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Basic Principles Of An Effective Website Design

- Saturday 11 April 2015 1 Comment

The art of Intuitive Design flow:

An effective website design should have an intelligent design flow for the user to experience. For instance, consider the user logging on to your website. The first thing that should draw his attention should be the logo placed prominently to reflect the brand's values, then moving on to the mission statement that explains the purpose and then onto the portfolio and so on. This way, the user is welcomed into your world with a whole new experience rather than just a solution to browse through.

The science of Smart& Sensible Content Management:

Content is like a magnet that keeps the user glued. And for a longer adhesion, it takes smart management of the content in place. There might be a great copy in place, but if the font, spacing and alignment are not done perfectly, the end result will not reflect much of the awaited greatness.

Parking the design with Effective spacing:

Just like the way it does well in a relationship, space in a website makes a website look and work so well too. The trick lies not just in leaving a white space for the user to ponder with, but effectively using it in sync with the placed content so as to give a very pleasing effect to the viewer. Perfect usage of white space gives just the needed edge to stay ahead.

Keep it simple:

At the beginning and also at any stage of the website design process, it is important to ask the question of 'what is the purpose of this website?' and constantly align the works with regards to it. And according to it, a clear, simple and effective language has to be tailored in the design as the communication is all about delivering the message to the customer clearly.

Versatile anywhere, Usable everywhere:

This ultimately is the most important principle of an effective website design as it is the way an user feels when he uses your website that determines the actual outcome of all your efforts. In this case, you have to think on what your user thinks like and looks out for. Every single button and every single icon: make sure you envision a user perspective here and design accordingly. Most importantly, it is also important to design the website that is friendly on all platforms. Laptops, Desktops, Palmtop, Mobile phones and so on as the technology advances, an effective websites needs to be usable in all the mediums.

With all the basics intact, all you need is a partner to execute this in style for you. At Digitalpoin8 - a creative agency, we have the right set of Professionals to design your website with just what it takes to and delight you with wonderful results that translate into business.That makes us the ideal partner to execute your digital tasks meticulously. Get the basics right, get your website talking! You can view our works at http://www.digitalpoin8.com or contact us on +971 55 7915393 or send us an email to info@digitalpoin8.com.

Source : http://ezinearticles.com

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Not Sure How Your Home Page Should Look? Here Are 10 Things To Include

- Thursday 9 April 2015 No Comments

Your website tells your business story on your behalf. Thus, it goes without saying that every business needs to have an impressive, professional-looking website to make the right first impression. Your website design and content can determine the kind of traffic it experiences and how valuable that traffic turns out to be for your business. The home page is the page your visitors will see first. Therefore, it demands special attention. Here are some of the most important things to include on the homepage to make sure it serves its purpose right.

Contact information - It is the most important detail to link you to your customers. Include your physical address, email address or phone number on the home page. This way anybody can reach you in the most convenient way for whatever reason.

Search Box - It will save your visitors time trying to locate the exact thing they are looking for on the website. It makes scanning the website smooth and pleasant.

Tagline - The tagline summarizes what the company does or what the website is all about. A good tagline will give first time visitors an easier time knowing they are on the right site. The sentence should make your customers feel they will gain value from visiting the site.

Logo - The company logo is what sets your brand apart. It should always be included on the home page and should be as clear as possible to make remembering your brand easy for your customers.

Blog Posts - Modern websites come complete with blog posts related to the products or services they have to offer. Include the posts on the home page to keep the interest going and to engage attention.

Background - Designing your website is all about making it appealing and attractive. The background should be carefully selected without making the site look over decorated. It will keep your home page content attractive to the visitors when you choose meaningful graphics.

Call to Action - It is not important to simply tell your visitors what you are about. Stir the right reactions with your content by including a call to action at the end. It ensures your customers know exactly what they need to do after they read what you have to offer them.

Newsletters - There is nothing more rewarding for customers than keeping them in the know about the latest as far as the business is concerned. This is what the newsletter will do for you in keeping the visitors up to date with campaigns and even sales and other offers you might have.

