http://www.articlearmies.com Articles posted by Brad smith. en-us Copyright (c) 2005 ArticleTime.com http://www.articlearmies.com/articles/Web-Design/a-design-is-simply-worth-how-important-you-think-it-is.html “I can find someone to design a logo for me under $70 in the US – why do I have to pay $200 for it in China?” This is the question one of our clients raised after getting our quote for their logo and web site redesign project. It is true, and in fact someone on the Internet only charges $50 for building up a whole web site. However, if price were the only thing that clients were to bear in mind, why bother to redesign their logo and web site? How much is a design worth? A problem faced by all design agencies and freelancers is to determine how much a design should cost, and this is sometimes a very frustrating issue. I think there are two major causes for today’s embarrassing situation. 1. It is easy to become a designer but it is very hard to become a good one. Even a college student who knows something about design tools like Photoshop and Dreamweaver can claim himself to be a designer and begin to offer services to others: a logo for $30 and a web site for $60; he can get the logo designed even before you tell him what your business is all about. Creating a proper design requires skills that are accumulated from experience; also time matters when creating quality work. Sure enough, both skills and time cost money. Work done by professionals is a far cry from that done by amateurs (frankly, this is true in most cases), and there are many tips and details that cannot be easily grasped by inexperienced designers. Let’s take coding XHTML as an example. It may take you less than one week to learn how to create a simple XHTML page with Dreamweaver, but it may take you half a year or much longer to produce standard, valid, cross-browser-compatible and search engine-friendly XHTML/CSS markups. The prices vary greatly simply because too many people can do design work but too few can do it properly. 2. Everyone wants an impressive design, but no one wants to pay a high price for it. Many clients simply tend to compare quotes by quantity without considering whether the prices are reasonable or not; in other words, they only care about how much a designer will charge but don’t care about who the designer is. Talented designers are always precious resources, no matter where they are from, and quality work always requires time and effort. The first lesson we taught our designers and programmers when they first joined the Web Outsourcing Services Group, was to always bear quality and customer satisfaction in mind. With no compromise on quality, we should give more than the customers’ expectations since they need our expertise and professional skills. Although our prices may be higher than local freelancers or some of the agencies, they are definitely reasonable considering the quality of the work, and are a real bargain compared with local companies whose services can reach the same level. Let me end this article by finishing the story I started at the beginning: Our customer services emailed the client with the points I made above, 2 days later they accepted our quote, 3 days later they approved our draft design, and 2 weeks later they happily and proudly began to print the new logo and URL of their new web site on their business cards. A design is simply worth how important you think it is! written by - Sindy Meng. http://www.articlearmies.com/articles/Web-Design/elements-to-avoid-in-web-designing.html As a web designer, you should design your websites to give your visitors the greatest ease of use, the best impression and most important of all a welcoming experience. It doesn't matter if you had the greatest product in the whole world -- if your website is poorly done you won't be able to sell even one copy of it because visitors will be driven off your website by the lousy design. When I'm talking about a "good design", I'm not only talking about a good graphical design. A professional web design will be able to point out that there are many components which contribute to a good website design -- accessibility design, interface or layout design, user experience design and of course the most straightforward, which is graphic design. Hence, I have highlighted some features of the worst web designs I've come across. Hopefully, you will be able to compare that against your own site as a checklist and if anything on your site fits the criteria, you should know it's high time to take serious action! 1) Background music Unless you are running a site which promotes a band, a CD or anything related to music, I would really advise you to stay away from putting looping background music onto your site. It might sound pleasant to you at first, but imagine if you ran a big site with hundreds of pages and every time a visitor browses to another page on your site, the background music starts playing again. If I were your visitor, I'd just turn off my speakers or leave your site. Moreover, they just add to the visitor’s burden when viewing your site -- users on dial up connections will have to wait longer just to view your site as it is meant to be viewed. 2) Extra large/small text size As I said, there is more to web design than purely graphics -- user accessibility is one big part of it too! You should design the text on your site to be legible and reasonably sized to enable your visitors to read it without straining their eyes. No matter how good the content of your website or your sales copy is, if it's illegible you won't be selling anything! 