Coming Soon Page does not necessarily mean that you have to feature icons of some working people or under-construction sign there. You can make it a little bit interesting to increase the level of anticipation of the viewers that can help you to hook your visitors to your under construction website for a few seconds more. From the search engine’s point of view, a “Coming Soon Page” is considered as an unwanted appendage that can have detrimental effects on its overall web presence. But if you refuse to budge, you need to make your “Coming Soon Page” as interesting as possible.

Majority of Coming Soon Pages do not flaunt any magnificent design, and the reason is the apathy of the designers and they have good reasons to be. A minimalist and simple structure of website design is all you likely to have in a Coming Soon Page. Designers do not give much attention because they feel it is fruitless to do so, since this page will be replaced by the final design sooner or later. But if you are a bit particular about your visitors retention policy, you need to give it a second thought. Here are some issues that you need to give utmost attention if you want to add glamour and glitz to the launching ceremony of your website: Continue reading ‘Coming Soon Page Design: What Purpose Do They Serve?’ »

Testing browser compatibility is an issue that can drive a website designer literary crazy. If you are in the field of website design, you know it very well how this thing can drive you to the brink of insanity. The number of browsers is increasing continuously and thereby making this task all the more difficult for website designers. Designing a website that will render similarly in different browsers across a wide variety of platforms has become a tough task. Just think of the tedious yet challenging task of checking the compatibility of your website in different browsers and in different platforms and you will certainly find yourself in a fix. This is undoubtedly a mammoth task and if you are ill equipped, you are sure to have nightmare in your dreams.

Fabulous Five:- The constant bickering between Mozilla and Internet have forced many a website designers to have a game plan so that their websites can appear almost the same in these two different browsers. As the days of Internet Explorer is drawing near the end, its turf is invaded by other players such as Google Chrome, Opera etc. Therefore, a growing tendency to overlook the compatibility of websites in IE has slowly crept into the conscience of website designers and developers. Though IE is trying to regain its control over the lost turf by making it more users friendly and by adding new features, it is still being haunted by its past.

As modern designers do not have enough time for browser testing, they are specifically targeting five or six most popular browsers. Checking a website in these browsers alone would not make any significant difference, as a sizable section of visitors are  still using either other platforms or other browsers, but there is no other viable option in hand. Continue reading ‘Browser Testing: What’s Your Take On It’ »

Smashing Magazine has never fallen out of popularity not just because its posts are different and of high quality, but because it gives value to the feedback of its staggering number of visitors. To offer a better browsing experience to its whopping number of visitors, it often makes minor tweaks in its website design. This goes without saying that in majority of cases, these minor changes have had positive impacts but there are some exceptions to this rule that should not be blatantly ignored. Here in this article, we will try to find out the positive as well as negative aspects of its existing website design:

A New Depth: – This is what people are likely to explore at Smashing Magazine, this time around. It looks much more compact and user friendly. It has shunned complex navigation and its website is remarkably free from visual gimmick (or to be precise visual blunder). Content gets the required focus and it is never sidelined by images or advertisement. It is an ideal fusion of images and text that has made Smashing Magazine an undisputed leader in its territory.

Logo Gets the Required Attention: – The look and feel of Smashing Magazine’s famed logo remains the same but it is getting more attention thanks to the minimal use of other images and texts that often overshadowed it in someway or other. Its current form now has a much-needed white space that makes it look truly nice and elegant.

Smashing Network: – This is a unique of its kind network that is aimed at getting cross traffic without adversely affecting its visitor retention policy. Posts of other related websites are featured here but it stays inactive by default unless and until it is clicked by a visitor.

Images of Ads: – Ads that appear in the left hand section of Smashing Magazine looks much more elegant and soothing than ever. As ad is its main source of its revenue generation, there is a little scope to go against the will of the advertisers even if the ads do not look so good.

Newsletter Sign Up Option: – This is something that few of us have expected from Smashing Magazine. Though Newsletter Sign Up option takes less space, its purpose is largely unclear. It does not dictate anything about why a visitor has to sign up for newsletter.

Big Images: Big images are used brilliantly but they might come a cropper while being viewed in slow internet connection. It will take long time to get loaded and might not augur well for it.

Footer Looks Impressive: – Footer of Smashing Magazine looks really impressive and clean. It has a positive impact on the hierarchy of the website. Links are well organized and do not look alien as far as the structure of the website is concerned.