Social Media Links - Social media links provide one more method to keep in touch with your business and know what's happening. You can use icons that are most recognizable and use different tools to keep social media sharing easy.

Clear Navigation - It is what will determine the user experience your visitors have. Make your page navigation clear and easy to use to give all your visitors a pleasant experience.

Your home page can determine how successful your website turns out to be. Include all the right features and be impressed by the traffic you get and conversions you make.

Source : http://ezinearticles.com

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The big web design trends for 2015

- Tuesday 7 April 2015 No Comments

When thinking about web design, you must consider the full spectrum of possibilities that the internet presents. Done boldly, designers can push the limits of human interaction and imagination on a global scale – as is often seen with edgier industries, such as creative agency websites.

In this article, we’ll boil down some of the most prominent web design trends emerging in 2015. It is here that we can find true innovation and new opportunities – a few of which may completely change our understanding of a “modern website”.

1. Make it big

“Make it big” seems to be the single most important principle of web design today. Yet for many people, it’s hardly acceptable that the homepage – specifically above the fold – consists of just a few words overlaid on an image or a video. Sometimes, even the navigation is removed or (at the very least) is hidden as a small icon.

The two flavors of this web design trend can be labeled as “Cinematic” and “Book Cover”. The first has been inspired by movies and TV ads, while the second enhances the classic concept of printed book and catalogue covers.

The reasons for this trend are both visual and pragmatic. You’re able to give users maximum impact as soon as they land on your site and it’s easier to code, so it works well on mobiles and desktop computer monitors (the same layout remains unchanged despite the display device size). Full screen images came into vogue last year but with growing access to high quality images and speedier technology we’re seeing websites take these “Book Cover” layouts to the next level.

2. The multimedia experience

The multimedia concept is quite dated. The word itself has been so used and abused that it’s nearly lost its meaning. Nonetheless, armies of designers and programmers are constantly fighting to create increasingly engaging multimedia experiences.

A while back, Flash was the platform for these experiments. Presently it’s the HTML5 <canvas> element that will eventually allow you to create almost any visual effect on the website.

Another noteworthy example of an interface built with HTML Canvas is community-driven DNA project by Brooklyn-based musician Jonathan Dagan (aka j.viewz). Opening with a highly visual background video, j.viewz tells us how he plans to build his new musical album through his personal experiments (which users can download) and other collaborators’ uploaded videos, music and feedback. Raise the River’s website is yet another fantastic example not only because of its apt visual metaphor, but also its presentation. The pace of animation and inability to scroll almost forces the user to take a breath and adjust to the page timeline.

While designing interfaces, we usually do everything to enable users. This website shows that disabling users for a certain amount of time may sometimes enable a better experience.

3. The Parallax effect mutations

Parallax has evolved into many different mutations that have one thing in common: designers use page scrolling or mouse movement to animate elements or properties of the page. If you look carefully, most of the websites showcased in this article use this logic. Here are some additional examples.

It’s easy to appreciate Mint Design Company’s creative use of an old CSS sprite technique. The result is an engaging and unique take on an otherwise straightforward company website.

4. Animated storybook

In this type of page, similar to the first example, an animation sequence starts when a user reaches a certain scroll position. Often, it is just a few elements that slide into the page or use a fade-in effect to appear.

The Boldking product page (above) uses lightweight SVG and Java Script to present a visual metaphor describing the way their product works. Not only is the idea and animation amazing, but equally notable is the fact that it was achieved within 1.5 MB total page weight. Sometimes a single JS library has this size. One of the animated sequences is even interactive.

Colin and Dewi’s wedding website is a simple yet effective way to keep the user focused while reading a story. You are presented with one fragment of the story at a time. To see the next part, you need to scroll to it.

It sounds like generic scroll functionality, but 3D CSS animation – as well as hiding and revealing text fragments – makes the story much more engaging.

5. Flat design

During the last three years, flat design has been hailed the “king” many times over. It’s still doing great and is going to stay for good – especially in smaller elements such as icons, menus and illustrations.

