Clayton J Bell

The Lowdown on Web Design

Design, in a general and large scale, is the creation of visually stimulating pieces or areas incorporating an established. Design employs shape, lines, color, and texture to be able to complete its intent. The creation of a design accessible through the use of the Internet is then called Web Design; also known as as web publishing, and web development, and a internet publishing.

Web Design originally belonged to a broader industry called Graphic Design but given the constantly increasing demand for high-caliber web-based visual arrangements, Web Design is slowly establishing itself as a completely new field.
The end product of Web Design a website, which is a collection of information and text and images and available for reference and use over the Internet. This is created through HTML, XHTML, or XML encoding. A web page is an extension of a web page containing more specified topics that can be accessed through a hyperlink. The home page is the first page that greets visitors when they view a web site. It serves as the portal to which all other sites connected to it are accessed. Think of a web site as a house, the web pages as the rooms, and the home page as the front door.

Web Design also involves the conceptualization of a web page intended for either business or personal use, to the planning of how to go about the making of a web page, and finally to the execution of putting this web site up for the Internet. In order for websites to be available, they have to be supported by hosts and search engines such as Yahoo and Google.
Considered both as an art and as a science, Web Design requires that its practitioners are not only adept at creating aesthetically strong layouts but also at utilizing a number of computer languages to create different programs. This is so because Web Design consolidates a person's both creative expression and technical know-how.

With more and more people logging on to the World Wide Web and with the increasing boost in their hours spent using it, many companies have recognized the potential of Web Design as an effective and innovative marketing strategy, providing information and profiles on their products and services. Companies, with the help of both their marketing department and their advertising agency, are now encouraging their clients, customers, and end-users to acquire news, instructions, and reports on the company.

Web Design also allows for personal expression in that anyone can put up his or her own web site. Web sites intended for personal use are more informal and caution-free. The emergence of a number of networking sites such as Friendster, Facebook, and Multiply allows everyone to create a web page using readily-available web addresses and templates.

The Internet has truly redefined the way of life of the people it touches. It presents itself as a separate world, yet dependent on the world in which its creators move about. We can only sit back and witness the many more surprises it may bestow upon us.

I specialize in web design gloucestershire and web design cheltenham. Visit my site for information on webdesign. Over many extensive years of web design experience I have also begun offering graphic design services.


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Web Designer Vs. Web Developer

The difference between a web designer and a web developer has inspired much debate and confusion. This confusion, undoubtedly, is not unfounded. Not only are the terms easily interchangeable with each other but they also seem to have the same practitioners. Because it is always best to know both worlds, web designers eventually do venture out into web development, and web developers to web design. To resolve this rather undying issue, let us first define web design and web development.

Web design, as the name implies, pertains to the creation of sites in accordance to shape, lines, color, and texture. The theme of the entire web page becomes it main focus. It recognizes the importance of the look and feel of the web site and how the visitors will perceive it to be.

The web designer concerns himself mainly on the aesthetic presentation of the web page and puts the viewers appreciation on top of everything else. A viewers interaction with the web page is always top priority. It is the web designers job to entice viewers and to keep them coming back to the web site. Web development, on the other hand, has more to do with the creation of a website without consideration to design. It takes part in the planning and execution of a web page that are not in line with the design such as encoding in HTML.

A web developer concerns himself mainly on the functionality of a web page. His top priorities include the time and effort put into creating and maintaining a web site. In addition, the web developer figures out how viewers will go about and use the website.

When people log on to website, they expect to get what they need. For web developers, providing them exactly what they need is enough. But then again, it is always better to surprise viewers and leave them in awe.
More people are inclined to think that web developers are smarter and better. It is important, then, to keep in mind that technical know-how and practicality can only go so far. Although it is significant to obtain information as quickly and conveniently as possible, a monotonous and bland website cannot simply do the trick for the customers.

A cool, innovative web design brings in the viewers and the millions of hits. There are millions of websites out there and a whole lot of information to disseminate. The challenge is to make your message stand out and be heard. And this is where web design manifests its magic. Web design provides a personal or a company website a chance to over deliver.

Web design and web development are both crucial in the creation of a website. One simply cannot function completely without the other so to compare them and to try to defend which is more important is pointless. They are two very different yet interdependent fields.

