In large-scale corporations, the process of offering and receiving feedback is formal and systematic. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the web design industry. Website designers usually have to seek feedback on their own. Moreover, providing designers with feedback depends on the attitude of users. This further complicates the issue.

Despite the problems associated with offering and receiving feedback in the website design industry, its importance cannot be discounted. We explain why feedback is important and how to make the most of it.

Importance of Feedback

Website designing is a creative activity. However, web designs are usually used to fulfill practical goals. These can include increasing visitors, enhancing conversation rate, and fulfilling business targets of a company. To meet these goals successfully, website designs should be able to connect with the audience and fulfill their requirements. Herein lies the importance of feedback.

Receiving feedback regularly sharpens your skills and helps you to polish your craft. Furthermore, it helps you to understand pulse of the audience and thus, modify your designs accordingly. Feedback is somewhat similar to the trial and error method. It helps you to realize your weak areas, work on them, and finally, improve.

How You Can Use Feedback Constructively ?

Receiving feedback is not enough. You have to understand the point of view of the users who have provided you with feedback, evaluate it, and select the right suggestions. In brief, you should take informed decisions.

Here are few tips that will help you to use feedback constructively and improve your skills.

• Start early

Many web designers ask for feedback, only after they are completely done with website designing. If you opt for this method, changing anything in the website (at a later stage) will be a more tedious process. For this reason, you should request for feedback, soon after you start the work. Consider feedback a critical part of the web development process.

• Be open towards feedback

Web designing is a creative job. Therefore, it is natural that some will love your designs, while others will hate it. Even if you receive a negative comment, do not take it personally. Remember that visitors do not have any personal grudge against you. Understand the fact that negative feedback will help you to realize your weaknesses and grow.

• Do not ask feedback from experts, always

Many people may find the above suggestion surprising. After all, most of us look for experts’ opinions about web designs. Despite the craze for suggestions from experts, fact remains is that common people can offer you a fresh and interesting viewpoint about your designs. Remember that, when it comes to feedback, honest suggestions always score high.

• Approach directly

While asking for feedback, adopt a direct approach. Avoid wasting time of the respondents. State your objective clearly and keep the questions short.

• Understand that it is an ongoing process

To grow as a designer, you need to ask and evaluate the feedback regularly. This will help you learn new things and stay in touch with the latest trends. Consider the fact that receiving and evaluating feedback is a continuous process.

Feedback helps you to understand weak areas of your designs and improve them. While asking for feedback, keep your questions brief. Do not target only the experts as your respondents. Rather, ask for feedback from people who may not possess an in-depth knowledge about website designing.

Adobe has been in spotlights in recent times owing to its product launches at much awaited annual Max Conference 2011. Not only it has announced of its upcoming Cloud service, but Adobe has also made designers excited by unveiling a number of tablet based apps. Incidentally, these Touch apps are meant to be used in sync with its Cloud service.

Among six design apps targeted at Honeycomb Android tablet users, Photoshop Touch App has garnered maximum interest and spotlight at Max 2011 Conference. This is natural given Photoshop’s huge user base and unmatched popularity among graphic design professionals.

Like other 5 Touch Apps, Photoshop Touch also costs $10 and this will make it accessible for most tablet users. Initially people using Honeycomb 3.1 tablets will be able to use this app and later Adobe will release a version made for iPad 2. Photoshop Touch app may not serve as a replacement for Photoshop CS 5, which is used by millions of graphic and web design professionals worldwide but it will act as a complementary tool.

Even though Photoshop Touch was shown at this conference on a prototype tablet made by Samsung, chances are there it will run smoothly on other tablets with Honeycomb. It responds to both finger and stylus inputs nicely, which is a boon for designers. It has a nice layout with Layers palette placed at right side and tool palette appearing at left of tablet screen. There are icons on screen’s top with menus to edit and manage images. Image adjustment options offered in this app are nowhere close to a full – fledged PC based image editor but a step ahead of Photoshop Express, available for Apple users.

To aid users, this app comes with a built-in tutorial set. Images can be accessed using this app from various sources. Images stored in a tablet can be opened. Users can also import images from Facebook and Google searches easily into this app. Adobe’s Creative Cloud is also a source for importing images into Photoshop Touch. As expected, pinch and zoom works smoothly for resizing images on tablet screen. Adobe has made all tools in this app intuitive and user friendly, making it ideal for web development as well.