Not only do these elements look good (way better than those glossy web 2.0 icons covering nearly every website a few years ago), but they are easily scaleable and manageable, thanks to icon font technology. icomoon.io is an example of one online service allowing everyone to create their own icon fonts easily for free.

Rather than imitating objects with skeuomorphic techniques (where a notepad icon looks like real life notepad made of paper and bound in leather), flat design tries to convey the idea of a notepad through a synthetic, catchy and fun visual that works well in varied sizes.

6. No more boxes

Web designers always love to show they can think outside of the box – in more ways than one. One could call this trend “Draw a box and prove you can break it”. A rectangle screen is the frame for every web design (as far as we know, we don’t have circular monitors yet). Every HTML element of the page is a rectangle too.

But designers, like most people, don’t like to be constrained. There are 3 distinct strategies to prove you are not a slave to the rectangle – and all 3 seem to be on the rise.

Source : http://ezinearticles.com

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Importance of Icons in Usability

- Sunday 5 April 2015 2 Comments

Icons aim to represent an action or idea in a visual manner through specific color, style and appeal. The purpose of an icon in a user interface is to resonate with the brand personality in a clear and consistent manner. This enables the user to accomplish their task with greater ease and flexibility. It is essential for the icon to maintain clarity and consistency. The icon is more than an eye catching element for the users. Many designers have found it hard to decide between icon and text in terms of usability. The old saying that "a picture is worth a thousand words" holds true for usability and efficiency of icon over text.

What Can Icons Do?

Icons are effective medium to define meaning in a small space as compared to text. This becomes all the more important in an era where screen sizes have shrunk and responsive design standards have made it mandatory to redefine design as per the screen size. Icons raise the intuitive element of web design - an important design standard.

Icons can be both simple and complex. Although simple icons reduce the need of learnability, complex icons are designed for niche areas. Simple icons are meant for users who are beginners and should understand the brand meaning with the least effort at a quicker pace. Complex icons might require a steeper learning curve but are useful to explain complex ideas in a smaller space. Organizations even train their employees to understand complex icons with inherent complex meanings. Icons gain importance when language barriers exist. Icons serve as a means to rise above this barrier through visual representation of text. In cases where legibility is an issue, icons work well to pass on the inherent message of the brand/product and services to people who are not literate enough. 

1: Purpose of Icon for User Interface

For small screens, icons can be enhanced by touch and serve as good targets. The toolbars and navigational menu items have more space to be displayed because icons free up a lot of space that would otherwise be used by text. Memorability is enhanced by using icons because pictures register for a longer time in the brain as compared to text. Hence, icons stay fresher in your mind, making it easier for users to recognize them. Icons enhance the visual appeal of the design and consistency reinforces a product or service class. 

2: Problems Associated With Icons

Regardless of icons being a powerful visual tool to enhance usability of the user interface, icons do have certain issues. Sometimes instead of enhancing usability, icons can cause ambiguity and text labels become necessary to communicate meaning. If there is vagueness in icon design, the presence of a text label becomes vital (rather than allowing users to play a guessing game).

Different culture and backgrounds interpret icons and images differently, which might sometimes affect the consistency element of the icon. For example a checkmark means correct in Britain, but incorrect in Sweden. For icons that are aimed towards a single language/culture, it is advisable to provide text for users over a diverse age range, having different technical abilities. A roll over text should be provided for older users or users who are low in technical competence. Applications with highly important actions should be provided with text labels for audiences of all sorts. Complex applications, which require effort in understanding and learning, should have text labels alongside the icon. It is possible that enhancing simplicity might otherwise increase design complexity (cognitive load) and reduce audience learnability.

3: Icon Designing

An icon works well on mobile devices as there are fewer elements on a mobile screen and the icon stands out among other elements. The case reverses when the screen size is enhanced. In such cases the icon size should be larger and navigation should be visible and not hidden beneath the icon. This provides greater visibility to menu options and avoids usability issues of the design.The focus should be on enhancing memorability for the users. The icon should take just a few seconds to convey its message and meaning. The design should be catered around the specific functionality and characteristics, rather than just visual appeal and graphic image. Icons should be tested on memorability (to check intuitive nature and brand reinforcement) with users to gauge effectiveness.