For more information on web design cheltenham or web design in general visit our site.


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The Cozy Relationship Between Search Engine Optimization and W3C

There are a number of webmasters who claim that they know the ins and outs of search engine optimization, only to realize that they are only touching the surface. A good example is the fact that they are only a handful who know the importance of tuning their website with W3C.

Nevertheless, you can blame the problem to them. Not a lot actually understand the definition and purpose of W3C. And when they do not have any idea about it, it follows that they wouldn't be able to relate it with SEO.

Defining W3C Compliance W3C stands for World Wide Web Consortium. It was created in 1994, and its main purpose is to provide the necessary guidelines when it comes to creating and structuring webpages and sites that are meant to be included in search engines.

Of course, you can deduce that these standards are only derived from what webmasters consider as the best practices in optimization. If you're a web designer, you should be able to make sure that you understand the purpose of W3C and bring your website to compliance.

Accessibility Is Key One of the most important aspects that are being addressed by W3C is accessibility. The standards are meant to ensure that your website and your webpages will be viewed properly b your targeted audience. Here are other reasons why you need to comply with W3C:

1. Your website needs to be accessed by the disabled. You have the social responsibility to ensure that any valuable information that you have in your website shall also be made available for those who are physically challenged.

2. Data should also be available with the use of other communication devices. Today, there are a lot of communication devices that are sold.

These include laptops, mobile phones, and PDAs. If your website is considered to be a W3C, it should be accessible even in these communication devices. This way, information can be obtained 24/7.

3. Your website should be visible in any type of browser. There are different kinds of browsers that you can make use of. For example, if you're using Windows operating system, the default browser is Internet Explorer. Nevertheless, you can always opt to utilize Mozilla Firefox, Opera, and Crazy Browser.

All these have different components and configurations that could affect the appearance of your website. Learning W3C will guarantee you that Internet users will be able to access your information regardless of what Internet browser they are currently using.

The Role of W3C in Your Business Website Indeed, W3C is essential if you want to make sure that you don't miss out the opportunity of being accessed by millions of Internet users all over the world. As always expressed by veteran webmasters, the more people get to view you, the bigger will be your chances of converting your visitors to your local customers. But what is its main relationship with SEO? Why is it advisable to be following W3C when you're going to be optimizing your website?

A person that sticks to W3C will be utilizing lesser codes for his website and will have more time to focus on their content. In turn, since there will be more usable content in the website, you will gain favor from search engines, which love relevancy and information-loaded articles. Most of all, with W3C, it becomes very easy for search engine spiders to crawl into your website and index those pages.

The Best Ways to Make Your Website in Tune with W3C If you think that it only takes a little tweaking to make your site in tune with W3C, you may be in for a very big surprise. There are a lot of things that you need to learn. Nevertheless, it's still possible for you to achieve it. If you want to cut down the time you'll be spending with it, though, you may want to look for a website designer that will not only be taking care of the aesthetics of your site but also understands the importance of W3C for crawlability and accessibility.

If you want to save some your cash, you can opt to learn this on your own, but it will take you a while before you can master it. The good thing is there are a lot of tools and resources that are made available to you. A very good example is Mozilla Firefox. All you need to do is install the necessary extensions that you can use for testing. You may also like to read important notes from SEO experts.

W3C has a huge learning curve, but you may want to learn it if you want to ensure that you will not only get your website indexed in search engines, but you can also make the process a lot faster and easier.

Moe Tamani is a Marketing expert with the leading Dallas Web Design specializing in Search Engine Optimization Services.


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Top 10 Reasons To Avoid Cheap $500 Website Design Companies

You need a website and you just found a company advertising the cheapest rates around. This is a no-brainer, right? You're going to save a boatload, right?

Unfortunately, more and more disaster stories like this one are surfacing: "I hired one of those $500 companies to build my website, but they did a horrible job, they never finished, nothing works properly, and now they don't return my calls!"

If you're thinking of cutting corners, be warned! Here's a little preview of what to expect:

1. No Talent. A talented web designer is a prized possession. A web designer with little or no talent works for a $500 web design company, which lacks the artistic creativity of a professional design house.