3) Popup windows Popup windows are so blatantly used to display advertisements that in my mind, 90% of popup windows are not worth my attention so I just close them on instinct every time each one manages to pass through my popup blocker (yes, I do have one like many users out there!) and, well, pops up on my screen. Imagine if you had a very important message to convey and you put it in a popup window that gets killed most of the time it appears on a visitor's screen. Your website loses its function immediately! In concluding this article, let me remind you that as a webmaster your job is to make sure your website does what it's meant to do effectively. Don't let some minor mistakes stop your site from functioning optimally! article written by Colin Stables. http://www.articlearmies.com/articles/Web-Design/website-design-and-development-get-to-the-virtual-world.html The world has changed a great deal because of the advent of the internet. No where is this more true than in the world of business, where the internet has become, in only 10 years, an indispensable tool that most companies cannot live without anymore. Nearly every company in existence has a website, and nearly every company needs someone to make that website. This is where Marblemedia Sites comes in. Operating from Manchester, Marblemedia Sites offers website design and website development to its customers through their expert staff. If your company is in need of custom website design and website development, then you need to contact Marblemedia today, through their website at marblemedia.co.uk. Too many websites on the internet are designed by those who have no training in creating an effective design. New software tools allow anyone who wants to, the ability to create a website. However, there is much more to website design and web development than putting a few words on a webpage. In fact, there are many things to consider, including how people will look at your page, what to use for SEO keywords, and how to advertise the site on the internet. Studies show that surfers will only look at a website for a few seconds before moving on. In those few seconds, you need to be able to entice the individual to go into your virtual business and check out what you offer. Having an effective website can do this. MArblemedia will be able to create custom website designs and developments that will not only impress you, but your potential customers as well. We are skilled in web design and we want to put that skill to work for you to help you make your company a large virtual presence on the internet. Having designed custom websites for industries as diverse as pharmacy and racing to psychic and real estate, we have what it takes to get people staying at your website for longer than a few seconds. However, the services on marblemedia.co.uk go well beyond making the website, they also go into marketing it and getting it known to the people who surf the net. What is the point of designing a website if no one will see it? This is why marblrmedia.co.uk. work to advertise your company through expert Search Engine Optimization that will ensure your company ranks high on Google when someone searches for keywords relating to your business. Custom Web Design written by web nox http://www.articlearmies.com/articles/Web-Design/issues-on-web-design.html Different issues can’t be avoided even in web designing. Due to conflicts between differing goals and web design methods, conflicts arise. Some of them are listed below. Liquid vs. Fixed Layouts Web designers do not have control over everything when designing a web site. Some of the factors that they do not have control over are browser window (the web browser used), used input devices (such as mouse, touch screen, voice command, and text) and the size and characteristics of fonts available. However, some designers choose to control the element’s appearance on screen with the use of specific width designations. This may be done with the use of HTML table-based design or CSS. Fixed width design happens when images, texts and design layouts do not change as the browser changes. Supporter of this design prefer to control the look and feel of the site as well as the placement of objects on the page. However, other designers use liquid design, as in Wikipedia. In liquid design, the design moves so that the content will flow on the whole screen or a portion of it. The supporters of this design wishes to use all the available spaces on the web. CSS versus tables During the days where Netscape Navigator 4 was the most popular browser, Web designers use tables to layout pages on the web. This was considered as the practical solution then. However, popular as it is, it requires dozens of nested tables even for simple designs. With the emergence of dominant browsers such as Internet Explorer (which became more compliant to W3C), designers started to turn their attention in using CSS. Proponents of CSS say that tables should only be used for tabular data and not for page layout. In CSS, on the other hand, HTML returns to a semantic set-up. With this, search engines are able to understand what is happening in a web page. But one major downfall of CSS is the fact that control is essentially abandoned because each browser has its own trait which leads the page to have a different display. So to avoid this stand off, you have to decide firsthand on the approach you will take when designing that webpage, here are some of the key elements you have to bear in mind: Website Planning It is important to plan on the kind of website that you would be establishing. Keep in mind the audience or your target market, as well as the purpose for creating the site and lastly, its contents. Audience The key step to website planning process is defining your target market or audience. Your audience is the group of people you visualize as the ones who would most likely visit your website. These people will be visiting your website for a purpose so it is beneficial to know the things they are looking for. To help you decide on this, you should clearly define the goal of the site and also understand what people want to feel or do when visiting your website. Looks vs. Function Some designers pay more attention on how the site looks rather than on how it works. Some even rely on advertisements, so that clients will find their website, instead of search engines. On the other hand, SEO’s or Search Engine Optimization consultants are concerned with how a web site works, textually and technically. As a result, designers and SEO’s end up having fights because of the differences of their concerns. written by: Hunter Blyth http://www.articlearmies.com/articles/Web-Design/website-format-with-3-es-eye-appealing-easy-to-maneuver-and-evoking.html E-commerce, the exploding trend of doing business on-line has walked in holding the hands of ever-expanding popularity of the Internet. You have witnessed how the normal businessmen have converted themselves into business entrepreneur with their professionally designed site that became their most useful tool to attract traffics. Such professionally designed website proves to be an awesome tool for communication, information, and marketing. If you are interested in profitable web site design then you need to understand the basic concept of building it. It start with the determination of your goals of your website that should consists of the purpose that your website would render. For instance will it be informative site or it is intended to sell your products or services or