Web Templates & Web Design Blog

Have you ever found yourself working with a client-supplied design for an interface or a design from their print/marketing company? Most companies do not realize the value of a properly designed website and will not always make the right choice in selecting the website designer. The next time you find yourself in this situation, remind them of some of the points outlined below.

The web is still very new and not much has been established in proper web design standards. This leads to many inconsistencies in the visual appeal as well as the functionality of a website. These standards should not be so strict that they confine the design to a point where there is no room for creativity, but rather a professional standard that fits the medium. For example, you would not use letterhead drawn with a crayon unless it was appropriate to your “Crayon” related business. Just as you would not hire a plumber to fix your automobile, you should not hire a print shop to design your website. Experience in this field is still very young and finding a veteran designer is extremely rare.
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Geared Up with a website and lots of energy to make a mark online? Spare some time and go through this. You’ll be glad you did. If you don’t already, this is something you MUST know!

1. Maintain an easy to follow Navigational system throughout your website.

2. Do not use frames unless it’s really important. Visitors detest getting stuck up in frames and Search Engines find it difficult to index websites with frames.

3. Avoid using scrollbars horizontally. There is nothing more annoying than having to scroll both vertically and horizontally at all screen lengths.
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Easy That’s how you’d like life to be, right? Especially when you’re creating a website on your own. But that doesn’t mean you want the site to look severe and just functional. you want it to be pretty , smart and also respond and move when you interact with it, while saying all that you want to say to its visitors . There are little tips and Features incorporated into software just for people like you.

Love what Flash can do but don’t know how to use it ? Macromedia thought of you and built a feature into Dream weaver that lets you create cool animated Flash buttons just by entering parameters. Want to have button respond to a mouse-over but have no idea or patience to create one with graphics software? You can make a quick and easy mouse-over button right from within FrontPage. What do you do if you need to optimize 150 images within an hour? No need to panic, image ready can help you out with a little droplet. Check out the different tips that make life easier or better for you as a Web designer.
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Just about every website has a broken link here or there that no longer connects to the page specified in the URL.

These broken links loose you visitors and cost you money.

Often what happens is you delete or move a page, and then forget to update some of the other pages on your site that link to it, or other sites such as search engines still display links to the old URL.

When a surfer clicks on one of these links, the server runs off to grab the page as usual, but on finding nothing there sends a “page not found” server error 404 to the Web browser.
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Square buttons, round buttons, flashy buttons … will they match my shoes, my handbag or my tie? Are you stuck in a maze of buttons, headings, bullets, sub-headings and colour schemes?

STOP!!!!

Take a deep breath and read some practical tips for professional looking websites.

1. Select a colour scheme and stick to it.

If your company has a logo or preferred colours on its stationery that’s a good start. For those of you starting from scratch, choose two or three complementary colours and stick with them - don’t change colours on every page.
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Let’s face it. Building a web site that browses consistently on multiple platforms and multiple browsers is not always as easy as we would like.

It is safe to say that most designers spend most of their time building their sites on a given platform. Those with the highest standards should, upon completion, take a look at their creation in different browsers and different platforms.

Sure, you could see how it looks in Window 98 with Internet Explorer and let that be good enough, but do you really want to risk a bad web experience for millions and millions of potential visitors? Consider this….
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Many university websites are poorly organized, and filled with out-of-date content that has been directly published from print. Delivering a better service to students and staff faces challenges because of decentralized management structures and concepts such as academic freedom.

If the average university website were to sit an exam it would fail. In fact, every day a great many university websites are being examined by potential students and they are failing badly. Here’s just a small sample of the things university websites are failing at:

1) At least 40 different versions of its logo were counted on the many websites of one university. The university has only one official logo, but because there is no central management of the Web, things have gone out of control.
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Websites are now a crucial part of most businesses. They generate revenue, offer an avenue for promotion and are easily accessible means of providing information on a company. However, the global economy now demands that companies look beyond national borders if they wish to expand.

Many developing countries now have internet access, internet cafes can be found from Bogot? to Bangkok and the falling costs of PC’s means more home users are logging on. This means there is a large pool of potential visitors to your site. However, the majority of these will not speak English. Website translation is therefore critical.
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With the rise in ownership of computers and internet usage growing daily, the internet is fast becoming the primary port of call for information, shopping and services. In addition, those computer and internet users are increasingly from non-English speaking countries. At the end of 2002, it was estimated that 32% of internet users were non-native English speakers. This figure is constantly rising. In response, businesses have quickly become aware of the benefits of website localization.

Website localization is the process of modifying an existing website to make it accessible, usable and culturally suitable to a target audience. Website localization is a multi-layered process needing both programming expertise and linguistic/cultural knowledge. If either is missing, the chances are that a localization project will encounter problems.
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1.

DO NOT use excessive graphics or banner images on a single web page. They tend to slow the loading of your Web page. Impatient surfers might close their browser and move on. If you have many images on a single page, consider deleting few of them or moving them to a new page.

2.

You should include these elements on your website: About Us [Brief description of your company and its products. You can include a few personal details about yourself and your employees], Contact Us [Provide the postal address, telephone, fax, email of your company or business.], A Links to Related Sites page, A Home Page link on each page and Site Search tool to allow visitors to find information on your site.
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