2. Poor Communication. $500 web designers have no formal education. This limits their expertise and communication skills. So be prepared to expend a much greater effort and more time building your site. Some phrases you'll soon be familiar with:

"Can you please repeat that?" "I thought we went over this already!" "You said you'd call last Monday!" "This is the third time I'm telling you!" "You said the project would be done by now!"

3. Bait & Switch. Many companies advertise $500 websites just to pull you in. The final bill is often many times that amount. Make sure to see a contract up front and read the fine print carefully. Most $500 websites come with an obligatory 2-year hosting fee of $39 monthly, $49 monthly, and even $59 monthly. So you end up paying for a nice website but getting stuck with a cheap one instead! Not to mention unreliable hosting that you're stuck with for two years.

4. Atrocious Copywriting. A website is only half graphic design, the other half is copywriting, the words used to grab your audience's attention. Copywriting is crucial. Your website has only 6 seconds to captivate visitor interest before it's "Asta La Vista, Baby." And, no, they won't "Be back." Do you think $500 designers work hard to ensure that visitors actually stay on your site? In fact, most cheap web designers charge extra for their atrocious copywriting. But what are their writers' qualifications? Are they university trained? Do they have real-world marketing experience?

5. Irresponsible. What separates a good work ethic from a bad one? The answer is simple--salary! Imagine you worked at a job paying $13,000 a year. Now imagine the boss asked you to stay late every night. How would you feel? But how would you feel staying late for $100,000 a year? Sure, we all like to think we'd go all out no matter what. But if we be honest with ourselves, reality is a bit different. Bottom line? Getting paid less will show in one's work and dedication.

6. Shoddy Outsourcing. Some $500 designers outsource coding, scripting and HTML overseas to third world countries. What do you get? An outdated website that's horribly designed, that doesn't function properly and that is virtually worthless. It pays to buy American.

7. Boring Templates. $500 web companies use dime-a-dozen templates, giving you no control over the finished product, and making your site look like every other site out there. Ask them to change the design, and their answer will be "I can't." Ask them to shift the text, and their answer will be "I can't."

8. No Guarantees. $500 web designers make you sign a contract tipped in their favor. Ask to take a peek and you'll read, "The website is complete only when the designer says it's complete. The client has no say in the matter." They know you won't be 100% pleased with the finished product!

9. Unreliable Resources. Ever notice how some websites download faster than others? Guess who builds the websites that take ten years to download? You guessed it! Same deal with website downtime. Ever notice how some websites you visit often suffer downtime more than others? If you want to ensure that your website will be there in the morning, or that your site will download at lightning speed, steer clear of those $500 designers who rely on cheap resources.

10. Can't Deliver. Most $500 designers have limited expertise. Some don't know flash, others don't know how to create contact forms. Some can't create search functions, others don't know log ins. Make sure you ask the right questions. If not, you risk getting stuck with a company that can't deliver what you need.

Putting things into perspective, when you hire a $500 web design company, you take on all the headaches and frustration of dealing with an inferior staff, lesser quality and questionable service. In other words, you get what you pay for. Sure we all like to save money if we can. But you shouldn't buy a website at a rock-bottom price for the same reason you shouldn't buy a $9 pair of shoes--because you'll be wasting your money and getting what you pay for. Top quality web design and copywriting is a matter of price.

Sometimes your budget is limited and the $500 web design company may seem your only option. Dedicated design houses usually care enough to offer payment plans. Just ask.

The moral of the story is that you get a much better value by partnering with a reasonably priced web design house. You work with a dedicated team of kind and friendly professionals who always deliver what you want on time, within budget, and in a way that's going to make your website impress prospective clients and convert them into paying customers!

Richard Cagney heads the SEO/SEM division of the affordable custom website design and marketing firm All Access Unlimited (http://www.allaccessunlimited.com), in Stamford, Connecticut. AAU provides high conversion marketing to companies aiming to expand and grow in the American and world markets.


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Top Website Navigation Tips

The aim of a website's navigation is simply to allow users to get to the content they require. For sites that have a large number of sections and web pages (and information sites can be one of these) the navigation plan has to be properly researched and designed.

You have to consider different types of visitors and simulate the most common steps they would take to find what they want on your site, and the navigation plan has to optimize this movement. For example, the steps required from searching a catalog of items, selecting from the catalog, adding them to a shopping cart, proceeding to check out, to entering the payment particulars is a specific sequence that should be facilitated by the navigation system.