Scribble selection tool in this app resembles Photoshop CS’s Magic wand it works with amazing accuracy. Even selecting complicated edges like human hair is not tough with this tool. Making gradients is easy with finger swipes and users can define gradient directions as well. Some users may find operating familiar Photoshop tools without a mouse a bit daunting but designers using stylus will love these. Stylus can be used with this app for making drawings with varied strokes.

With an app like Photoshop Touch and Cloud service, Adobe wants to turn tablets into content creation devices that aid designers in streamlining workflow and sharing content on the move.

There are some limitations of Photoshop Touch that designers will have to put up with. It converts any text element to vectors and so it cannot be edited as text. Photoshop Touch does not support any third party plug-in, as of now.

People may face various problems in your website due to poor internet connection, technical fault in the server or because of your own design mistakes. As a designer, your duty is to avoid these problems and retain site visitors. To help your audience, you should create a defensive website design. Here are a few things you can do:

404 Error Pages- You should design a useful error page to retain a visitor and encourage him to try again:

• Not many users understand the meaning of “404 error” and you should not use this as a headline for your error page. To make things easily understandable for your users, write something like “page not found” or “oops…you made a mistake!” in the error page title.
• Explain the reason for the error and guide the user to find the right page. For instance, you can ask him to verify the spelling of the URL or check the domain extension.
• You can use a search box in the error page and help your user find what he is looking for. For instance, a user may have clicked on a “web development” link in an article in your blog and not found it. The search box will help him find articles on the same topic on insertion of the same or related keyword (like web programming).
• You should also give an option to your viewers to report the problem. Give your contact information so that viewers can inform you about the problems they have faced.

In Line Help- When people are buying from your website, you need to assure them that they will not be cheated. When users hand over their personal data, credit card details to you, they are often skeptical and you can earn their trust with the help of “in line text”. For instance, if a user wants to know the security of your shopping cart, don’t direct him to another page. Instead, use in-line text. The in-line text is connected with an underlined text; when a user places his mouse on the underline text, the in-line text appears with a brief description of the underlined topic.

You can also offer contextual help to your users to make your site user friendly. Offer guidelines to users to help them fulfill their purpose on your site. WordPress offers this type of help in the admin area.

Make the Site Accessible to Slow Internet Connection User- Flash and jQuery can make your site amazingly attractive, but it will also increase the page load time. To maintain a defensive approach, you should design the most important parts of your website in CSS and HTML. This way, you will make sure that those with slow connection will also be able to access your site. A completely Flash-based website won’t appear in many smartphones and tablets, including iPhone and iPad. You won’t like to lose a huge customer base for the sake of video and animation.

Implement Search Option- Especially in ecommerce websites, the search bar helps users locate an article or product from a very large website. This makes sure that nobody leaves your site disappointed.

Help the User to Fill Forms- Almost every website has some kind of form, such as sign up, subscribe, etc. Wherever you use a form in your site, make it user-friendly with intelligent design. If a user misses a mandatory field, highlight that box with red color and show a text beside the box indicating what he missed. Don’t scare the user with just an error sign. Explain to him what he did wrong and guide him to do the correct thing. For instance, if his capslock is on, show a message “turn off the capslock”. Nobody likes to fill up a form twice for a small mistake they made in the last part of the form. You should store datas filled up earlier and ask users to fill only the part where they made a mistake.

Detect the Problems- Before you make the website live, check it for any mistakes or bugs. Sometimes, a broken link or missing page can destroy the site’s reputation, and to be absolutely sure about your website’s functionality, you should check it thoroughly.

These defensive designing tips will help you retain your viewers even when there is a problem with your site. Make sure whenever a user visits your site, he is satisfied with the small, yet important usability features.

HTML’s latest version, HTML5, builds on the highly successful features of HTML4. Although, currently supported by only few web browsers and is not expected to complete before 2014, HTML5 features have already gained widespread popularity. Undoubtedly, the gen-next HTML can improve website design by adding many attractive and excellent elements. Also, because HTML5 builds on HTML4, web developers need not suspend the existing markups. An improvement on the old markups will be seen to allow the new features to better website appearance and usability.

Here’s a look at what the next generation HTML has to offer:

HTML5 Features

• The doctype specification that was used by HTML4 has been simplified for HTML5. Browsers will continue to render pages in standards mode.

However, with the simplified doctype  declaration, it is now only <!DOCTYPE html> to be used in the HTML5 syntax.

•  HTML5 provides outstanding support to   audios and videos. When all browsers fully support HTML5, it will be manifolds easier to add videos and audios to websites without using outside plugins.