simply to advertise your offline business, provide support to your existing customers or build your company brand. Whatever the goals are, it is significant that you clearly speak them out before you actually start creating your website. Once you have decided what type of web site you want, it is necessary to develop a domain name but make sure that your domain name should relate in some way to the subject of your web site that is preceded by checking of the availability of the name online whether it has already been taken. Next, remember that your website design must persuade the popular adage that “first impressions is the last impression” which means your website design must portray the right image for your business. Studies have shown that people generally decide on the appearance rather than the text copy. Another most important point of consideration is the page loading times. Taking too long to load to a page loads will make your website loose their patient which is very harmful. Therefore when it comes to web site design success, you need to make sure that you understand how to make a web site visually and functionally appealing. You need to ensure that any web site you build is user friendly with keywords rich content that guarantees to be interesting, informative and entertaining that will enhance the amount of traffic that is drawn to your website. Make sure to ensure properly install metatags appropriately throughout your web site and an appropriate domain name. Make certain to set up a solid technical support system for your clients if you are interested in professional web site design and especially if your site does on-line transactions. You can conclude that if your websites design is based on three E’s that is it should be eye appealing, easy to maneuver and should contain evoking, up to date content besides other format then it is sure make a great hit. written by: Brad smith http://www.articlearmies.com/articles/Internet/essential-tools-for-a-great-website.html One of the things I love to do first thing every morning is to check the Internet, to find out how much money I made over the night. Like a fisherman checking on his trap, I am thrilled to see money accumulating in my account while I sleep. The beauty of earning an income from the Internet is that my websites continue make money for me from all parts of the world. I can actually know where the money come from, and how much, and test the pages to continue improving them. Wouldn't you want that too? Before you get the wrong idea, let me clear the air about how I make money from the web. HappyJoblessGuy is NOT about earning money from some online pyramid schemes. It is not about Multi-Level Marketing (even though I have no issue about people earning through MLM). It is not about online forex trading. Apparently, many people seem to think that if you want to earn a living online without holding a job, you need to be involved in pyramid schemes, MLM or online forex trading. Well, I am going to show you an honest way of generating income from the web but it's going to involve a degree of hard work from you. For sure, nothing comes easy, and that includes building a machine that makes money online. And I have to say this: many of you will be unsuccessful. Some of you may be unsuccessful many times before you succeed - and if you're one of those who succeed after many tries, be comforted to know I am one of them too. Indeed, to do it well involves a certain level of "smartness". But the fruit of the labour will be more than worth the effort. And - it is entirely possible! Today you can have your websites built and hosted without ever needing to be hands on. For example, you can sign up an account with PBase, Tripod, Blogger, etc, and within an hour, you have a website of your own. If you intend to earn serious, long-time income, that is not the way to do it. You want something that is 100% your own. Once you have your own website (not an account with Blogger, PBase, etc.), you will realise the amount of freedom in your hands. It is this freedom which I would wish upon you. As I have mentioned, I am providing you this information for free. Unlike some websites, you do not have to pay money to receive my e-book. You just need to be patient while the chapters are developed. Do write to me when you are successful, I would love to hear your testimonial. If you were to ask me, what are the tools you need to build a great website, I can count them with the fingers of one hand. There are five basic elements you need to build not just a website, any website, but a great one. The fact of the matter is, you can hire a web programmer to build a whole website for you, bypassing the need to be acquainted with any tool. But to own a really great website, I would urge you to do it yourself. You can't be the captain of your own ship if you can't tell stern from starboard. Occasionally, you may get a programmer to do things which you aren't familiar with, but the bulk of it should be done by you. The good news is , you don't need to know much about programming; all you need are the five essential tools which I am about to share with you. Learn it, and you've taken five major steps forward towards earning an income without holding a job. I have received emails from people asking to give them personal coaching. I am sorry, but I do not have time to do that, even if you're willing to pay me money. I prefer to spend all my time writing and rewriting the pages of this website, until it is perfect. It is very important to me that I get it right. Your very success depends on it, so I want this to be the most useful website you have ever read. Be patient as this website develops. I need time to organise my thoughts, to sort each topic out. If you don't understand anything, read and reread the articles until they make sense to you. Through this website, I will be your guiding light, but I will not be spoon feeding you. In the next five pages of this chapter, I will go through each essential tool one by one. At the end of this chapter I will recap what we have learned. You will realise, if you haven't yet, that earning a living without holding a job requires you to learn skills that you may not have learned before. On the other hand, you may have built many websites, and are wondering what's new that I want to share. Once again, I urge you to be patient as the topics are developed. To continue reading about the 5 Essential Tools and other useful topics in my guide to earning a living without holding a job, please visit my website, written by: Timothy Tye