If the sequence is haphazard, it could lead to frustration or the user may miss an important step and you would have an aborted sale. To find their way about, users need to know two things: - Where they are now - How to go elsewhere Navigation does not exist in isolation; good site organization is a prerequisite for a coherent navigation system.

A navigation system can be broken into two primary objective types: Location Indicators and Navigation Controls.

Location Indicators - Location indicators let users know where they are in the site at the moment. You need to keep in mind that users coming from outside your site can enter at any page, not necessarily on a main page. They need to be able to orientate themselves quickly.

Equally, it is important that users navigating around your site have a clear idea of where they are both in absolute terms and in relation to other content. Location information should appear on every page of the site, in the same place and in the same style.

Location indicators should tell the user precisely where they are and this should be clear even to a user who has entered the site at an internal page. The location indicator should be identifiable for what it is and make sense in the context of other navigation.

In simple sites a page banner - text or graphic - naming the page will be sufficient. For this to work the page name should also appear in the main navigation so that it is relevant within the overall structure of the site.

Color can be used. For example a different color background, contrast color or sidebar in each part of the site. To be really effective the color change should be reflected in the navigation.

Using 'breadcrumbs' on every page is a good idea. Breadcrumbs show you a series of hierarchical links that you have used to go from page to page within a section. Using breadcrumbs is like leaving a trail of the path you have followed. The breadcrumbs appear at the top of the content section, just below the main navigation template.

Each element in the breadcrumb is a link to that section or subsection. This helps in avoiding a series of back buttons allowing the user to directly go back to the main section page or another sub section. More importantly, it always shows the context of the page that is being viewed and how it belongs to a section or sub-section.

Navigation Controls - Navigation controls are the main navigation links. They allow users to move around the site. Whether they comprise images or text they should be predictably located in the same place, and with the same appearance, on each page.

These have several purposes: To allow users to move about within the site; To tell users what information is available at the link; To work with location indicators to orientate users; A good navigation control is clear and looks like navigation; Leads to obvious content - users have a good idea what they will find if they click; Is consistent with other navigation controls; Is predictable in its style and location on the page.

There is no mystery to usability. It simply involves creating a site, which is accessible to the majority of people, is easy to use and get around and delivers on its promises. You can have a site that meets the most important standards of usability by planning it well and always keeping the end user in mind. Remember that websites should not be designed for their owners - they should be designed for their users.

Problems with usability could be said to stem from just two sources: the site itself and the user. In fact, the site is always at fault if a visitor (however experienced or inexperienced) has problems navigating, getting information or understanding the site.

While websites have become far more complex, web users have become less experienced because more and more new people go online every day. It is a mistake to think that the majority of users will be web or even computer savvy and will understand subtle clues about content. Many will not, so make your site as easy to use as possible.

Anthony "The Biz Opp Mentor" is a Best Home Based Business Ideas and Opportunities Specialist. www.pluginprofitsite.com/main-18365


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The Best Sort of Website Design for Your Business

There are various schools of thought on website design, but there is agreement on one thing:

Your website, whether a normal site or a blog, should look different from others and should help you establish your business as a brand. This is equally important whether you are an offline business, getting a website, or an internet marketer.

HTML or PHP sites

A conventional website, designed in either HTML or PHP is the best way to go, especially if you have an online business where you need easy navigation to your services or products. This is the approach I recommend. If you do like to keep in touch with your customers in an informal way, you can have a blog attached to any site. In fact, a blog can be installed in most sites in about one minute!

For online marketers, there are some advantages in blogs. They are quick to set up, and it is very easy to add articles. They are not quite so good with images, though, and do not have a navigation structure suitable for products or services. Internet marketers usually have some conventional sites and some blog sites.

The difference between HTML and PHP

If the site is deigned entirely in HTML, each page is different, and is laid out individually. The pages will share common elements such as a header image, maybe other images, the navigation bar at the top or side, and the footer, which usually includes the navigation bar and the copyright notice.

Don't use frames

You can also design a site with frames, in which case the frame is used for all pages. The frame or frame set includes the header, navigation buttons, and any other information found on all pages. The text for that page is in a separate file which is called up. This is not so good for search engine ranking, but can work, so long as the search engine spiders can access the text files and associate them with the page correctly. Usually, if someone searches for your framed site, they will get only to the home page, which is not a good idea. In fact, frames are not good for search engine optimization.

