You might have wondered why one web design company produces quality work while another doesn’t, when they have such similar expertise and experience. The answer to this marked difference in the quality of web design lies in the work environment. All web design projects deserve an optimal work environment. It’s the kind of environment that exudes energy, creativity and efficiency. Three important qualities that have an important role to play in effective web design.

The Work Environment Should Convey Passion for Web Design

How does a client get an idea about a particular company’s enthusiasm for its job, which in this case is web design? Most clients note the company’s eagerness to start working on the project and whether their designing team was an active or a passive listener. So, the first step in creating a great environment for web designing is ensuring that your web designers love their jobs. They must be inherently passionate about their jobs and must be in love with the whole prospect of web designing. This comes out very strongly when they are interacting with the client for the first time. This shouldn’t just be a monologue by the client. It must be a highly interactive session wherein the designing team offers suggestions that can enhance the client’s concept.

Must Promote Ideation

This is all about thinking. Web designing is all about the right ideas; and such ideas are only possible if the work environment gives designers the scope for thinking out-of-the-box. The company must make it a point to ensure that the usual designing ideas give way to new and improved ideas that can take a web designing project to another level altogether.  The atmosphere of a web design company must be thick with ideas that designers are throwing at each other. Creative ideation lies at the very crux of designing a successful website. This doesn’t happen overnight. Ideation is a process that needs to be cultivated overtime. When it comes to web design it is ‘ideas’ that dictate the success of the work environment.

The Work Environment Should be Optimally Organized

Better organization is the key to developing a successful website design. The designing team should be trained to take the project through its various stages with efficiency and within a time frame that helps meet the project deadline. As soon as the web design project has been accepted, the designing team must start planning the project and get the designing underway. For this to happen, they must be ready with all the materials that are important for their work, whether it’s designing software or something else.  Anything and everything must be on hand to begin designing without wasting time.

The Work Environment must be prepared for any Eventuality

Not all projects go as planned. Some problems are bound to crop up during the course of designing the website. The project team and the web design company in general must be prepared for any eventuality. This could be as basic as changing the design of call-to-action buttons to something far more complex as reworking the pre-decided Flash animation of the website project. The way the team goes about handling such eventualities determines the overall efficiency of the project.

An optimal work environment helps optimize the use of the various factors that determine the success or failure of any and every project, whether its web design or any other.

Everybody admires the web design elements on a site, the placement and workability of its navigation buttons and the appearance and impact of its call to action buttons. But, not many people admire the use of fonts on the site. The fact is fonts are relegated to the back seat as far as importance is concerned. But, this is by the users. Designers on the other hand know and understand the value of well-chosen fonts. They know that it’s the font that helps make the website more readable, offers it clarity, make it appear more logical and ensures that the message is delivered to the visitors with impact.

The question as to which are the best fonts for your web page is not a very difficult one to answer. The choice of any font is very subjective and depends on the design elements, background color, placement of images and various other factors that are jostling for space on the web page.

There is no getting away from the fact that you will need to choose the best fonts for your web page. Choosing the right typeface for your website could be the difference between a website that manages to engage the visitors and a site that cannot manage to sustain the visitor’s attention for any amount of time.

Here a few parameters that will help you choose the best fonts.

Focus on Readability

What is your website’s visitor going to do, when he looks at your font? He is going to read it. So, you must choose a font that is readable and at the same time gels with the overall structure and design of your website. You need to use the kind of font that helps users enjoy the content on your site.

Usually, when it comes to typography, there are two main typefaces that are used, namely serif and sans serif. Both score very highly on the readability front and you will need to choose the typeface that suits your purpose. Both are good typefaces, but there have been cases wherein the serif typeface has come out looking blurred on a computer. This is why designers typically choose sans serif on websites, because it’s both simple and straightforward.

The reason for going on and on about the two typefaces is because there are some fonts that are available in the serif typeface, while other are available in san serif. Your choice of typeface will also determine the choice of the font.

