It’s vital a web designer learn all the basics of website creation, so they create websites that are both good looking and functional. Beginning web designers and experienced web designers alike can gather information on designing websites from many different sources, and the following article is one of the best of these. Read on for some handy tips for improved website development.
Use JavaScript only when necessary to avoid losing some potential viewers. Even though it can give your website a more transparent and responsive look, it can give some users problems. Everyone uses a different web browser, and all of them have new versions released fairly regularly. Some visitors will have older versions of their browser, which doesn’t support the latest JavaScript. In addition, not everyone keeps JavaScript enabled within their browsers. These things prevent users from making use of your website.
Photoshop is a great tool that novice designers should invest in to help make better looking web designs. Using programs like PS can make amateur sites look professional, fast. Without a useful photo-editing program, you may have difficulty creating attractive, crisp content.
The speed at which your web page loads is an important design factor. Visitors can quickly become impatient and leave your site if it loads too slowly. They will often move on to another site and usually never return to yours.
Alt Tags
Use ALT tags for your images when designing your site. The tags are important because they allow people who struggle with vision to better use your site by translating what the image is to voice, and this works in a similar fashion for those who have images disabled on their device. ALT tags can also help out if your images link elsewhere. And most importantly, search engine bots need to see the descriptions through ALT tags in order to help your search engine ranking.
Utilize conditional loading and CSS pages when you are building your site. Testing and regular maintenance is much easier this way. All sites require maintenance from time to time and making that easier will save you time.
Do not use pop-up windows. Most people do not like visiting a website, then having pop-up ads bombard them. Many people will leave a site that has pop-ups, even the big sites. It’s best to stay away from this type of ad to keep your visitors happy. If your web host forces you to have pop-up ads, try to find another web host.
Start out with building small websites so that you can determine what areas you worked on that were good, and what areas you worked on that were not so good. You want to start off with maybe a couple of pages that are basic with just information and text, and see how you feel from there.
Always proofread any information you put up on your website. Users should be able to go through it with no problems. Errors make your site look careless and unprofessional and this, in turn, will not encourage a positive reputation for your site.
Office Space
When designing a large site, always incorporate a search feature. People have become accustomed to search boxes being in the upper-right corner of the page, so put it there. These should let you at least search for one term, but it’s better if it allows multiple terms. You can find search functions to use for your site on sites like Google.
Site design and maintenance of that website, requires your very own office space. Using an office space helps you avoid distractions and work more efficiently. Keep your supplies and tools where you can get to them easily, and be certain that you have as much space as you need for effectively design your websites.
Keep your content brief, especially if you are new to website creation. Adding too much stuff early on will create confusion for you and your visitors alike. Keep it simple to start.
Give each individual page in a domain and its sub-domains a clear, unambiguous tagline. The text needs to be obvious and placed conspicuously on every page. It has to explain what the page is about so your visitor can quickly decide to stick around or not.
Put your user’s needs in first priority. The focus of the end user should always be at the forefront of the designer’s mind. Examples of this would be user interaction, accessibility, usability and the users overall experience. Always prioritize your visitors. See things from the perspective of your visitor.
Don’t push annoying things on your visitors. This also means avoiding surveys or pushy offers that cause viewers to break their focus and lose interest. Forcing your visitors to do things they don’t have time for will only annoy them and drive them away.
Open Source
Do remember that website design does not need to be costly. For each costly, popular program or tool available for website creation, there are equally useful programs or tools that are much cheaper. There are open source options for software that can function just as well as the retail counterparts. Taking the open source software plunge can definitely keep costs in check.
Make sure your site loads quickly. If visitors have to wait too long, they will likely leave. Do your best to reduce graphics, scripts, and Flash.
It’s not necessary to rush out to purchase expensive books on how to create a website. It can be done for free. There have been many great books written about web design. But you can find this information for free. Whether costly or free, books on web page design all tell you pretty much the same things.
Keep in mind that not everyone visiting your website will have a fast Internet speed. A video that is converted to 5,000 kb/s will load faster on some computers, but it might be faster than some Internet connections allow for. It will not only take forever to load on a slower connection, but will likely go unviewed by people who have neither the time nor the bandwidth allowance to see it.
As mentioned earlier, anyone who is new to website creation must thoroughly understand the essentials of the technique if he or she wants to develop an attractive and operative website. With the thousands of resources available, it can be very difficult to know where to begin. This article has provided you with the basics that you need to understand web page design.
Put some thought into the “About Us” page. Too many websites use boring, generic biographies. This is an opportunity to make your website stand out. Let people know about your background and experience, tell them how you started designing websites and show them examples of your achievements.