PHP or hybrids load fast

When the site is designed in PHP, the actual code for each page can be a skeleton which calls up other files, such as a navigation bar and header image. Or, each page can include the text of an article, for example, but the other files are still called up.

This is a popular way of building sites because it is quick, and when the search engine spiders access the page, they see all the code and text laid out much the same way as when the surfer visits the site. This is therefore good for search engine ranking. PHP sites are also fast to load.

However, a hybrid approach in which the navigation bar, etc, are in PHP, but the text is on the individual page, also works well. If the site is fairly small, say up to 20 pages, normal HTML also works well.

For information on free website designs go to www.persimmonpublishing.com, which is run by John Hartley.


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Grilling Your Website Design Firm

Who doesn't want a website. But before you get started on your website make sure you ask these question to help you decide whether a website design firm is right for you. Here a few questions that you can ask to ensure they're right for you.

Is the website design quote guaranteed? Most web design include an option that allows you to request a free quote. If you do request a free quote from a firm then make sure to ask them whether this quote is guaranteed or if the final price might be different.

If you add new features then yes that price might be different but if you didn't change anything then you should only pay what was agreed on.

What are the maintenance cost after the website is done?
Maintenance costs really depend on the type of website you have. If you have a small five page website for your business then you're maintenance cost could be anything from updating text to setting up new email addresses for your employees. If on the other hand you have a complex website with a database, a web programming language then you should expect some type of a monthly maintenance fee that'll allow the website team to manage your system and make sure it's running smoothly.

It's different for each website unless they offer you a package deal which might include monthly maintenance fee.

Do I have complete rights to this website?
For small websites normally it's assumed you have the right to the complete website design because there are no complex systems installed. But if you have a custom developed system that runs on special code that the firm owns then you need to ask them whether you have complete rights to the software. Most will say yes but there are some that create their own systems and in those cases you might have rights to that system on your website but no reseller rights.

What if you need additional features after the website is done?
Once the website is done if you decide to add new features then how will those be priced and developed. If it's a custom website or system then the website firm will likely provide you with a price sheet, but if it's a ready made system that been customized to fit your needs then there might not be an option to add additional features. There's no way to know so the best option is to find out during the proposal.

These are just a few of the general questions. Each website case is uniquely different so consider creating your own checklist of questions and then ask those questions to find out which website design firm is best for you.

To find out more information visit Netlyte | Houston Web Design. You can also request free information to find out how we can help you build your Website at Houston Search Engine Optimization


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Where To Put Your Links: Enhancing Website Usability

The Internet is what it is because of connections, bridging one computer to a host of others. Because of this we are able to access information at a click of a button.

The things we click are called links, and they can be likened to the synapses of a brain - connecting the user from one document to another.

One of the main tenets of website design is that a page must be able to link to another page. Failure to do so renders the page dead - and is a lot like crashing into a brick wall as you speed down the information highway.

That said, website designers, both pro and amateur, make it a point to include links into every single page they design. But it is simply more than just slapping on links anywhere. Links are as vital to a web page as the content on it for without it, a visitor will be hard pressed to connect to other documents on the Internet.

In any website, there are different kinds of links. There is no hard and fast rule when it comes to laying out links on a web page. But over time, certain conventions have emerged that seem to have become an unspoken standard in design. Deviations certainly will not depreciate a website's over-all impact, but it may require some amount of time for the visitor to get oriented.

Whether you tend to follow conventions or not, it is best to be acquainted first with the rules, so that you will know what to break and how to break them.

But first of all, for the sake of clarification, imagine a website to be like a book. Of course, you know that a book holds several pages. In the case of a website, the pages are called web pages.

A web page basically has two kinds of links: Internal and External.

Internal links are what connect pages of the same website to each other. Going back to our book analogy, an internal link connects a page to another from the same book. So a visitor can access the contact page of a website from the home (or index) page via an internal link.

An external link, on the other hand, connects a web page to another web page from a different website. So an external link is something like a connection between two pages from two separate books.