The fresh new look of CNN reflects what you could term as its bold attempt to redefine the way people used to read news. It has made its website more interactive, more innovative and even more engaging by giving more importance to videos. What is all the more amazing about CNN’s new website design is that users are given a chance to personalize CNN’s website in the way they like.

Clean and Fresh Look: – CNN’s new website looks absolutely clean, beautiful, balanced, well-structured and user-friendly. In fact, it has everything in it to seize the attention of even causal visitors. It has a charismatic appeal that encourages visitors to scan the entire page to gather information on a variety of topics. CNN’s previous design was not at all up to the mark. It looked somewhat cluttered and the articles were squeezed forcefully into small space. But, the new layout is like a breather for most users. It looks clean, cool and its new interface has embraced all the modern web design techniques.

Inspiration From Grid: – The new interface of CNN clearly shows that it is inspired by grid structure but specific alignment structure that is closely associated with grid system is notably missing in CNN’s new look. CSS that is used in CNN’s new website has a number of similarities with Blueprint framework. However, the alignment of different elements in CNN’s website is completely different from that of grid layout, but it is far better than its previous version.

Better Header Section: – The good thing about the CNN’s new layout is that its header section is much improved than its earlier version. It looks prominent and it oozes out a sense of authority that can hardly be overlooked. Its horizontal navigation bar appears modern and clean. Moreover, the login links, signup options and the search box are posited exactly in the in the top-right corner. What is all the more interesting about CNN’s header section is the unique positioning of logo. It is not everyday that you can see a logo positioned right into the middle of a website header. Though the concept does not go in line with the website design standard, it seems fine with CNN.

Use of Space: – Below the primary ad unit, on the right hand side of the page, a new feature has been added – Content Switcher that will allow visitors to get quick view of different content without browsing through the entire site. It takes less space and thereby gives unlimited scopes to the website designers to utilize other section for other fruitful tasks.

Emphasis on Video: – CNN has always given importance to videos in its website so that visitors can find this website more interactive than other websites. A new section “NewsPulse” (Beta) is added in its menu where visitors can have quick view of different videos in a single glance.

The new interface of CNN is much more beautiful, engaging and user-friendly than ever. Just take you time and browse through its different sections if you want to explore more about its new design.

Contact Form is one of those few areas that get least attention when it comes to website design. As it remains at the fag end of a website and as users do not usually bump onto the contact form all of a sudden, it is usually overlooked and often blatantly ignored by majority of website designers. Instead of designing a unique contact form, website design companies are using just Mailto Link. But does it perform the same objective? Is it liked by the users? If you are continuously bamboozled by these baffling questions, it is the high time that you should give this a second thought.

It Is Simply Boring: – Using a Mailto Link is boring to the end. It is cut and paste job and therefore, it is unsuitable for a reputable website design company. It does not have the charismatic appeal like that of a Contact Form and forces visitors to take recourse to their old and faithful friend: Email account to get in touch with that particular company. The entire process is anything but innovative, whereas a smart contact form can make all the difference here. It can tempt, tease and titillate the visitors to fill it more profoundly and more emphatically than anything else on earth. Furthermore, it will ensure genuine mail, as spammers do not have the time to fill out your elaborately designed Contact Form. Got it?

Contact Form Make Your Website Looks Great: – Contact Form dictates your seriousness about getting feedback and mail from the visitors. Visitors do not have enough time to locate your tiny Mailto Link to contact you, rather they prefer to click onto the contact form for the same purpose. Therefore, by adding Contact Form, you will definitely be able to get few more extra mails from the visitors.

Three Aspects of Contact Form: – Design of a Contact Form is invariably associated with its alignment, size and color. The alignment of the Contact Form should be in line with the design of the website. Experiment with alignment should be discarded as far as possible as it often leads to unwanted confusions. Size of the Contact Form has to be planned before finalizing the design of the website. It should be too small or it should not be too big. Things should appear elegant and not something superficial. Now when it comes to color, just make sure it looks sober as visitors will spend a good amount of time on this particular page.

However, Mailto Link is not necessarily bad. They have their own importance but if you are serious about business, you should opt for a cool Contact Form.

