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The Key For Better Website

Web Development is a fun process of planning and clever decision making that leads to great website for the internet. The process can be very complicated or sometimes very simple depending on the project. The process could include the template design, developing the code, server setup, network security and a lot of research. Technology changes all the time and if you want to be a good and well respected web designer/developer you have to be up to date with everything that is going on the internet. Most web designers don`t just design the website, they also program it when they work in small companies or for themselves. That gives them a BIG PLUS for future employability.

My advice is that you should learn as much as you can and try new stuff every time you develop a website.

Things you should be learning now

These are few of the things that I think you should be learning now and they will give your website a lot of power and interactivity:

• HTML 5
• CSS 3
• JQuery
• JavaScript
• Mobile Design - Development
• Flash AS3

Design you website for mobile too

The number of people that use the internet on their phones is growing and growing! Most people use the internet on their phone for Social Networking but others use it to find out some information quickly. It is very important that you make your website to work with any mobile devices because you are going to lose a lot of visitors. Many people leave their website the way it is on PC/MAC and I think its fine for

Spacing

Spacing is one very important think in the design industry. New Designers make that mistake most of the times, they don`t leave enough space for the users eyes. A lot of white space makes the users eyes relax, ready easy and also scan the content quicker. The other important thing about it is that it gives the user more open, clear and professional look.

Navigation

When you start thinking about the navigation think about the importance of it. Without navigation users won't be able to navigate thru the pages and the website with work. When design the navigation you have to think about the interaction and the clear look that makes the user spot it straight away. Most of the times designers use bigger size didn't from the main content so the navigation can pop up a bit more.

The normal user interaction about most of the navigation bars online are the rollover effect that shows when the mouse is over a button and the button is pressed in some causes. That is normal but its important to think about the colour change and also the role over effect as how would you program it to work. There are 3 main ways of making the navigation bar work.

1) CSS Sprite 

I found that CSS sprite work the best for all browsers witch is super important and its the best for Search Engine Optimization. It is a bit more time consuming the first few times but as long as you get how it works ill make perfect sentence and you will love it.

2) Just CSS

I found that just simple CSS effects can be actually really cool and also good for the page loading time. You don't have to use images to make cool effects and now CSS gives you a lot more power. The only bad thing about using CSS3 for the effects is that it won't work on older browsers. Some people still use old browsers

3) CSS and JavaScript 

CSS and JavaScript can do magic. There are a lot of effects that can be created to entertain the user and it's not that complicated. Dreamweaver can help you create simple rollover effect with CSS and JavaScript.

4) Flash 

Flash is the best way to make something interactive but it can be heavy for the web page and also it won't work on most of mobile platforms. With flash any effect can be done quickly and easy if you know how to use it. The other bad thing about flash is that if you want to update some of the links on the page, you are going to have to open flash and change the code each time unless you make it to get the link from XML or text file.

Template Design

My personal opinion is that the first thing one user gets attracted to is the website design. Most of the users don`t even care about the website design as long as they find the information they need. The website can be very simple and clean but if it`s made clear and delivers the content in a good way then the website design is good. A lot of young website designers make the mistake to put a lot of flashy things and a lot of colors.

The maximum color that you should put in one website design is around 4. If you don`t know how to use colors there is a lot of website with color palettes that can help you decide what colors to use.

The colors are really important for website design because they can change the feeling of it.

SEO

Search Engine Optimization is one of the most important things in the web development industry and the content is king. When you create a website you are creating it for certain auditory and its should be easy to find on search engines. Just try to imagine what would you search in order to find the website. In one website everything could affect the Search Engine Optimization - Pictures, Tags, Code, Links and so on...

The easy way of SEO is to pay a lot of money and have a lot of adverts all over the internet.

If you want to improve your SEO skills you are going to have to read a lot more then what I have said. One of the tools I would suggest using is the Google Developer page. They will give you a lot of information about your website and you will get the idea how to improve it.

Typography

Websites are made so people can find some sort of information, so in other to find information quickly on a website the text is very important. The most used fonts for the content of the website are: Tahoma, Arial, Helvetica and Lucida but there is others that you can use. The size its important too. I think that the size should be the smallest 11px and the largest 14px.