Something that looks good on both PCs and Macs

Both PC and Mac users are going to access your website. So, you need to choose a font that works well on both operating systems. Great new fonts are available that work for the PC as well as the Mac platforms, but you can also choose from traditional fonts that have been adapted for each system. While there is no doubt that some of these fonts look better on either of the two operating systems, it’s important that you choose a font that has been pre-installed on both PCs and Macs. One such choice is ‘Verdana’, which is usually the first font choice of designers and looks equally good on both the systems.

As can be imagined, this definitely isn’t the be all and end all of making sure that you choose only the best fonts for your web page. There are many more factors that need to be considered to ensure your chosen font contributes towards the success of your website.

It will be fair to say that 'user experience design' impacts the effectiveness of a website in a big way. In an increasingly competitive online world, where millions of websites compete for attracting a user’s attention, 'user experience' provided by a website, in large part, determines its success or failure.

What is User Experience Design?

You must have come across plenty of definitions of user experience design that explain this term with a lot of technicalities thrown in. But let’s take the technical jargon out of the equation and focus on simplifying its meaning.

In a nutshell, the various aspects of user experience design ensure improved usability of the website, web application or software product. When it comes to this concept being used in  website development , the focus of attention is on improving the visitor’s interaction with the websites and enhancing the usability quotient of the sites.  This concept involves the use of various designing and development factors that improve the overall user experience with respect to a particular website.

Let’s take an example of a site that sells designer T-Shirts. It caters to a younger audience. Let’s call it 'our website'. For purposes of better explanation, let’s not get into the complexities of out-of-the-box and largely unique ecommerce websites. Let’s explore the user experience design angle, from the perspective of a basic ecommerce website that follows a simple design and usability approach.

Consistency

Be it a website that is simply designed, with traditional features or a website that is visually striking and uses unconventional features; consistency is the driving force for improving user experience. Consistency includes each and every aspect of the website including, web design, content, functionality, features, navigations and all other elements that go into the making of a website.

Navigability

Navigation is an important functional attribute of all websites. But, it assumes immense significance in ecommerce sites. Now, when a visitor comes to the site selling T-shirts, they aren’t very interested in knowing more about what T-shirts are all about. What they are interested in is that they are taken to the T-shirt listing and details page as soon as possible. They want to get started on the selection and shopping process quickly. So, ideal user friendly navigation will take visitors to the product listing page in just a single click. Easy-to-use, consistent navigation, that doesn’t confuse and prompts visitors to take the next step in the shopping-cycle, is an integral part of improving user-experience.

Structural Flow

Maintaining a proper website structure for the front end and back end, plays an important role in getting a positive reaction from visitors. In the context of our website, a proper flow can be used to offer information about the company and its products (T-Shirts) and also putting a 'call to action’'button on the home page itself. The homepage must offer clear information as to the buying process, special offers, if any, and take visitors to the shopping page in a single click. The design and content of our website must have a single purpose – Take the visitors to the shopping page and get them to buy the T-Shirts quickly and conveniently.

Use Experience Design is a concept whose use encourages the visitor to react positively to a given website. In the case of our website, the use of this designing principle will ensure better conversions.  So we can say without any doubt whatsoever that user experience design helps achieve the objectives of the website by aligning the design of the website with the expectations of the target audience.

The process of web design and website development  is divided into four crucial stages. Both designers and developers are a part of this process and together they ensure that a project is taken through all the stages in successfully. A project needs to go through all the stages in order to ensure its efficiency and high performance.

Planning

This stage precedes the actual design and development of the project. It is here that the project gets planned and mapped. The team gathers information about the requirements, goals, objectives, features and target audience of the client. Discussions also take place with the client regarding the financials, timelines and the various aspects related to project copyright. Another important aspect of the planning stage is the design of the sitemap, which gives clients a clear idea about the pages on their websites; their hierarchy and nomenclature; and links.  One of the key decisions that are made during the planning stage is choosing the required software and resources for designing and developing a website successfully.