•  HTML5 allows simplified content editing of your website. The ‘contenteditable’ attribute allows you to easily and quickly edit/change your text. All you have to do is add ‘contenteditable=“true”’ to change any element.

• HTML5’s canvas element is good news for web designers. This feature allows you to bypass Photoshop by allowing you to directly place 2D images in the code.

• You can still navigate web applications when offline by virtue of the HTML5’s application cache feature.

How the Use HTML5 can Help Web Designers

• Because it implements WebSockets, HTML5 loads quicker than HTML4

• For mobile phone companies creating applications for mobile phones, HTML5 could be the solution to faster applications that will be accessible universally across all mobile phones.

• HTML5 makes web development faster, easier and more flexible to modifications/changes.

• With HTML5, the need for third-party software to write codes for media tools like audio, video and images, is obliterated. Media tools can now be directly written into the codes.

• The growing popularity and wide use of HTML5 is going to get better and faster with new features. It only makes sense that designers shift to this improved coding language to produce advanced websites.

• Together with CSS3, HTML5 can create designs that are smarter, more attractive, and load faster.

HTML5 can give your designing skills a serious boost. In a world where competition rules and online businesses are fighting to stay alive, a stylish website, combined with the correct SEO factors, can pull your business from the muck of competition to a place of distinction.

There is no doubt in the fact that modern men communicate through the World Wide Web. As a result the number of website design companies are growing rapidly, in fact each day new companies are seen to be established at different corners of the world. People who are associated with these types of work are mainly known as web developers. They concentrate on characteristics and quality of the web and provide their clients with standard communication channels.

In reality, professional web developer of a reputed website design company has to give emphasis on different aspects of the website. Some of these include graphic design, technical matters, keyword as well as content. It has been observed that if all those things are balanced properly your website will definitely get a professional look and there will also be a possibility that your site will get good ranking in the search engine result page.

Though the entire process of web development is not that easy, by appointing experienced web developers, you will surely expect to get a desirable result. However, before finalizing your choice, make sure the company, which you have chosen for your project work provide quality service at the affordable rate.

Usually, in order to become a successful web developer, a person needs to acquire expertise in the fields of planning, designing as well as programming. There will be nothing wrong to say that lots of time has to be spend in chalking out plans for developing an effective website. In most of the time for the creation of quality website design, the designers need to combine his software knowledge with the technical communication skill.

We should always remember that nowadays future of a business enterprise is very much dependent on its online presence. So, it is desirable that all the commercial firms should have their own business websites. Now, if you are thinking to launch a business website, keep all those above-mentioned points in mind, so that while selecting a web development company, you can take your decision confidently.

In a website design different formats of graphics are used. But using the proper formats can give your site a different edge. A well-planned and properly designed site makes use of the different file formats judiciously.

There are quite a few types of graphic design formats that you can use in your designing. Mainly JPEG, GIF and PNG file formats are used. The JPEG images offer compressed file types and provide high quality appearance. The GIF format is one of the oldest graphic formats used for designing sites. The use of this file format ensures quick loading of the images used on the site. The features like transparency and interlacing are possible with PNG images. If you require superior quality of images, you can use PNG file format.

Lets discuss about some of the graphic file formats here:

• Transparency: This makes the image appear neither totally transparent nor completely opaque.
• Compression: This helps an image file to take up less memory by compressing its file size. Some different algorithms are used for this compression, which treats the pixels of the image as one single item.
• Animation: Certain still images are arranged in way to make them appear moving. For animating the still images, mostly the GIF file types are used as plug-ins are not required for it.
• Progressive Loading: While viewing a website it is often seen that at first the graphics used on the site are partly loading. Using this graphic format enables the graphics to load faster on a site.
• Interlacing: Here the even numbered rows follow the odd number of rows. This process is very similar to progressive loading. By using this format, the images can be viewed by the users in quick succession.

Contact Webguru India if you need web design services at competitive rates. We are a reputed web development company that offers web design and graphic design services to our worldwide clients. Our expert web designers can provide you creative web designs and can make them stand out form the rest of the sites.

PHP is one of the most used programming languages. It is believed that the key reason behind the popularity of PHP is its unquestionable flexibility and uniqueness. Since a long time this best server side scripting language is considered to be the best-suited one for developing dynamic websites. Added to this, PHP is able to effectively interact with the information provided by the users.

