Friday, January 25, 2008

The Missing Links...that musn't be missing

Planning to have a quick ‘cross check’ with the design features of your website, before delivering it to your valuable clients?. Need some tips to grab, before starting your new Web design project? Then I hope this article will help you understand the ‘must-have’ features for a website.

Simple ! Yet Powerful
Always have your website free from graphical elements that’s heavy for the eyes to ‘intake’ and observe. Rather usage of pleasant and light graphics with suitable colours leaves your web page memorable.

At the same time empower your site with boldly conveyed messages. Say for instance, the Logo and caption text used in the header or wherever it is.

Convey with colours
Colour scheme is an aspect that pulls much of users attention. Each colour has its own style of expressing ideas. To list out a few:

Blue – Cool, Loyal
Red – Bold, Strong warning
Green – Health, Nature
White – Richness, Pure

Never fail to check whether the colour scheme of your website goes with that of the logo used. Beware that wrong usage of colours pulls the appeal of the site altogether. (Ex) Does a combination of crimson red and white suits an oceanographic website?

To be short and crisp your site must be free from over dosage of colours and simultaneously not letting the eyes to starve for colours.


Nothing Is Something
A design with ample while space around gets imprinted in users mind quickly. ( Visualize Google interface now! ) Effective usage of the same adds richness to the design again. Instantly, it must not let the viewers ponder “Is something missing?”. White space leads to readable text, balanced design, emphasis on graphics used and “Lets your eyes breathe !”.

Jazzy Flashy
Next to the content, the header or banner is the place where the eyes get engaged most of the time. Optimizing your flash file is inevitable, as flash files embedded in HTML pages are a bit heavy. Recent versions, of the flash have proved that they support inclusion of Meta tags which are search engine friendly.

Gone are those days, when users enter the main site after a dragging and slow introduction. You may use an intro animation with the only constraint – it must load in a jiffy to show a quick and professionally made animation. Why take risk? Rather I would suggest employing your flash skill in the headers/banners – the style followed in almost all corporate and business sites found today.

Solution for the Resolution


The greatest head ache that every web designers face – Resolution. The simplest solution is to check with the total percentage of users world wide, with the most commonly used resolution and to proceed with further. If you prefer to get a bit deeper technically, then follow an 80% layout (that most web designers know what I mean) in which the core design occupies 80 percent and the remaining 20 percent left blank as left and right margins - 10% each.

The most commonly used resolutions are 1024 x 768 and 800 x 600. Web Statistical report proves that 51% of the Internet users World Wide use 1024 x 768 resolution. And only 10% of the whole still stick on to 800 x 600. To be in safer side, the web page crafted with 80% design, views perfect in the above two resolutions. Amazing!?


Content – The King
“Last! But not the least”. We have landed to the most vital part of any design either Web Graphics or Print Graphics. Initially play around with the graphics package you use (either Photoshop or whatever it may be ) to have a clear picture of the text positioning, line spacing, word spacing, the kind of font that goes hand in hand and all other Typographic features. Then proceed with the conversion of the same text usage, by making use of css for the HTML pages.

The sophisticated standard of the content becomes inevitable when the built web site needs to get considered by the search engines that poke inside the Meta tags for the search key words. “No Search keywords ! No Hits !”.