is how the user will see your finished design. Unfortunately, this can vary widely depending on the size of the viewing area and whether the browser is maximized or not. According to some online research, a good starting point is to design your Web pages for a maximum viewing size of 776 x 424 pixels in order to reach 95% of visitors. If you decide to design for a larger viewing size, be aware that some users might have to scroll to see the entire page, which will detract from your overall design.
5. Consistency
A big problem with Website design is a lack of consistency. To fix the problem, consider using templates. In many cases, you will save yourself a lot of time and effort. One option to consider is to use Wordpress to build your sites. It offers many templates, both free and professional.
6. Use CSS
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) are very important for maintaining consistency. Simply making a change to your CSS will immediately update the entire site (assuming that the CSS document is linked to all pages).
7. Keep it Simple
Too many Web designers are seduced by technology and wind up building unnecessarily complicated sites. In reality, simple is better. Your message will be clearer and more direct.
8. Image Slicing
Occasionally, a web designer will want to use an image that covers the entire page. The down side is that such an image is likely to be quite large and could take quite awhile to load. This poses a danger because if the image takes too long to load (roughly ten seconds), you run the risk of losing your audience. The solution is image slicing, which breaks the image into sections that load a bit at a time. This lets the user know that the image is in the process of loading and they are more likely to wait until the process is finished. Another option is to consider creating a web gallery. In this case, one page would show a number of thumbnails, which, when clicked upon would open another page which contains a larger image.
9. Use Stock Photography
Building a Web site is often a time intensive process, especially when it comes to creating images. One simple (and often inexpensive) solution is to use Stock Photography. Many options exist, such as rights-protected or royalty-free imagery.
10. Use Comps
A comp is a low-resolution image that you can download from many Stock Photography sites and use as part of your layout. With such an image you'll be able to see if your design "works," or not.
Ease of Maintenance
Just about the time you think it’s all finished, you get new ideas, new products or services – things change. There are lots of changes you’ll be wanting to do with your website as time marches forward. Sometimes you’ll want to add new content, remove old content or just make some changes to existing content on your website.
With content management system, making changes like these is as easy as using a word processor. Type your content and use the editing menu to add styles, color, hyperlinks, and so forth. Browse with your mouse to upload images to include in your articles. You can even include multimedia.
Think about what this means. You can log into your website's administration area, and add a new article or change an existing one. You can add a new product or change a description or price - all in less than five minutes!
Joomla won't just save you money, Joomla will save your organization TIME! And you know that unlike the old saying, "Time is money.", time is actually more valuable than money.
Being able to keep your website fresh and up-to-date will also mean that visitors to your site will have more trust in the information they find there and they'll be more likely to check back frequently, knowing that things are constantly being updated. That has to transfer into more customers and more profit.
Even big changes like adding new features, is as easy as finding the particular extension you want; downloading it, then installing it onto your website and configuring it to your tastes. If that’s more work than you want to do, at least a web developer can do this for you in just a tiny fraction of the time it would take for him to create this new application.
Even having a custom feature programmed for you is a simple matter because of cms’s popularity and the number of web developers who are familiar with various content management systems, but chances are you’ll never need a custom feature because there are thousands of extensions readily available – most of them for free.
You can read reviews from others who have tried an extension and you can install it on your website with just a few mouse-clicks. If you decide later that you don’t like that particular implementation, uninstalling is just as simple, so you can try another extension until you find the one you like.
Adding a new feature can take as little as five minutes and you can’t beat the cost – if you’re willing to DIY, and even if you hire someone to do it for you, it will cost just a fraction of what it would take to write a custom script.
Not only is adding extensions fast, easy and usually free with content management systems, but since these are programmed modularly, you don’t have to worry about a new extension causing a problem elsewhere in your application. That’s a common problem with custom web applications.
When you want a new look for your website, installing a new design template is often as simple as installing an extension. Many cms templates are free. Some of the more intricate designs may require some experience with html, css or Javascript to initially setup, but many will install with your current content automatically.
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