In the year 1995 Rasmus first developed this web programming language. PHP not only creates dynamic websites but also ensures its accurate functionality. This is why; with the course of time this language is acquiring more and more acceptance from the web developers. Being an open source software, PHP can also be used free of cost. In the true sense, it ensures stability, security, simplicity and of course fast accessibility.

Some of the remarkable reasons behind the enormous popularity of PHP language are mentioned below:

• Simplicity- People who have knowledge in C, C++, can easily understand PHP codes. The syntax and codes of PHP programming is quite similar to that of C. This is indeed an added advantage of this programming language.
• Security- PHP provides different security levels, so if you want to secure your data, PHP is probably the best-suited language for you. It can keep your data away from any malicious attack. However, for changing the level of security, you have to specify the level in .ini file.
• Less Bug- With the course of time PHP is undergoing different modifications in order to become the most preferred programming language for creating dynamic websites. This is why; one will have less technical problem for the creation of a website based on PHP.
• Helpful PHP Community- PHP community provides effective script, which can be used without any hesitation. On the other hand, if you have developed a good script, you must share that with other members.
• Adding the Extension- If required, PHP programmers can insert their own extension in this website programming language.
• Multiple Servers and Interfaces- PHP can be loaded into a variety of server interfaces like, IIS, Apache, AOLserver, THTTPD, Roxen etc.

Apart from all the above-mentioned advantages, PHP have several other beneficial features. PHP codes can be easily embedded in HTM and also runs smoothly on any platform such as, Macs, Unix, Windows. In a reputed website development company almost each of the dynamic websites are created with the help of PHP.

By the term “Website Development” we mean the entire procedure involved in development of a website. For effectively developing a website, one needs to have proper designing and programming skill.

Some of the useful tips that a novice web developer should follow are mentioned below:

• Purpose should be Clear- Before starting work, be sure about the purpose. This is because; if your focus is clear you can be able to represent the business organization successfully.
• Understand the Requirements of the Target Audience- If you are writing for kids, you have to make your content interesting. On the other hand, if your target audience is adult your writing approach should be different. The website design should also vary on the basis of the varied requirements of your prospective clients.
• Determination of Budget- Before starting the work of web development, one should understand how much money the client will be able to afford. It is always better to do the work according to the budget.
• Time should be Valued- Avoid using large pictures. This is because; the large pictures take much time to get downloaded and waste the precious time of the visitors. In most of the time it is seen that the online visitors prefer to click out of those sites, which take more time for downloading.
• Proper Communication between the Designer and the Client- The designer should understand the view of his/her client. The person working in the project should be professional as well as skilled in website designing and development.
• Decide how you want your Website to look and Function? You may have some style, font and color preferences. You can develop websites keeping all these things in mind. If you are lacking ideas, you can surf net.
• Layout Formation- It is always advisable to assign page names to each chunk of information and if the number of pages is high you may group them into separate sections. This makes the navigation process much easier.
• Give Importance to the Website Copy- Website copy should be created on the basis of the audience’s requirements. The attention spans of online visitors are usually short. So, your content should not be cluttered with unimportant facts. Otherwise, readers will be disgusted and will click out of the site.
• Selecting a Domain Name- By choosing a good domain name, you can give favorable ranking to your website in the search engine result page. So, there is no doubt in the fact that domain name selection is a vital part of web development.
• Marketing a Website- Creating a website is not all. You should also do proper marketing of the site. Otherwise, people will not visit your site and your work will be a complete failure.

These are indeed some of the most important points that a good website development company follows while developing websites.

Enhancing the performance of a website simultaneously with its design is a tricky task that cannot be achieved without using CSS. Before you opt for designing your website with CSS, you have to remain well aware of its usages and advantages.

What is CSS?
CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheet, which is generally written in HTML or in similar kind of mark up language. It helps designers to use a separate document for defining some crucial designing elements such as fonts, layout, color etc. Therefore, using CSS in a website design can add flexibility and reduce complexities in the designing process, which is beneficial both from the point of view of search engine optimization and website design. This is the reason why every website development company is opting for CSS for smoothening the designing process as far as possible.

First one has to define the CSS rules that will be stored in a different file with the extension .css. After that one has to link that CSS file by adding HTML tags in the source page. There are a number of advantages for separating the designing code, which are discussed below:

Creating Rollover Images With CSS
Previously, complex JavaScript was used for creating rollover images. Now, this long and complex code can affect your website adversely by making it heavy. Another major drawback of JavaScript is that, search engine robot cannot index or crawl JavaScript. Therefore, it will definitely have a negative impact on your website online presence.