With headings its different. As long as they are big and easy to see so the user can recognize what is the text underneath is about then it's all good. It's pretty cool if you want to use something different and go for Google`s fonts. Make sure they suit the website feeling and design.

Usability

Every website on the internet got to be easy and simple so everyone can use it. It has to suit the target ordinance too. The best thing to do about usability is to add:

• Font resize option
• Change of the theme colors
• Dyslexia Theme option
• High Contrast option
• White Space
• Images
• Sound if needed!

Mistakes

• it's important that the website doesn't have spelling mistakes
• the choice of colors
• too much images - flash
• bad choice of fonts
• bad keywords - or too many
• Don`t underline text because users will think its a LINK!

Interaction

Website Interaction its pretty cool and everyone loves it! At least I do. I`ts cool when you have a lot of interaction with your users but be careful and put only things that are needed! Make pretty role over buttons and be careful with the pop-ups!

Content Management Systems

There are many Content Management Systems. Some of them are paid and some of them are Open Source. Depending on what you need to do for you project there is different content management system that can help you make your project easy.You don`t have to be a programmer to use them, but some basic knowledge of CSS and PHP will be very helpfull. There is CMS for blogging, image galleries, social networking and e-commerce.

Some of the best open source Content Management Systems:

• Joomla - used for Social Networking Websites mainly
• WordPress - blogging
• Magento - e-commerce
• Drupal - Social Networking
• B2evolution - Social Networking
• ModX - Could be used for many things
• PHP-Fusion - could be used for many things

Good Web Development Resources and Tools

• http://colorschemedesigner.com/ - Color Schemes
• http://www.colorcombos.com/ - Color Pallets
• http://www.google.com/webmasters/ - Google Webmaster Tools
• http://www.sxc.hu/ - Free Images
• http://www.istockphoto.com/ - Professional Images - you have to give credit
• http://browse.deviantart.com/designs/web/ - Web Design Inspiration
• http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=web+design&f=hp - Web Design Inspiration
• http://pixlr.com/editor/ - Online Photo Editor
• http://www.lipsum.com/ - Dummy text for Designers
• http://www.w3schools.com/ - Web Tutorials
• http://www.phpfreaks.com/ - PHP forum
• http://notepad-plus-plus.org/ - The best editor for HTML, PHP, JavaScript...
• http://css-tricks.com/158-css-sprites/ - More info about CSS Sprites
• http://www.ajaxload.info/ - Ajax spinning Icons
• http://www.freeiconsweb.com/ - Free Icons
• http://www.iconfinder.com/free_icons - Awesome website for Free Icons
• http://photoshoptutorials.ws/ - PhotoShop Tutorials
• http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/tutorials/mobile-version-website/ - How to create website for mobile device

 Conclusion

There are too many website developers these days and If you like to be successful then you have to try hard. Learn as much as you can and practice is gold! One businessman told me that a good web developer is the developer who makes money not the one who creates better website.

Thanks for reading Comments below

Reference

Juul Coolen. (Oct 15 2009). 7 Key Principles That Make A Web Design Look Good. Available: http://www.noupe.com/how-tos/7-key-principles-that-make-a-web-design-look-good.html. Last accessed 14th

Collis. ( May 14, 2011). 9 Essential Principles for Good Web Design.Available: http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/designing-tutorials/9-essential-principles-for-good-web-design/. Last accessed 14th

Vitaly Friedman. (January 31st, 2008). 10 Principles Of Effective Web Design. Available: http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/31/10-principles-of-effective-web-design/. Last accessed 14th November 2011.

Chris Lake. (04 August 2008). 20 colour tips for website design.Available: http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/2654-20-colour-tips-for-website-design. Last accessed 14th November 2011.

RICHARD BURCKHARDT. (APRIL 23, 2008). 55 Quick SEO Tips Even Your Mother Would Love. Available: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/55-quick-seo-tips-even-your-mother-would-love/6760/. Last accessed 14th November 2011.

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