Website design, like true love, is boundless: it recognizes neither barriers nor boundaries. The world of web design, while merrily escorting ahead the cream of the cream in website design concepts that emerged during the past years has opened itself up to the unraveling landscape of new concepts of website in the year 2012.
Nevertheless, the new concepts have found no cause to circumvent or override the age-old essential merit: marrying function to the aesthetics. The reader/user/prospective client at your website would only spare 8 to 10 seconds to judge the function and the sweep of aesthetics. Your website ought to be designed in such way, so as to convince the reader/user/prospective client, in this fleeting moment that he has arrived at the ideal website for his information/requirement/transaction/purchase. He must feel that your website is at once hot and cool.
Emerging web design standards
Continuous development of mark up language and style sheet language do break new grounds in the design and development of websites. With older versions of Internet Explorer (web browser) on their way out and more browsers supporting new forms of web markup, there’s never been a better time to experiment with HTML5 and CSS3. HTTML5 is the latest version of HTML (HyperText Markup Language). HTML is written in the form of HTML elements consisting of tags, enclosed in angle brackets (like ), within the web page content. HTML elements form the building blocks of all websites. HTML allows images and objects to be embedded and can be used to create interactive forms.
HTML5 creates more readable code to crawlers (computer programs of the search engines that browse the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner) and builds layouts that help the structure mark-up. HTML5 features smarter forms, typography, social tools, drag and drop functionality and new APIs.
Web browsers can also refer to Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to define the appearance and layout of text and other material. CSS3 is the latest version of CSS. CSS3 functions include rounded corners, drop down menus, animated buttons, multiple backgrounds, web applications and @font-face technology.
HTML5, CSS3, Javascript and jQuery are already becoming web design standards. These being competent to do everything Flash has been doing, Flash is being slowly discarded with a view to speed up website loading.
Flash is riddled with a couple of major disadvantage: longer loading time and incompatibility with the applications in mobile devices. Having said that, we must hasten to add that, when it comes to create the extraordinary design elements, Flash cannot be replaced by HTML 5.
The main purpose of Website Design
Website design is all about communication: it is a 24hours/365days marketing tool of your business engaged in communication. Website design allows for the organization of the information and ideas so that same could be to be communicated effectively.
Essential Merits of Website Design: Simplicity and functionality
Simplicity and functionality wouldn’t go away; they have become essential merits in designing websites. The readers, users, potential clients and clients aim to access the required information right away.
Pleasant and easy navigation could serve the purpose well. Navigation with simple menus makes it possible to access each and every webpage of the website: the access path and the location to all web pages within the website.
Screaming colors and explosive graphics of yesteryears have now been replaced by color palettes softer on the eyes and uncomplicated designs.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Orientation
Professional website are designed with a view to perform well in the Search Engine Optimization. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the means to generate traffic to website. Of course, Superior graphics, first rate content, navigation simplicity and technical complexity would make the website above average. Nevertheless SEO is a must. Unless your website is SEO-oriented from the initial design phase itself to the completion, it is unlikely to draw in a high volume of readers, users, potential clients and clients.
Color scheme of a website
The color scheme of a website is instrumental in presenting its brand identity and personality. But that’s not all. Most of all, the color scheme of a website has its own impact on sales; right colors generate positive emotions upon the potential clients while the wrong colors distract the clients. Colors create moods, generate interest and result in impulsive attraction.
According to the psychologists the colors do affect the human feelings and do influence the process of thought. Bright bold colors stir the feelings while the softer pastel colors do have a calming effect on the mind. How the humans respond to colors do vary by age, gender and cultural background.
The color Blue is believed to have a calming effect on human mind. Nevertheless when blue is combined with warm colors (yellow, red), the color combination tends to result in vibrant and high-impact designs. Since random color combinations wouldn’t serve the purpose of a website, a professional website designer is required to do the job. Selecting a suitable color combination for a website is an essential feature of website design and development.
Latest trends in designing
Oversized Headers and Footers
An oversized header featuring colorful graphics that blend into the background has resulted in strengthening the first impression upon the users of the website. Nevertheless header needs to be balanced against the main body so that it wouldn’t distract the potential clients from the all important content.
Oversized Footers have caught up to make room for additional information that wouldn’t fit into the main body.
Responsive Web Design/Fluid Grids: Mobile compatibility
In view of the rapid strides in the improvement of communication channels and the ever increasing population of mobile users, the websites are required to be compatible with popular mobile devices: Smartphones, iPads and netbooks. The naked ape (with apologies to Desmond Morris, the zoologist and anthropologist) has acquired quite a habit in making use of mobile web browser in an attempt come to terms with time and motion: we love to get into world wide web while on the road too. As such the integrity of the web design should hold up against the evolving mobile standards so that modern websites would appear and perform well in all mobile platforms.
Typography
Typography catches the eye and makes the text more interesting. Though the regular fonts serve all the purposes, a dash of typography could help make the website exceptional. However the placing of creative fonts needs to be balanced with regular font used in the main divisions of text.
Social Media Integration
Social Media Integration has now become an important aspect of web designing: the on-line presence of brand has now expanded from the website to social media networks. By means of integrating social media sites such as You-tube, Twitter, Facebook, Googleplus etc. onto the principal website, customer relationship and the business marketing are now given a boost.
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