The one and only solution to this problem is CSS, which will enable you to optimize your website without compromising with its visual appearance. You can create some cool rollover effects by defining the class in the CSS. Furthermore, it is much easier and shorter than the JavaScript.

Create Your Header Tags By Using CSS
We are all well aware of the fact that header tags (h1, h2, h3 etc) of a website are vital from the point of view of search engine optimization. As these header tags are rendered awkwardly by most of the web browsers, you need to do something for striking a right balance between website optimization and the website design concept.

You can modify the appearance of these header tags of a website by using CSS. CSS offers you the liberty to replace the default appearance of header tags with modern and stylish text that can go along with the designing concept of your website.

Structure Documents With CSS
A website with less code is more likely to be indexed quickly by search engines. Therefore, you should try to avoid the use of junk code as far as possible. Table tags can be replaced by using small number of div tags in the CSS file that will definitely increase your website online visibility. Furthermore, you will not have to go through an endless number of table tags while making subtle changes in the layout of the design; it can be done easily by modifying the CSS file.

The advantages of CSS in improving the visual appeal of a website is irrefutable. Just use it cautiously and it will definitely bolster your website’s online presence.

Since a long time, there is a controversy regarding the advantages and disadvantages of using frames in a website. According to most of the experts, frames do not serve any purpose. Instead, it creates trouble in the functioning of a website. On the other hand, there are some people who think that frames are beneficial for websites. However, it is always better to use frames, in case of a genuine requirement.

Advantages of Framed Website Design

Framed websites, have certain advantages. Some of the most remarkable among them are mentioned below:

• In a frame one can keep company logos, important information and messages. So, that it constantly remains visible to the visitors.
• Often, frames make a site navigable. Throughout the time, it makes static navigation visible on your website.
• Often, design-related problems are sorted out by using frames. Added to this, the frames also can make a site easily accessible to the visitors.

Disadvantages of Framed Web Design

In spite of these advantages, there are several disadvantages of frames. Some of them are as follows:

• Search engines usually find it difficult to crawl a framed website. But, there is no doubt in the fact that the main purpose of search engine marketing is to appeal to search engines. So, if a frame can not make a site search-engine-friendly, it is better to avoid using it.
• Within a website, if a framed page is bookmarked, it’s not going to help in your site’s use and design.
• There are some Internet browsers that do not support framed sites. So, if your potential customers use those browsers, there remains no possibility of your site to be visited by them.
• It is quite obvious that if you have a framed website, you also have a non- framed website. In that case, it raises the expenses of online business.

These are indeed some of the striking disadvantages, for which use of frame is avoided in a website design.

Website has an important role to play in the online promotion of an organization’s goods and services. It is an effective tool that has the capability to develop a positive brand image. So, while creating a website, the web developers must adopt certain strategies.

Stages of Website Creation

Some of the important steps, following which, a quality website can be developed are mentioned below:

• Planning a Website- There are different types of websites. Some of them are personal, whereas, some are created for business purpose. So, before creating a website, identify the target audience and the purpose for which you are developing the site. Then work accordingly.
• Finding the Niche- First try to determine your interest. Then research keywords and use them for your theme.
• Choose a Website Design Software- If you are not interested to spend much money, you can go for free website. However, whether you are using a paid design software or a free one, first go through the fine print before signing up.
• Web Page Creation- First plan the home page and then concentrate on the other pages. If you are not sure about which design will work well, take a look at other appealing websites. From those sites, you can definitely form an idea.
• Selection of a Web Hosting Company- Now-a-days, many of the reasonable hosting companies can be found online. First compare their basic packages and then choose the best-suited one for yourself.
• Register a Domain Name- There are several host companies that offer free domain. So, if you like you can register here.
• Uploading Website- Finally comes the stage, where websites are being uploaded. It does not take much time, but it is always advisable to take time to read and watch the videos, which your hosting company offers.
• Traffic Generation- After your site becomes live, try to draw the attention of the visitors. Submit your URL to some of the main search engines- Google, MSN and Yahoo.

In recent times, a number of IT companies are being developed. Some of them has proved their excellence in the field of web design and development. One such company among them are Webguru India. It is a web and graphic design company in India. Since the last couple of years, it is providing quality web design services to its local and international customers at the most affordable price rates. So, if anyone is interested to have an effective website, they can contact Webguru India and can avail its reasonably-charged services.