Are you interested in becoming a skilled website designer? Do you know what your goals are, but have no idea how you’re going to achieve them? The following article can teach you the things you should know to become a better web designer.
Does your site pass the NoScript test? You want to activate NoScript after downloading the extension on Firefox so that you can read your site. Some content, like ordering systems, will not work properly without scripts, but when your site is completely blank when scripts are turned off, then that’s not a good sign.
Ease of navigation is an important factor in how appealing visitors find your website. Ensure that links are easy discovered and displayed in a prominent location. Having a menu bar on your site can also make navigation easier. Make sure each page has a ‘home’ link.
If you’re designing a website, you need to look at your website in multiple browsers. Make sure it looks good on every browser. Research every popular browser that people use, and adjust your design accordingly. Before you decide to go live, you should always have others using different browsers and operating platforms review your site to verify it works on different systems.
Make sure all links on your website are working properly before you publish your site. Clicking on links that bring you to errors is quite annoying. You can choose to use a link checking program or check your links by hand.
Allow users to cancel an action if they so choose. This could be anything from filling out forms to registering for email newsletters. If your visitors feel forced into completing something they no longer want, it may leave a bad taste. They will probably avoid visiting your site in the future.
Which file formats you use for graphics is key to user satisfaction. Your best choice for graphic files are GIFs and JPEGs. PNG and BMP files are probably better for web graphics, but they also use much more disk space. When you change your images to smaller files, your website visitors will find your website easier to navigate.
Be sure your site can be scanned by visitors easily. Tests have shown that the majority of online readers avoid reading everything on a page; instead, they just scan it for information that is of importance to them. Emphasized text is more easily scanned and helps readers along, also better ensuring they return. The top of the page is the correct placement for your highest quality information. This helps the visitors see the important stuff first before checking out the rest of the site.
Make sure that your load times are up to par at all times. People are more likely to leave your site if the load time is too long. Minimize the amount of Flash, scripts and graphics on your site. Optimize the site with HTML, SSI files, caching options and minimize CSS and JS coding.
Reserve a domain as soon as you can. Use your creativity and imagination when doing this. You’d be shocked at how many people share the same thoughts. It is as if we share a collective unconscious.
Begin by creating tiny websites in order to determine areas that you’ve worked on which were solid, and the areas that you’ve worked on which were bad. You want to start off with maybe a couple of pages that are basic with just information and text, and see how you feel from there.
A good key to remember is that your site should load in 10 seconds or less. A well-designed, efficient site should pop up in visitors’ browsers in a matter of moments. Many people browsing the web want instant gratification, so if you want to catch their attention, you need to provide that.
There are many good books which can help you learn more about web design. Start out with selections that cover the basics, and add to your collection as you become more knowledgeable.
Many people know there is a software called Photoshop and that they need to master it if they want to make websites that look awesome. Dreamweaver is less well known, but is another program you should look into.
Doing research before implementing your website development in very important. Research your chosen niche so you can better reach your targeted audience. Think about how best to design your site to reach your target market. Keep your website design efficient.
Make sure that all the files on your website are small in size. You need these small file sizes regardless of the overall design of your site. There is a direct correlation between file sizes and page load times. You want the speediest load times possible. This is because not all of the visitors you’re going to attract are going to have a powerful operating machine or high speed Internet. Test each section of your site to ensure it loads rapidly for every visitor.
Knowledgeable Friends
Have knowledgeable friends review your website, and ask them specifically to check on your use of Dreamweaver, Photoshop, HTML and the like. It is difficult to keep all of the details of web design in mind, and it is common to become confused while designing and miss a thing or two. That’s why it’s good to have knowledgeable friends “proof” your site for you.
Learn as you go, adding new skills and techniques for website development. When you figure out some of the aspects related to site design, you need to try to tackle others that are new to you. While this can make building your current website more time consuming, it can be a very rewarding experience in that your newly gained knowledge will enable you to create dozens of websites quickly.
If you are stuck when it comes to designing your website, remember that the entire Internet is at your disposal. There is no shortage of websites from which you can draw inspiration. Find a site you admire, figure out why you like it, and determine whether or not you can improve upon its premise. Just remember that borrowing others’ ideas isn’t enough to make your own page successful. You have to think of creative ways to improve them.
If you’re planning to design multiple sites, it would serve you well to learn to work with multiple platforms. Learning many different web platforms such as Java, MySQL and PHP will only serve to make you better going forward. Whether it’s working on your own site or helping someone you know get a site off the ground, keep developing yourself into a multifaceted web designer.
When you include videos on your site, you need to be aware that not everyone has a high Internet bandwidth. While you can easily covert videos at a speed of 5,000 kb/s, that may be too fast for viewers on dial-up. The result will be an annoying video that is constantly buffering.
Flash is an overused technology which can easily be replaced with other options. While it can seem high-tech and exciting, it can cause computers to lag, and decrease a visitor’s experience on your website. Some phones and tablets, especially those made by Apple, won’t run Flash at all, which can destroy the user experience if there’s no alternative content.
While development platforms can ease the coding process, many are not as efficient as a plain old text editor. With a platform, you design the features and the platform provides the code, which can then be pasted wherever you want. Even if you do use one of these editors, make sure to check your code in a text editor afterward to clean up erroneous or extraneous code.
Keep user interface tools consistent and user friendly. For hyperlinks, make them underlined and have them turn a different color when they have been clicked. If your website is easy to use and consistent, visitors will come back in the future.
Much sure you allocate a little time each day for your website development. You should spend a lot of time in order to get work done, rather than simply working only a little bit at a time. If you are committed to learning new things as you develop your site, it will become easier to remember the skills that you gain.
So, now you know some things about website design. Is your confidence higher? If you are not more confident, then go back and read the article again so you are more confident in your abilities to design a good web page.
Make sure the entire website is entirely read over and over again to insure it looks professional and well-designed. You want people to breeze through it. A site with errors is not very professional and it will make people want to stay away from your site.