Posts In Web Design & Development

4 Tips From Web Design Pros To Newbie Designers

Hi,

Website designing is becoming a hot profession with more and more newbies entering the designing front. However, becoming a efficient designer is no easy job. In fact, after 10 years in the website design and development services industry, I still feel that I have a lot to learn..

A new entrant should have the basic understanding of mark-up and style, how the World Wide Web works and should be able to deal with browser inconsistencies. Apart from this, they should be up to date with the latest technologies and trends in the designing field.

Here are 4 valuable tips from web design professionals for the newbies of the industry.

Keep the Text Editors handy!
Its not unusual to be tempted to build websites with programs like Dreamweaver and FrontPage, especially when you are fresh out of learning class. However, its best to resist the call! Trust me... nothing can be better than the Text Editors. Learn how to hand code HTML and CSS without any help from WYSIWYG editors. You'll get clean semantic code that you can save as a prized possession.

The basic aim behind this exercise is to make you learn the basic nuances of HTML and CSS. This will help you master the tools later on! The rough route leads to smooth pathways!

Don't underestimate the W3C Standards
I know, fresh out of designing schools, learning the code standards is the last thing you would want to do. But then, nothing can undermine the importance of W3C standards. The W3C stan­dards inform about the various factors needed to build websites that are usable and accessible so that the World Wide Web becomes a better place. Here are some things-to-do.

Always validate your mark-up and stylesheets
Use the W3C validator to check and correct your XHTML and CSS.
Restrict the content in XHTML and style rules in CSS.
Mind the semantic meanings of tags.

Always carry a Sketchpad with you!
You never know when and where you can feel inspired! So, make sure you always have a sketchpad handy so that you can quickly jot down your ideas and put them on paper!

Learn to Love Whitespace
I see many new web designers trying to accommodate a whole lot of design elements into a single web page. I know you'd want to load everything you know... but consider cleanliness as well. Keep your web design simple so that visitors can locate information easily. And nothing better to include a lot of whitespace!

Follow these words of wisdom and you are ready to become an efficient designer. Good luck!

Do Designers Need To Learn Code?

Hi,

Do Designers Need to Learn Code?

The answer is a resounding Yes! I'll tell you why... Read on.

Writing good code is no easy task. It is some­thing that you can master only after years of practice and persistent efforts to improvise on your work. Now thats a bit of advice for the developers. Persistence and diligence and practice make great developers!

Now, where do website designers, whose lives revolve around managing pixels come into the 'code' picture? After all, why do they need to deal with behind the scenes happenings? Their job is to make an attractive front end, isn't it?

I beg to differ! And here are some reasons that prove design­ers need to learn writing codes.

HTML Knowledge
Knowing to write standards compliant XHTML is an additional advantage to website designers because they get to know the structure that supports their design. All the languages, PHP, ASP, .NET etc. boils down to plain HTML at the end of the day and knowing its intricacies makes a better 'web' designer.

SEO Benefits
For the website to fare well in the search engine, it is necessary that the website be designed with search engines in mind. By learning how to write your own code, you can create more SEO compliant web designs. This is an added feather in the cap for designers!

Accessibility
Better coding and better SEO automatically results in better accessibility. Web design­ers need to present information on the website in a clear and organized manner. This has to do more than just the visual appearance of the website. Badly coded website give rise to inherently difficult navigation.

Better Communication
Once you know how to write the code, you'll be familiar with the technical jargons that will help you communicate with the clients more easily. You can covey the technical aspects as well as the deign fundamentals and offer a package deal. There would be no need to rely on a coding expert to do the same.

There you go! If you are serious about being a Professional website designer, go learn a bit of coding as well. There'll be no stopping you then.

Why Do You Need To Monitor The Bounce Rate Of Your Website?

Hi,

A successful website is characterized by it ability to attract visitors and retain them there. Internet users have become very sophisticated and haughty with time. They know exactly what they want and need to find it as quickly as possible. And if they are unable to find relevant information on a website, their impulsive reaction is to leave for another website.

This is the Bounce factor!

Bounce Rate is a common term used by Google Analytic and other similar applications. It refers to the percentage of visitors to your website who leave right away. It lets you know if your website visitors stay on your website or leave abruptly. Based on this, you can understand how well the homepage of website is catering to your needs and requirements.

Bounce rates have a direct influence over the conversion rates. High bounce rates means low conversion rates. This is a handy hint that there are some issues with your website thats making visitors take off!

Calculation of Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is calculated by diving the number of website visitors who enter a particular page and leave abruptly without browsing through any of the other pages (n) by the total number of visitors to the page (t).

B.R. = n/t

Reasons for High Bounce Rate

Bounces can be a result of a number of reasons like

• Clicking on the link of another website by mistake
• Typing in a wrong URL address
• Clicking the back button to leave the website
• Inadequate information on the web page
• Inability of the users to navigate further

While the first three reasons are the users fault, the latter two signal the incompetency of the website to meet user requirements. Evaluating the bounce rate and further improvising your website to lower the bounce rate is the key to a successful web presence.

Many professional web development  companies have SEO professionals who can evaluate your website bounce rate.