Carefully designed aesthetic icons with text labels increases both appeal and reach for all types of audience. The focus of the design should be to transcend language and cultural barriers to stand out as a truly global icon.

Source : http://ezinearticles.com

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Please Don't Use a Website Builder!

- Saturday 4 April 2015 1 Comment

Have you seen those TV commercials where they tell you how easy it is to build your own website with their wiz-bang site builder? Every time I see one of them, I grit my teeth. Using a site builder is not a good idea.

But a Site Builder Sounds So Great...

The pitch for using a site builder like Wix or Weebly sounds so appealing. After all, they'll host the site so you don't need to worry about buying a domain or hosting yourself. They have a neat little building block system where you can create your pages easily and add your content. You don't need to mess around with any nasty code and they provide a bunch of pretty templates to choose from. You only pay one company a monthly or annual fee for your domain, hosting, and the builder.

Sounds Amazing! So What's the Problem?

As a web designer, you may think my objection is self-serving - after all, if everyone builds their own site, I won't have any work! Or professional conceit - no untrained solopreneur could possibly build a site as nice as a professional web designer.

While there is some truth to these points, they aren't why I believe you should make a different decision. Here are my issues with site builders:

1. You can only use one of their supplied templates. While they allow a certain amount of customization, you generally can't create a fully customized look and feel. The sites I've seen built using builders look either blandly cookie-cutter or amateurish.

2. They lack functional flexibility. You can add the elements they allow to your site and nothing else. And you can only add them where and how the builder allows. I've had several clients ask me to move their sites from a site builder environment into WordPress because they found their current sites were not flexible enough for their needs.

3. They own where your site lives. That is, your site is on their property. It's like building a house on land owned by someone else. If they want to raise the cost you pay to have your house on their land, you have few choices - pay or leave your house behind. And if the land is sold to someone else, all bets are off. It's like building your business entirely on Facebook or Twitter. They can change the rules or boot you off entirely whenever they wish and you have little recourse. And with a site builder company hosting your site, you can't move it anywhere else since the builder software is proprietary and only works on their servers.

Well Then, What's the Best Way to Build a Site?

I'm a huge fan or WordPress. Not WordPress.com - that's pretty similar to the site builder companies we've been talking about. I mean the WordPress software you get from WordPress.org and install on your own web hosting. Let's look at it with regard to the builder issues I listed.

1. There are many, many WordPress themes available, both free and paid. And they can all be fully customized. Whether you want a clean and professional look, a whimsical and creative look, or an upscale and classy look, they're all readily possible with WordPress.

2. WordPress itself includes a lot of functionality and adds more all the time. Additionally, there are literally thousands of plugins that provide pretty much any functionality you could imagine. Every type of business is represented in the WordPress universe.

3. When WordPress is installed on your own hosting, you have control over it. Yes, you are paying someone else for the hosting, but it's like leasing the land your house is built on. It's a legal agreement and the hosting company can't change the cost or rules on you until renewal time. And even then, you can easily move your site to another host if you don't like your current company.

But What About the Good Aspects of a Site Builder?

I thought you'd get around to asking that! Well, we already talked about why you really want to have your own hosting for your site. You also want to buy and control your own domain names.

Now to the biggest benefit of a site builder: you can create your website yourself. Chances are if you want a site for your business that looks professional and has an opt-in form, allows customers to buy from you, has an events calendar, or a membership, you will want to hire a professional web designer to create it. S/he can create the look and feel you're looking for. S/he can also sift through the many plugins available to find the functionality you need in plugins that work, are updated appropriately, and are supported by their creators.

Not only do I think your site will be better looking and functioning if you outsource its creation, I also believe it's better for your business. Taking the time to learn what you need to in order to have a good looking and functioning site is just not a good use of your time. Even if you're on a limited budget, your time is better spent attracting and serving clients or customers.

