The World Wide Web has plenty of CMSes that range from basic micro-blogging platforms to full-fledged packages for businesses. To work with a CMS that you can quickly understand and get the hang of, is important to deliver a fast turnaround of a project. However, it should not be the only criteria for you to select a CMS. Just because a particular CMS is easy-to-learn and easy to configure, doesn’t mean you should go for it.

Since content management systems are created by developers, they pay their entire attention to the development process, which means they may sometimes overlook the theme’s usability. As a result, the designer (which is you) and even the end-user has to deal with a complicated front-end. However, there are some CMSes where theming is easy.

Plus, you should also pay attention to the way the control panel runs because that’s where you will spend a lot of time. Keep in mind this simple fact – the more flexible it is to theme the CMS, the better it is for you as a website designer.

These are some factors you must take into consideration:

• Do you like working with pre-set templates?

• Does the CMS make you save separate portions of your design throughout the back-end?

• Can a text editor be used?

Since a lot CMSes are open-source, they have communities that exist to help the designers. However, this is not always according to theory. Before you want to decide on a CMS, find how helpful its community is. See if beginners’ questions are entertained and whether the answers are at all helpful. I’m insisting on this because there are some communities that do not entertain the questions put across by beginners. Also, look for an add-on community.

The printed material that comes with your CMS, should serve as a complete guide on how to create a website. If it does not provide that information, move on to a different CMS.

You will not always create a website for your website design company. So, pay attention to how easy your CMS makes it for your clients to add or edit their content. Less-featured or complicated CMSes can hinder your development time and may take a lot of time to explain the workings of it to your clients. Find out how easy image uploading is and how user-friendly the control panel is for a novice.

Remember, every single person in the world is different and the same applies to internet users. The CMS that works for you, may not work for one of your clients. Keep the end-user in mind when choosing the CMS and also consider these aforementioned aspects.

Feel free to tell us how you choose your CMSes.

Many artists and designers are obsessed with fulfilling their creative urges, unconcerned about preferences of the masses. Unfortunately, if you are working as a professional designer in a website design company, you cannot ignore preferences of your target audience. This becomes more complicated when your project revolves around a foreign culture.

In such a situation, you can take help of sociology. Sociological knowledge will help you to strike a balance between your creative satisfaction and preferences of masses (especially if your target audience belongs to a foreign culture). If you are wondering why we are highlighting the role of sociology suddenly, allow us to explain the relationship between sociology and website design.

Definition of Sociology

Sociology refers to the study of social behavior of human beings and factors that shape our social personalities. These factors can include family, religion, culture, ethnicity, race, and education. It also investigates social issues, such as gender, crime and studies cultural, political and economic changes.

Relationship with Design

We will not be surprised if you are wondering about the relationship between sociology and website designing. To clarify your confusion, we would highlight an example.

The issue- Let us assume that you are an American website designer who never visited any other country. You only possess a vague knowledge about other countries.

Now, you come across a client who requests you to design a website for their China-based hotels. The client offers you full creative freedom. However, his only requirement is that you should incorporate uniqueness of Chinese culture within the site.

The problem- Since you do not possess in-depth knowledge about the culture of China, you do not feel confident about taking up the project.

The solution- If you are working as a freelance designer, you can always reject the project. However, if you want to challenge yourself, taking up the project can be a good idea. In this situation, sociology can help you.

Contribution of Sociology

Sociological knowledge allows a person to understand cultures of other societies. Furthermore, it informs the person about the basic structure of a society and its unique traditions. This means that if you possess sociological knowledge, you can handle projects of foreign clients easily.

Final Lessons

Sociology is a broad subject that encompasses various concepts. Therefore, it is impossible that you would acquire sociological knowledge within one day or month. You have to invest time for studying sociology and understanding its impact on design.

Unfortunately, as a designer, you may not always have the time to understand sociological concepts in details. In such a situation, you can research about few basic issues. These issues can include-

• Culture of the area
• Factors that influence residents of the area
• Historical background of the region
• Current economic conditions of the area

Acquiring information about these issues will widen your knowledge about a particular region. This in turn, will increase your confidence and help you to handle projects of a foreign client smoothly.a

The internet is used by millions of people from various age groups and demographics. To be successful in today’s tough world wide web, a website design company needs to grasp the concept of variation, to provide audience-specific website designing solutions to its clients.

Age is crucial in determining a website’s target market for a lot of reasons, such as accessibility, psychology and user-friendliness. While there are other aspects that play a major role in the success of  website design, we will discuss the importance of age.

In this era, the difference that age groups play in using the net is more evident than ever before. Conduct a research on the age groups that use the net for something very similar to what your website offers or will offer. This would help you determine your user base and design your website accordingly. But keep one thing in mind, you just cannot take anything for granted so be careful when you begin your website designing process.

Divide your target users in 4 age groups – children, adolescents, adults and senior citizens.

