Website Development Design

CSS Design - Great Designer Tips

2008-08-05T00:14:00.000-07:00

55 CSS Techniques You Can't Live Without - Smashing Magazine is a fantastic resource for web design tips and tricks, and they hit the nail on the head with some great CSS tips in this list. It's really amazing all of the things your site can display using these advanced techniques.

How to Make Sexy Buttons With CSS - Many people in the real world wouldn't consider anything on the web to be sexy per se, but then, what do they know? Make sure your website eschews sexiness with this sexy button tutorial by Oscar Alexander.

6 Keys to Understanding Modern CSS-Based Design - much like web design in general, CSS has expanded and evolved over the years, and many designers still need to catch up. Snook explores modern navigation and floating techniques to bring you up to speed.

CSS Slicing Guide - Many professional designers begin building their website layouts and themes in graphics programs first before actually creating the code. Sometimes, the process of transferring these ideas over to code can be daunting; use this CSS slicing guide to make such transitions smooth.

71 Free CSS Menus - If you're not using CSS to enhance your site's navigational menus, you either have really boring text navigation or are just living in the stone age. No worries, though, as you're sure to find at least 1 styled menu to use out of the 71 on this list.

Advanced CSS Menu - After digging through the list provided above, you might get bitten by the CSS-driven-menu bug, and might be looking to shovel deeper. Web Designer Wall has the tool you need to find what you're looking for.

15 CSS Properties You Probably Never Use (but perhaps should) - Leave it to Oatmeal to give us yet another great design tutorial! With so many CSS properties to utilize, it's easy to forget some that are mentioned on his list of what you SHOULD be using.

70 Expert Ideas For Better CSS Coding - As you further your CSS knowledge, you may find yourself lost in a sea of style code. Keep yourself organized and make life a little less hectic with these 70 ideas for better coding from the CSS experts at Smashing Magazine.

Blueprint CSS - If 70 ideas weren't enough for you (or too much to handle), then you might want to check out Blueprint CSS. It's a CSS framework for you to help jump start your style sheets using advanced CSS organization.

Designing on a Dime: 100 Freebie CSS Resources - One of the misconceptions of web design is that, in order to achieve a really good look, you got to have the financial resources (i.e. billable design hours) to churn out good design. This list of free resources proves otherwise.

Great New web Design Feature : MobileMe

2008-07-15T01:17:00.000-07:00

Apple have recently announced a new suite of online applications called MobileMe. The aim of the development is to allow you to keep all your information in sync between several devices (e.g. your iPhone, Mac and Windows PC).

Email

Design features which stand out include:

* The use of a lighter font to separate the subject and following message content
* Adding a new email indicator to the top toolbar, and the page title, to show your unread messages whilst using other applications.

Photos / Gallery

There are several design elements which are notably good:

* The permanent share-able URL in the top right makes showing others your photos
very simple
* The simple design of the album settings popup
* The ability to resize all photos at once (no mean feat to achieve whilst keeping
load times down)

Calendar

Design features which stand out include:

* Transparency in event backgrounds allow you to still see time intervals
* Excellent use of subtle colours in the small calendar in the lower left to make
it immediately obvious what day it is, which day you’re looking at and where
the month begins and ends
* Slightly larger line spacing between events in the month view (making the
online calendar actually easier to read and scan than the desktop version)

iDisk

* The contrast between the two colours clashes and could certainly have been designed better.
The use of JavaScript and AJAX provides, a practical interface for managing files and folders.
Flipping through directories is seamless, as is dragging and dropping files as the page does not need to be reloaded for changes to take place.

Web Design & website Development Laws

2008-06-02T01:11:00.000-07:00

Brooks’ Law

Adding manpower to a late software project makes it even later.

Probably the law I quote the most. I can’t tell you how many times a client has asked, ” Can’t we just throw another guy at the problem?”

Parkinson’s Law

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

In other words, we’re talking about ‘scope creep’. Keep projects short and sweet—Otherwise, they tend to become unmanageable beasts.