Layout Conventions Over the years, as more and more users and websites are added to the Internet, certain conventions or assumptions about the location of links have been formed.

The most common of which are the internal links on either the top or left margin of a page. Seeing that these two areas are the ones first noticed by a user, designers felt it was natural to place internal links that would connect the pages of the same website together. Because of the nature of its location, links on these sides of the page are prominent and graphic designs on them.

Another area where internal links are located is at the bottom of the page, usually where the copyright information is placed. However, unlike the top and left margin areas, the links at the bottom are discreet and usually rendered in small fonts (like the copyright info). This is done primarily to avoid redundancies in design, while still providing alternate sources of links should the others fail.

External links are usually found in the body of the text or in the right hand margins of the page. No specific rule exists for this, and the conventions arise merely out of common usage.

However, some designers have surmised that the tendency to place external links within the body of the text is done because references to information outside the website should be described or explained, whereas internal links need little to no explanation at all.

Another theory is that the right side feels like the outer part of page. This assumption is built on the observation that reading is done from the left to the right. So the right part of the page indicates the end of a page, thus references outside the website find themselves allocated to this area.

For some reason as more and more text advertisements (such as Google AdSense) proliferate, the location for such external links are designated at the center or the right side of a web page.

And yet, as mentioned before, these are merely conventions and NOT rules set in stone. Designers have all the freedom to layout information and links however they want. Deviations from such standard practices simply make the surfing experience for these websites slightly more interesting than the rest.

The important thing is that connections are made and everyone can continue to cruise and surf the Web one link to one page at a time.

Jo Han Mok is the author of the #1 international business bestseller, The E-Code.
He shares his amazing blueprint for creating million dollar internet businesses at: http://www.InternetMillionaireBlueprints.com


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How To Create Usable Websites

A usable site will: Help users achieve a goal, usually to find something, such as information, or obtain something, such as an article; Make it easy for them to achieve that goal; Make it possible to achieve the goal quickly; Make achieving that goal a pleasant experience.

Good Content is Critical - A site with good content, regardless of its subject, is one that provides products or information that is useful or beneficial to users. A good usable site will make it clear what information or content is available and at what price AND what is not available. A good usable site should define clearly all subscription packages offered.

Ease of Access to Information - Good navigation, precise location indicators, secondary navigation, clear linked text and a well-organized structure all contribute to making information easy to find for a wide range of different users. Bearing in mind that many users are inexperienced, it may be necessary to include explanations of things you consider self explanatory. For example, an inexperienced user may need an explanation of how to use a drop down menu. Remember, make it as easy as possible for people to use your website.

Quick Access to Information - This is the aim of the majority of web users. It can be broken into two important aspects: Speed of Page Loading and Speed of Access to Content.

Speed of Page Loading - This requires, in particular, attention to images to ensure they are properly optimized and do not excessively delay load time. It may also mean breaking up long articles and ensuring that important content is at the top of the page where it will load first.

Speed of Access to Content - This is where the 3-click rule comes in - no important content should be more than 3 clicks from the home page. Some standards even say that it should be no more than two clicks. One helpful way to speed access to content is to consider each type of user, select the content that they are most likely to be interested in and create links from the home page to one piece of content for each group. This will get them quickly to the appropriate part of the site.

Cleanly Designed Pages Cleanly designed pages are pleasant to look at and easy to read. It is almost impossible to make a site with an image shown as a tiled background usable - the whole thing is too distracting and confusing. It takes no great design skills to create clean pages; it just requires thought and adherence to the principle that when it comes to design, less usually is more.

Download Status Most paid membership websites are limited to online access and information download rather than selling products. There should be clear download instructions provided. Your website should also state the size of the file in kilobytes and the estimated time of download for a user having a 56K modem, DSL, Cable and so on.

Usability Problems
While for large commercial sites investment in full-scale usability studies may be essential, few small sites can afford such luxuries. However, identifying problems with usability for your site need be no more complicated than asking a few (honest) friends to act as guinea pigs on your site and, if possible, watching them silently as they do this.

Watching users try to find information at your site can be both instructive and quite surprising. Remember that if at any stage you feel the urge to intervene and explain, then you have identified a usability problem.

1. The site does not state its purpose clearly Java applets, huge images, banner ads or flashy elements slow down loading; 10 seconds is about as long as the average user will wait for a page.

