Advice From The Pros To Better Web Design
A lot of people say that designing websites is extremely challenging. However, this is only a true statement for people who are not armed with the right knowledge or advice on web design. This article contains a number of pieces of advice to help you on your way to designing on the web with ease.
If you’re designing a website, make sure the code you write has a valid HTML+CSS. Although most browsers can make sense of code that isn’t valid, it could be rendered correctly or incorrectly. Valid code will render the same way most of the time in modern browsers. You can check the validity of your HTML code with an HTML validator.
For multimedia presentations, take advantage of the new HTML5 standard. Although HTML5 isn’t quite as robust for animation and games as Flash, it has the advantage of working stably on mobile phone browsers, including those contained in Apple hardware. HTML5 is also quite a bit leaner than Flash, so load times will improve, as well.
Use JavaScript to include a custom font on your webpages. Libraries like Typekit and Google Web Fonts make it easy to include esoteric fonts on webpages, even if most visitors don’t have those fonts on their computers. It works by embedding the font itself into JavaScript so that it can be decoded by the client on the fly.
Avoid trying to add every new gadget to your website. It can be tempting to make your site look cutting edge by including every new web design option out there but it can end up turning people off. Simple will generally get the job done even better than a flashy layout.
Don’t use splash pages for your site unless required by law, and especially don’t use a Flash intro. Most people just want to get to your content as quickly as possible, and don’t care to look at useless splash pages. If you have some amusing content that you absolutely want visitors to see, integrate it into the homepage instead.
Be sure you have a search tool that lets others search when on your site. If visitors want something specific, they will immediately scan for a search function. If you don’t have one, they may go to another site that does. Put the box on the right-hand top of the page.
If you desire feedback from your visitors, design your site to include a feedback form rather than a guestbook. A feedback form lets your site visitors contact you without having anything negative be shown to everyone else who sees your site. If you have a guestbook then everyone can read both good and bad comments, something you really do not want people to see, especially when the comments are negative.
Try designing for all screen resolutions. A simple website can always encourage visitors to remain and read the content. If your site doesn’t look good for a specific resolution, the visitor may leave since they cannot view it. Designing a stretchier layout that fits any screen resolution lets you know that all visitors can enjoy the content.
Create a scalable and reliable website. As technology advances and monitors keep changing, you can’t test your site across all platforms and screen sizes. Make sure the design, hosting, and code is scalable. Do this by making sure it’s error-free and making the loading smooth. This helps you create a good design that works for many circumstances.
In your website design, keep in mind that web browsers are more friendly to websites that have independent CSS pages and provide conditional loading. These methods will ensure easy testing and maintenance going forward. All websites require periodic maintenance, and you want this to be as easy as possible.
To help your website function the way it is intended to, make sure all your links are working. If you have broken links then your visitors may get frustrated when they try to click on something that interests them. Frustrated visitors is not something you want because they end up leaving your site mad.
Although the tools that a host makes available for web design can help you arrange your site’s basic layout, you shouldn’t rely on them exclusively. You want to integrate your own personality into this site, and this means tweaking and adding some things on your own without the drag-and-drop site-builder the host offers.
You want to ensure that your site is capable of being viewed on all types of operating systems and programs, ranging from browsers such as internet explorer to firefox. You also want to be sure that your site works on both windows and mac operating systems so as many users as possible can view your content.
As this article previously mentioned, designing websites is perceived by many to be a challenging endeavor. However, web design becomes much easier for people who have the best knowledge and information on how to design websites as efficiently and creatively as possible. Apply this article’s tips, and you’ll be designing websites in no time!