Hoare’s Law of Large Programs

Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get out.

A perfect reminder that we often create larger problems from small ones. Always remember to focus on the goal or need. Everything else is secondary.

Lister’s Law

People under time pressure don’t think faster.

Tell this to any startup and they will probably show you to the door, but it’s very true. The only result you get from putting people under pressure is unnecessary stress. Take a deep breath and avoid letting your stress become someone else’s.

Pareto Principle

For many phenomena, 80% of consequences stem from 20% of the causes.

This is also known as the “80/20 Rule,” though most people seem to use it incorrectly. I don’t know if I fully believe in this principle. I think we often have a false perception that this is true, and therefore tend to focus on 20% of the problem. Or, in other words, the dreaded ‘edge case’.

The Peter Principle

In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.

This principle comes in to play when dealing with the opinions of overzealous stakeholders. It can be difficult as an employee to publicly admit that you know more about this web stuff than your boss, but it must be done.

Otherwise you run into…

Conway’s Law

Any piece of software reflects the organizational structure that produced it.

This law is absolutely true of websites as well. Organizations that have bad communication or poorly defined roles invariably have websites that take more time and cost way more then they should.

Fitts’ Law

The time taken to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and the size of the target.

This one seems to be a favorite with speakers at web conferences, and is a handy reminder of the principals behind information and visual design.

Tesler’s Law of Conservation as Complexity

You cannot reduce the complexity of a given task beyond a certain point. Once you’ve reached that point, you can only shift the burden around.

A good principle of information architecture. Complex tasks tend to be broken up and can often become more confusing in the process. Identify the hard stuff early on and treat it differently than everything else.

Occam’s Razor

The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is most likely to be correct.

This principle is helpful when you are trying to understand human behavior. Sometimes things just work. You may not think this is right, and you may not understand why, but when something works you should just go with it.

Hofstadter’s Law

A task always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.

Isn’t that the truth. The best trick here is to record your time, so you always have a record to refer to. This gives you a good starting point for estimating how long the next task will take.

Ninety-ninety Law

The first 90% of the code accounts for the first 90% of the development time. The remaining 10% of the code accounts for the other 90% of the development time.

The law is absolutely true. Once the end is in sight, the finish line tends to drift into the distance. Keeping development milestones short and sweet tends to help. It allows developers to feel like they’ve accomplished something, so they’re not wallowing in a pit of despair.

Hartree’s Law

Whatever the state of a project, the time a project-leader will estimate for completion is constant.

This law always reminds me of the movie Money Pit. Whenever the contractors were asked when the job would be done they’d say, “oh… in about two weeks,” but in reality the project took a year. Trying to set the right completion expectation is always hard. I find just being totally honest with the client goes a long way toward not setting false hopes.

Jakob’s Law of the Internet User Experience

Users spend most of their time on other sites. This means that users prefer your site to work the same way as all the other sites they already know.

Coined by Jakob Nielsen, the King of Sameness. While this statement may read like BS, there is some truth it. People adapt to what they know, and they have certain assumptions about the way things work that cannot be ignored.

Which could also be said this way…

Fisher’s Fundamental Theorem

The more highly adapted an organism becomes, the less adaptable it is to any new change.

But…

Clarke’s Second Law

The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

Source : The Immutable Laws of Web Design and Development

100 Tips and Tricks Related to Web Development

2008-04-07T05:43:00.000-07:00

Source : 100 Web Development Tips

10 Tips for Designing an Ecommerce Web Site

2008-03-17T04:24:00.000-07:00

Want to sell your goods directly from your site? Here are 10 tips:

10. Design for your target market. Find out who your potential customers are and why they come to your site (i.e. where they are on the consumption cycle.)

9. Identify your objectives for the site and introduce content accordingly. One Internet marketer tells the story of erroneously marketing an automotive book as an aid to car repair then discovered that the real market for his publication was buyers of new cars.

8. Be cautious about using offline marketing material on the Web. Print material often does not lend itself to Web content and usually needs to be modified.