2. The site requires specific software to be used. Have you ever actually changed browsers or downloaded a piece of software just to see a site?

3. Poor navigation, too little navigation, too much navigation and, not uncommonly, no navigation at all.

4. Bad design leading to poor readability.

5. Discomfort due to ugly design or inconsistent design. Almost always because a designer overestimated their skills.

6. Irrelevance of content - for example the business site that includes biographies and photos of each of the board members. Happy egos on the board = bored website visitors!

7. Complexity or excessive originality of design, which requires users to learn how it works in order to use it.

8. Inaccessibility because the site cannot be used by browsers for people with disabilities.

Bottom line: A site will be generally usable if: 1. The content is good and relevant; 2. The content is easy to find; 3. The content can be found quickly; 4. The page is pleasant to look at and cleanly designed.

Anthony "The Biz Opp Mentor" is a Best Home Based Business Ideas and Opportunities Specialist. www.pluginprofitsite.com/main-18365


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When Web Design Gets Annoying!

The Internet is home to various artists, web artists, and designers both professional and amateur. It can afford to provide individuals with opportunities to freely explore their artistic capabilities and publish content to a borderless audience.

However, unluckily, alongside this freedom of expression afforded to everyone is the capacity to offend sensibilities. Some website provide great utility and aesthetic pleasure others are bound to get annoying.

There are ways and means in order to avoid getting annoying, and its best to start by knowing when web design of a website does get annoying.

Using colors that just do not work

Colors in good and sensible does are a good means in order to attract attention and communicate ideas and emotions to an audience. They can help add interest to a dull site full of text, and even introduce and maintain a certain mood (as in scary websites using black as a background).

However, there is a fine line between too much and just about right. What gets annoying when it comes to colors is when readability is compromised, and combinations are too loud for comfort. When readability is compromised, it can pose great discomfort to the site's visitors when they try to decipher the text that they want to have access to. Using too many colors and colors that do not complement each other tend to make the website look goofy and awkward, and can make the website lose whatever credibility it can possibly gain.

Too many clicks to get to the end of the road

At the end of the day, people who visit websites do so in order to access information and content in a website. Some websites tend to re-route visitors through too many clicks before they get to the content they want to get to assuming that the content is indeed somewhere in the multiple pages they are made to access. Obviously, that gets annoying. Rule of thumb says that a maximum of three clicks (but preferably less) should be enough in order for someone surfing a site to get to the information they want to get to.

Excessive graphics that take too long to load

Graphics and pictures, when relevant and are the primary content meant for the website, are a welcome part of a website. However, when they just serve the purpose of aesthetic enhancement, graphics and pictures that take too long to load and inevitably, slow the process of accessing primary content become a major reason for discontent and displeasure among visitors.

It is also helpful to note that not all visitors of the website are equipped with optimal download or Internet surfing speeds; excessive graphics that are too large and thus, take too long to load are not only unwelcome but also a great inconvenience to a great number of people. Navigation that's over-the-top and difficult to follow

Overcomplicating the navigation of the website can greatly hamper the efficacy of the website to communicate its content, and can hurt the accessibility of many pages to its visitors. At any point during their visit to a site, it is important to assure that the visitors have some way in order to trace back their steps and return to content they previously accessed, as well as carry on with accessing other content.

For simplicity's sake, many websites solve this problem by having a constant button present on all pages for visitors to return to their main menu page, or their cover page.

Fonts that simply do not work

Depending on the browser and fonts installed by the users on their computers, extremely decorative and highly uncommon fonts may not be displayed the way the web designer intended them to appear and may oftentimes even compromise the readability of the text per se.

In order to avoid this from happening, many web designers opt to stay within the bounds of major font families (Helvetica, verdana, and the like). That way, they are assured that most (if not all) of their visitors will be viewing the site as designed, and thus have greater control of the way the page will be displayed in the end.

There is never a "perfect" template for design as it is open to the subjectivity and artistic limitations of designers. However, understanding the behavior of site visitors can only help make shape design innovation and utility move towards greater heights.

Jo Han Mok is the author of the #1 international business bestseller, The E-Code.
He shares his amazing blueprint for creating million dollar internet businesses at: http://www.InternetMillionaireBlueprints.com


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