♦  Children: Today’s  children experience the most intense impact of the internet. Even a few years

ago, kids had limited computer skills but now, they are as familiar with computers and internet as can be, thanks to early exposure both at home and at school. But as far as dealing with errors is concerned, children are less patient than adults

Website design for children poses less challenges than website design for adults because children do not have anything specific in mind when they surf the net. They just want entertainment and that gives the designer the freedom to create entertaining, educational and interactive websites.

When you create a website for children – keep the site as clean as possible, use bright colors, use sound and animation, offer educational games, use iconography, create content that’s relevant to the fictional characters children are familiar with and avoid integrated advertisements. They would distract children very quickly and easily.

♦  Adolescents: They are more fluent with computers and more patient with errors than children.

They use technology to be in touch with their friends through social networks. They are not very adventurous when it comes to exploration. They prefer to go to websites that they know rather than discovering new websites. According to studies, the difference between adults and adolescents is that the latter are more concerned about their social interactions rather than working towards a set goal on the web.

When designing for adolescents – pay more attention to graphics than text, use sound and animation but not as much as you would use for children. Provide a clean interface and keep the content simple, but not so simple that it seems kiddish.

♦  Adults: This is the age group many web designers target for testing their website’s usability.

Considered to be the average internet users, adults, though not always computer literate, possess some knowledge of the computers and internet. They are the most skilled and comfortable web users. They know what they want and they are focused. Though accessibility and usability are two factors with adults, you have to keep in mind that they are not dependent on instructions. Which is why, website designing for adults is simple but at the same time challenging.

♦  Senior Citizens: As they are more accustomed to a world without internet, the senior citizens appear to be the ignored part of the demographic when it comes to website design.

They lack fluency in computer skills, plus their health condition becomes an obstacle in their being active on the net. But they are definitely more patient and more focused on the reason why they use the web. They like to research, read and engage into activities with like-minded people. Which is why, they are likely to be a part of communities more than any other age group.

When designing a website for senior citizens – Upload the text content in large fonts, put as little animation or any other distraction is possible, make the navigation easy and create easily noticeable websites wherein links are easy-to-click. Keep away anything that can create confusion and promote social interaction.

No matter which age group you are targeting, your website will be perceived and used differently by different age groups. Usability is one of the key factors of website designing and you can’t ignore the fact that you can’t cater to everyone, but you have to offer something for everyone. Every web user is unique, but a wide audience may be looking for what you are offering.

Accessibility of a site indicates how far it is easy to use. Accessibility is crucial, because it simplifies the process of exploring a website. If users find it difficult to explore various sections of the site, chances are high that they will leave it within few minutes.

Apart from making a site usable to general visitors, one also needs to make it user-friendly for people with various physical disabilities. Web developers often face the challenge of making a site accessible. Today, we will offer few tips that will help you to make your site accessible to every visitor.

1. Opt for a table-less web design

Many people, while developing a website design, choose tables for layout. This is not wise because tables interfere with accessibility of a website. More specifically, screen reader, a device that blind people or those with low vision use for exploring a site, cannot navigate a table-based website.

Opting for CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), on the other hand, can make your site usable for disabled persons and general visitors.

2. Use simple language

Most of us are aware of the importance of simplicity in web design and content writing industry. If people fail to understand your designs or articles, chances are high that they will not return to the site.

Simplicity is especially important, when you want to make your site accessible for every visitor, including the disabled. Interpreting a text can be more difficult when you are hearing it and not reading it. Therefore, for people with visual difficulties who are hearing a narration of your article, language of the text is critical.

For this reason, opt for simple language, while writing the text of your site. Do not forget to break down long sentences into short ones. Avoid technical words or those that are difficult to understand.

3. Pay attention to navigation

Blind people cannot interpret navigation of a page visually. For this reason, you need to take extra care to ensure that the device they use can interpret the navigation path easily. Pay attention to the name and structure of every navigation link. Avoid too many drop-down menus.

For best results, research about the topics that visitors search in your site. Thereafter, simplify the navigation process to ensure that visitors reach their desired sections within a short time.

4. Site map is critical

When it comes to making your site accessible, site map is a critical tool. Site map allows disabled persons to understand the site layout quickly and thus, simplifies the process of navigation. This is also true for general users.

5. Avoid using links that contain useless information

To make visually impaired people understand contents of a site, screen reader usually reads out links of a web page. If a certain link includes only a vague term, such as ‘click here’, the disabled person will not be able to understand its functions properly. For this reason, always include necessary information in the links.

We have highlighted few tips that you can use to make your site usable to any visitor. However, you should consider the fact that with advanced technologies, the way disabled people interpret websites is changing. Therefore, you need to stay updated with latest technological trends and modify your site accordingly. This will allow every person to explore your site properly.

If you are confused about designing your site following the above points, you can hire the services of a professional website design company for the purpose.