02 Sep 09 5 Elements of Web Design to Care For

From the all-text beginning to today’s Flash and AJAX based website, website designing has come of age. Many things have changed in these years, but what hasn’t changed is the focus on usability. Usability of a website was at top of the priority list, back then, and it is at top of the priority list even now. The question now arises, what makes the website more functional?

There are certain elements that go into making or breaking the users’ experience of a website. The web design Professionals know these things, and beginners should aspire to know these things. Let’s make it clear: It does not matter how great your website looks, or how great a concept you have, if your website is not easy to use, it will not cut.

Let’s put the elements that go into making a user-friendly website in order here, so that the beginners can refer back to it when executing their projects. These elements will help the professionals as well in finding the missing part.

Navigation and navigational structure: This is the most basic thing. Navigation and navigational structure is stairs and an elevator for your website. Visitors will use it to go from one page to another. Make the navigation structure as flat as possible. Do not use too many layers.

Apply 3-click rules: The 3-click rule means that the visitor to your website should reach wherever he or she wants to go in no more than 3 clicks.

Page Layout and structure: The structure of a page and the layout you will employ should not look cluttered. Give as much breathing space as you can. The more whitespace you will leave on your web page the easier your web page will go on the visitors. You can use other colors as the background color, instead of white, for your website as well, but I prefer to keep it white. It makes the web page look serene, calm, and non-obtrusive.

Loading time: the website’s loading time is another factor one should care about while designing a website. A website that loads faster gets more visitors. You can improve the loading time by removing unnecessary lines of codes, optimizing images, flash, JavaScript, etc.

Screen Resolution: Let’s accept it, you might have the latest screen, but not everyone own the same screen that you have. Hence, do a little bit of research to see that what screen resolution is in fashion now and make your website compatible to that. There is nothing like standard screen resolution. The screen resolution changes with changing technology.

Browser Compatibility: Your website should look the same across the browsing platform. At least make it look good on Internet Explorer, and Firefox. I would also not suggest ignoring Opera and Chrome.

Tags: 5 Elements, Ajax, Background Color, Breathing Space, Colors, Designing A Website, Elements Of Web Design, Elevator, Loading Time, Many Things, Navigation Structure, Page Layout, Priority, Stairs, Usability, Users Experience, Web Design Professionals, Web Page, Website Designing, Website Visitors

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03 May 09 7 Things That Let You Down

Every day we make promises to ourselves and we even try to fulfill those promises, but the astounding amount of work around us lets us down. It happens with all of us. We plan, we try but we could not deliver. What is the reason? Well, this article is an attempt to tell you not only the reason but also the ways to get rid of such problems.

No priority list: This is the first thing in the list because I wanted to tell you emphatically the importance of having a prioritized to-do list. In the absence of such list you will not know what is more important and what can wait till evening. Hence, what you end up doing first in the morning is the thing that was not at all important.

A pile of task: This is almost always unmanageable. A huge list of work to complete will just immobilize you and you cannot accomplish anything, so bite only what you can chew, and leave rest on the plate for others.

Wrong Timing: This is important. Do the critical work in the morning when you are fresh, and push the less important works for the rest of the day. Checking mail in the morning takes away the time in which you could have accomplished many important things.

Untidy Mailbox: This kills your time more than anything else. Too many mails in your mailbox will not boost your productivity; rather it will stamp it down. You need to organize your mailbox by filing important mails in folders and deleting the unnecessary ones.

No Do Not Disturb Sign: This is very important. In the office, being accessible to your subordinates, colleagues and bosses is considered professionalism. It indeed will win you many friends and support, but at times this will result in delayed reports and missed deadlines. Hence, you need to put “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door when you have important work with a tight deadline to finish.

Working Long Hours: If someone told you that working for hours in a stretch will fetch you great result then he was wrong. You need to take breaks at equal intervals to recharge your battery. The more relax you will be the better result will come out. Working continuously does nothing but worn you out.

Stand Up and Say No: Saying no is a good thing. It says you care and that you know the importance of the additional work that is going to get assigned to you. If you say no when you are caught up, this way you will not only save yourself from missing deadlines due to overload, but this will also help your organization get the work done through someone else who is free at that time.

Tags: Absence, Colleagues, Critical Work, Fetch, Folders, Friends, Huge List, Important Things, Important Works, Intervals, Mail, Mailbox, Organize, Prioritized, Priority, Productivity, Professionalism, Rest Of The Day, Subordinates, Tight Deadline

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02 Sep 09 5 Elements of Web Design to Care For

03 May 09 7 Things That Let You Down

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