The good news is that WordPress is designed to make is very easy to add and update content. So while I recommend hiring out for your site creation, I have no problem with you learning how to make changes to the content. Then you'll only need your web designer when you want to update the design or functionality on your site, not when you want to update a page or publish a blog post.

So invest your time and energy in what you do best and earn the money to hire a pro to create your site. Then learn how to update the content on your site and you're good to go!

Source : http://ezinearticles.com

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Is Responsive Website Design for You?

- Thursday 2 April 2015 2 Comments

While it has been proven that responsive website design is here to stay and that it will be with us into the future, is it right for you? Nobody can tell you what tomorrow might bring and many times it is scary to even think about. Having an aggressive approach to the future can make the things that we do now last longer and can also serve our needs in the future.

Responsive website design is one of those aggressive ways to approach the future. It is a design which can adapt itself according to multiple viewing contexts while embracing the adoption of devices that have web capabilities.

Benefits

Users can get an experience that is rich regardless of the type of device that they are using to access your site.

• You will not need to worry about the content parity. Simply upload your content and you are ready to go.


• With technology changing and going more towards the mobile world, the native platform will not be as useful in the future as it is now. Having a responsive website design can keep your site right on top of technology changes.


• Having a responsive design can assist us in becoming more responsible towards the future while it also makes us think in terms of getting a great experience both now and in the future.


• It has finally paved a way for the end of designing sites for fixed viewports.


• This type of design has brought us many approaches that are future friendly such as user-first, context first, mobile first, platform agnostic and many more.


• Having a totally separate site or app for mobile devices is expensive. This design is much more cost effective.

Drawbacks

One of the most frequently seen issues with responsive design is navigation. The best way around this issue is to make a decision regarding the content of your site and then hashing out the pros and cons of navigation to the different areas.

We live in a world that is run by money. That means that ads on a responsive website can be a drawback. On one hand you can choose to display ads on any mobile device across the board. This might bring in that much needed revenue. However, you can also choose to go the route of the more user friendly responsive websites and have no ads at all. This might hurt revenue at first, but you will gain customer loyalty which can in turn lead to larger revenue in the future.

There are many more pros and cons, of course. Take into account the size of your website, how it performs - or should perform - the images and content on it and everything else.

Is it for You?

If you want the ease and capability of maintaining a single site that can be used across multiple devices then responsive website design might be the best option for you. If you want to give your users a unique experience based on what they use to access your site and you don't mind maintaining a variety of sites then you might want to steer clear of responsive design and have separate sites for each type of mobile device.

Source: http://ezinearticles.com

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Ranking Google Maps For Your Business

- Monday 30 March 2015 No Comments

It's surprising how some business don't appreciate Google maps and how the results come up in the search engine. With a search like "accommodation Rarotonga" which has 1,900 Exact search terms per month your business could be sitting on top with the Google with your map where others pay a lot of money to advertise in these areas like Wotif.com and booking.com as seen below because the commissions are very high when companies are taking 10% to 15% commissions per booking

It is not just related to the accommodation page can be anything from hair salons in your local area or city. So the question is how much is having your site on top of the search engine worth to you? Couple of hundred per year or a couple of thousand per year? What ever it is, having everything firing in your business especially your online is very important and just making some small adjustments can make a big difference.

So how do you know if your business would benefit from this model?

Do a Google search for your business in your area and see if a map comes up for a number of search terms. Do some keyword research on how many searches per month that people are actively searching for your business service eg. Plumbers in Auckland or Plumbers North Shore or Plumbers Davenport so you can narrow it from large to small demographic, but the chances are that if someone is looking for your service it will be suburb based.

If the answer is yes that your competition business comes up then it is worth setting up a Google+ page.

The next step would be go to Google map maker http://www.google.com/mapmaker and place a marker for your business and fill out the business details. The next step would be to get verified from Google which can be done in a couple of ways depending on your country location, by phone, or post card which can take up to a month to arrive depending on your location.