Modern designers are getting increasingly dissatisfied, disillusioned and enraged with the limitations of web interface. Though the transition from type-led minimalism website design to detailed and elaborated interface, as in the case of some highly sophisticated movie and video game websites, is giving them a chance to give wings to their creative impulse, they are finding themselves tied up, when it comes to choosing fonts. Either they have to make a choice from the fonts that are already been installed or they have to covert the entire thing into an image, which is utterly ridiculous and unrealistic.

Clash Between Usability and Performance: – Most website designers torn between these two contrasting concepts. For the time being, they have to compromise either on the performance or on the usability, as clarified Jonathan Snook, front-end engineer of Yahoo. This goes true with SIFR (scalable Inman Flash Replacement) which is famed for offering a greater level of flexibility, but it can have detrimental effects on the performance of a website as well as on its usability. Cufón is another application that can convert font files into vector objects. But it has own set of problems that are big enough to overlook easily. But future is not as bleak as it may appear. 2010 can experience a dramatic chance in the use of fonts but there are some technical issues that have to be resolved first before proceeding further.

Why Change is Inevitable: – At present browser-landscape is relatively stable but experiments are underway to make it more engaging, more interesting and more flexible. Web designers are making strong arguments in favor of using different varieties of fonts in websites. If we can use different artistic fonts in print industry, we do not see any reason why web industries will remain immune from these changes.

Similar Sites: – Imposing restrictions on the use of fonts have already created number complex issues. For example, content-based websites are started looking alike. Take a sneak peek at these two sites:

CNN

New York Times

Do they look same? If you think they, time has finally come to give some serious thought on it. But despite this, currently most website designers prefer those fonts that are likely to be installed on majority of users.

The Rise of @Font Face: – @Font Face is giving website designers’ unlimited opportunities to use varieties of fonts without compromising anything on ground. Users will not have to install fonts in their machine for viewing a webpage rather fonts will be embedded within the page.

Talent is not the one and only determining factor when it comes to success in creative field. It depends on how a person is promoting his art or talent without making it too obvious. Personal branding, self-marketing, promotion or whatever you call it, you cannot deny its ever increasing and all-encompassing importance. Being a website designer, I know how challenging it is for a person to attain perfection in a work of art. Website design is more or less a form of pure art where technology and creative are intertwined for producing something unique. But just having a flair for creativity is not the only thing that you need to have to become successful website designer, you need to a strategy or .. let face it; you should have a self branding strategy to make things work for you. Here are some things that you can try to establish yourself as a successful website designer:

Start With Your Name
Launching a website which has punch lines in but this will not make any significant difference in bettering your prospect as a good website designer. Why not launch a website in your own name! This may sound crazy, but this is actually a cool concept. You will have to your own identity and this will surely make things simple for people to find your out.

Be Truthful To Yourself
Now, I am not a preacher nor I am here to dictate my philosophy. What I want to convey through the above mentioned line is that a website designer should not take the credit of others work. To put it into simple English; do not steal other concepts or ideas because this can have far reaching consequences in near future. Your works reflect what you are and which is why you should make it as unique as possible. However, success may appear elusive at the embryonic stage, but things will certainly change in sooner or later. Just hone your skills at the meantime and wait for the opportunity.

Be Focused and Consistent
In majority of cases, a large section of website designers fall into the trap of doing too many things at a time and ultimately find themselves in a typical situation at the end of the day. Do not waste your positive energy for doing something unfruitful. Try to keep it intact or preserve it until you get the ideal opportunity.

Do not compromise with the quality of your work. Take a leave for from work if you find yourself blindly groping for great ideas. Your brand value can take a sharp nosedive, if you fail to meet the expectation of your clients. So, be focused through our career and try to upgrade your skills as far as possible if you want to emerge as a successful designer at the end of the day.

If a site is successful to create good visual impact on the mind of the visitors then it can fetch good online traffic. Among many things, attractiveness of a website design is an important factor to increase its popularity. To make a site appear visually attractive, a web designer needs to be both creative and skilled at handling web designing tools. Understanding the purpose of launching the site and its target market is also required before planning the site design.

Flash web design is an effective way to make your site appear attractive. With flash you can make your site livelier and much more interesting to the online visitors. To enhance the look and feel of your site you can use this application. Here are some basic tips of flash web design: Continue reading ‘Enhance Look of your Website with Flash Designing’ »