Another Thanksgiving holiday here in the U.S. has come and gone and along with it an uproarious celebration of unbridled consumerism called Black Friday. I thought with a stomach full of turkey I’d sit and share a bit from the web about what’s going on with website design. After all it is the tradition to reflect at years end about the preceding year, isn’t it?
It was not that long ago that people jumped onto their computers and built their first homemade websites. Many of the first website design looked just like rooms and common areas culled from stores and transportation hubs that included couches, chairs and windows inviting you to take a seat or take a leap through the looking glass. Those early websites were cute but they missed out on the fact that users really didn’t want to pull up a chair and hang out. Users wanted useful information they could grab and then inject into their lives. Time was and still is the most important ingredient in website design.
If you can present your design a user can utilize in their lives with little effort they will come back to your website over and over. The site that offers something useful and unique will be rewarded and the users time won’t be wasted.
Over at 123webdesign the author takes a considerable amount of time and space to review 10 areas in web design that are moving and shaking with new ideas and technology. It’s well worth a look and full of a bunch of quality examples.
“Successful website design demands keeping up with current web design trends. With ever-changing design trends and techniques, web designers love to experiment with things to come up with a creative and new concept that attract the visitors. 2011 has been an incredibly verdant year for web designers; we have noticed lots of changes in the web design industry. Mobile has hit the mainstream; Web typography has reached new levels of sophistication; new coding techniques have vastly improved our ability to get creative with the design. All in all, it’s been a year that’s moved fast, even by the standards of the web. However it will be tough to predict the evolution of web design industry.“
Over at Wixmobile the author Vail Joy lays out a clear path for photographers to take when considering the design of a mobile website and how people will see their work on a smart phone. The article is titled 5 moblie website design tips for photographers. Below are the 5 helpful tips that anyone can benefit from, check the piece out and let the author know what you think about it.
- Design for the right scale
- Let your work speak for itself and display it proudly on your front page.
- Simplify your navigation
- Add a compact biography
- Make it easy to get in “touch”
And building on the unique and usefulness of the content and design you present to your readers, I ran across a great little article by Katy Cowan in The Guardian titled Building Trust is the Key to Promoting Your Organization Online
Cowan starts off with a simple straight forward declaration that many organizations and small businesses ignore. “Your website is the single most important aspect of your business these days. It’s a crucial first impression and will determine whether audiences attend your arts events and performances, hire you for your services or buy your products.”
The article is well written and very informative using over a dozen short bite headings to lay out a clear path any organization can use to achieve a user friendly and trustful website. I highly recommend reading Katy Cowan’s article.
Website design doesn’t need to be something created in secret by some unknown gurus who guard their secrets, no the whole process needs to be built upon transparency and a process that is fully understood by the client. Before you hire someone to lead your small business on the web make sure 100% of what goes on is easily accessible to your company and equally easily understood.