Once your post card arrives just verify the business so you can start updating the content on the Google+ page. Just make sure you keyword your Google+ page to include the keyword search terms that people are looking for and list your details about your business, this can take some time but done properly it will leave your business in Google maps for month or years without doing any more work.

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Source: http://ezinearticles.com

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Website Usability Evaluation Methods - To Evaluate User Satisfaction

- Sunday 29 March 2015 No Comments

A website designer aims for an awesome design that can captivate its audience and hold them long enough for goal accomplishment. The usability aspect of a website is equally important. It focuses on the ease with which a user can comprehend and use a website. Usability has established the importance of user centered design - where the user is the focal point around which various design elements are structured. 

Usability of a website involves a user's experience when they interact with the website. Several aspects of user experience all point towards the overall satisfaction derived in visiting the website.

According to Usability.gov, usability involves a group of factors that include learnability (ease of learning), the speed with which a user can accomplish their goal, intuitive nature of design, memorability of design for future reference, error frequency, severity associated with the design, and individual satisfaction level.(1)

Usability also involves a website's availability, responsiveness, accessibility, clarity, consistency, and credibility. Usability is not attained overnight. Usability tests need to be conducted for making a website usable from the user's perspective. Apart from tests, various methodologies can be used for evaluation of web usability.

Questionnaires 

There can be use of indirect testing methodology for assessment of user interface. For example, questionnaires can be a great tool, but must fulfil certain criteria for maximizing the feedback results.

Questionnaires should be well structured, lucid, relevant, and important from usability perspective. A well formulated questionnaire can provide useful insights into issues of usability with feasible and accurate evaluation results. The results are based on the aptly designed Likert scale. Open ended questions prove more noteworthy, although quantitative analysis is difficult for them. 

The Human Factors Research Group of the University College at Cork, Ireland designed the WAMMI (Web Analysis and MeasureMent Inventory) which is based on specific questionnaires for website evaluation.

Certain considerations should be taken into account as pointed out by Sullivan (1997):

• Novice users should be included in the evaluation process as websites are accessed by all categories of users.
• The group of users should be designed as per real future audience for whom the website is targeted to ensure a realistic assessment.
• Since users are personally flawed based on their culture, experience, and background, the testing group should understand that they are testers and not tested entities.
• Users should be allowed to test for a sufficient amount of time without guidance or interference.
• Observational cues such as comments, tasks, and interaction, should be noted for evaluating the website's effectiveness and satisfaction level.

Observational Methods of Usability Evaluation

In this methodology, the psychological conditions of the users are evaluated to test usability. Behavior observation tools include test monitoring, direct recording, and think-aloud can be used in combination. Test monitoring observes and records the test user's behavior and their comments during the test through a database which guides the recording. There is a prescribed form that provides the timing and checklist of actions that have to be completed by users along with their comments and explanations. 

Literal recording is facilitated through direct recording to eliminate any observational bias through audio/video taping, screen recording software, or a two way mirror. Think aloud methodology records the test user's comments, as they verbalize their remarks while conducting the usability evaluation, with respect to their feelings and various issues they face.

Behavioral evaluation requires an expensive setting with careful collation of data as the users navigate. The users might get struck with the website's content and ignore the general navigational issues that form the core of usability evaluation. However, noting the actual behavior of users can be aligned with data collected through other techniques for deeper analysis.

Evaluation through Automatic Tools

Tools can be offline or online and evaluates the user's failures with respect to simulated user behavior related to task accomplishment. These failures are ranked on the basis of severity and assist the developer in analysis and fixing errors. Automatic website usability can be conducted on actual implementation of a website or on web server logs.

Software automation tools evaluate usability on different aspects and at different levels. While simple tools just record usage data, complex tools can identify potential usability issues which do not conform to prescribed guidelines. More complex tolls can go a step further to propose solutions to usability problems. 

Booby is a service developed by the Center for Applied Special Technology, a non-profit American organization, which is a free of cost tool for identifying and eliminating issues (for differently-abled people), browser compatibility, and load speed of website. US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed tools to find out the applicability of quick, remote, and automated website usability testing.

Source: http://ezinearticles.com

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