Design

The client’s concept is given the necessary shape during this stage. Designers start representing the client’s concept visually, and this begins with designing a layout using a wireframe. Designers also zero in on the various design elements that are going to be used and mock-ups are prepared on the same. The mockups then go through a process of review and approval until both the client and the designers agree on a particular design. Finally, when the design is frozen, designers begin the long and complex process of coding, using HTML and CSS. They also design the various interactive elements using diverse software that helps them meet the client requirements in perfect fashion.

Development

Now the developers get into the act.  They start off by first building a development framework which helps them develop a basic “engine” for the website. More often than not, developers begin with creating a content management system or even an ASP/PHP framework to ensure that process of setting up the website and its installation can be smoothly handled by the server. Another important facet of development is coding templates for the various pages and also integrating the various features as asked for by the client. Developers also test the functionality and ensure that they haven’t missed any feature.

Launch

In this stage, the website goes public, but before that both designers and developers identify those parts of the website that can still be improved and polish them. Once they are sure about the quality of the website design and its development, they will move it to a live server where it will undergo further testing before finally being giving the green signal for its launch.

Now, you might think that once the website is launched, the job is over and done with. But, this is not the case. Once the website is launched, there are still certain tasks left regarding the formal handover of the project including the final documentation and getting all the teething problems sorted out.  It’s also important to understand, that though the foundation of the process remains the same across all web design and development projects, certain specific requirements might necessitate a change of approach.

In order to ensure that you get the best web design services, it’s important that you choose to work with designers and developers that are not only experienced and proven experts but also understand the value of a well planned process of project development. This way you ensure the efficiency of your project and the fact that its goes a long way in helping you achieve your goals.

First Apple and Google said it and then it was Microsoft – There is no beating HTML 5. The thumbs-up given by the three big boys is being reflected in the internet chatter surrounding HTML 5. So, one thing is for sure, the benefits of this structuring language are definitely not a result of rumor mongering. They are there, and they are up for grabs.

So, what are the features that are making HTML 5 such a talked about version. Why is this latest HTML revision being touted as being the best ever? Let’s take a look.

Introduction of new Elements

If it’s being called the new and improved version, there must be some new element that it brings to its users. Well, there are plenty of new introductions; let’s start with the ‘header’; it can be used to put in branding information or even more in depth information such as ‘table of contents’. Another element that is worth a mention is the ‘nav’ element. It is used to contain link groups that link with other pages or various sections of the same page. Only primary navigation link groups are a part of the nav element. Another important element is the ‘aside’ element, which is used for representing content restricted to the main area of document.

These elements might look like the rehashed version of some previous elements, but the difference lies in the way they have been defined. They are a step up from their previous versions and help you structure your document in a semantic manner.

New APIs on Offer

There are plenty of scripting application programming interfaces on offer including, an offline storage database, a drag–and-drop functionality, browser history management, 2D canvas element, and many more. Some of these technologies are a part of the W3C HTML 5 specification while all of them figure in the specifications for WHATWG HTML. There are also other technologies such as ‘File Writer’, Web SQL Database’, and ‘File API’ amongst others that are not a part of either W3C HTML 5 or the WHATWG HTML.

While mentioning the APIs it’s important to debunk a common misconception. You won’t be able to integrate animation within web pages using HTML 5. If you want to animate your HTML elements, you must use CSS3 or JavaScript. 

Mobile Device Friendly

HTML 5 is still a work in progress and therefore has limited support. But, every early indication suggests that it’s going to be a good bet for structuring and presenting mobile friendly content. Devices that are powered by Webkit support HTML 5. And the fact that most of the popular mobile devices on the market are founded on the Webkit rendering engine means, HTML 5 is definitely a language of the future. Most of the features of HTML 5 are already being used in development of iPhone web app; there is no doubt that in the near future, it will be used to develop web applications for other mobile platforms as well.

HTML 5 is the next big thing and something that has been developed keeping the future in mind.  It will definitely change the way we leverage the power of the World Wide Web.