7. Engage the viewer with dynamic environments. Allow the customer to experience the site - not just view it. Chat features, forums, solicited feedback, and database delivery of custom content go a long way.

6. Provide good navigational structure, including search capabilities for larger sites. Viewers enter your site at various webpages - they should be able to navigate easily no matter where the place of entry. Your sales area should be free of links to other Internet sites. Why encourage customers to leave when you've worked so hard to attract them?

5. Test the interface. A Website interface should enhance the user's goals, not distract from them. Strive to meld site components (i.e. graphics, text, sound, etc.) to create a unique atmosphere and identity.

4. Design with usability in mind and abide by basic design principles. Utilize white space (less is more), fonts that are easily read, pleasing color schemes, universally understood symbols, and backgrounds that don't distract from the message.

3. Write for the Web. Write in the second person. (i.e. You will appreciate our new product because ...). Keep sentences short and no more than 3-4 sentences per paragraph. Make use of hyperlinks and interactivity unless doing so would take visitors away from your sales area.

Remember also that your visitors will be situated in other parts of the world, and they may not understand jargon or North American slang.

Lastly, research shows that Web surfers detest the use of marketing hype. Subtlety counts.

2. Give something away and reward visitors from coming to your site. Offer free information, articles, contests, industry news or personalized services.

1. And most importantly, always answer the question, "What's In It For Me." In other words, talk "Benefits" not "Features." Sound familiar ?

Source : http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2003/07/18/tips-for-designing-an-ecommerce-web-site

War of design versus functionality

2008-02-22T03:04:00.000-08:00

Design

Design is responsible for keeping the viewer's attention. Studies show that a web page has just 3 seconds to make an impression before the user viewer decides to stay or leave, and a page has only 12 seconds to meet the viewer's needs before they find someone else to help them. The design is what catches the viewer's eye and keeps them interested. A good design also sends a message to the viewer regarding the company's personality, quality, and the way they do business.

Functionality

Functionality, on the other hand, is responsible for keeping the viewer. If a website is easy to navigate and the viewer can find the information they are looking for easily, the viewer is likely visit the site often and experience all that the website has to offer. Functionality is a great gauge at seeing how effective the company is at communicating their ideas to their clients or customers in face-to-face situations.

Source :

Create Web 2.0 visual effects in Photoshop

2008-01-15T06:23:00.000-08:00

One of the things that can make a good Web 2.0-style design really stand out is the use of juicy icons and bold, isolated graphics that really pop off the page.

Once you have an icon or object on your page, you can easily apply fun effects to the icon to help make it stand out.

Read more at Creating Web 2.0 Effects With Photoshop

Resources for Graphic Designers

2007-12-18T01:21:00.000-08:00

Organizations

1. http://www.gag.org/The Graphic Artists Guild promotes and protects its members and is committed to improving conditions for all graphic designers and the whole industry. They also produce the well known Graphic Artists Guild Handbook which is an essential part of any designers library.

2. http://www.aiga.org/AIGA, the professional association for design is dedicated to protecting and advancing design and its importance to society. AIGA now represents more than 19,000 designers through national activities and local programs developed by more than 55 chapters and 200 student groups.

Design Tournaments

3. http://www.cutandpaste.com/events/Cut&Paste is a world wide live digital design tournament that goes on every year in multiple locations award prizes to the worlds best anonymous designers.
Generally Useful

4. http://www.lipsum.com/This is a pretty famous site within the design community; you can generate dummy text on this site to put into your designs until the real copy is available.

5. http://www.alexa.com/Alexa is a traffic ranking site that is widely used to research other sites. It’s not the most accurate tool but it has become common place and your Alexa rank is often a variable when determining advertising costs or site popularity.

6. http://www.csstype.com/An incredibly useful site that shows you exactly how web fonts will look on your screen.

7. http://www.brandsoftheworld.com/This is the ultimate branding library with thousands of the worlds most famous and popular logos. Great for researching corporate identity.

8. http://blogsearch.google.com/An easy way to weed out site and just find blog on the topics you are interested in.

9. http://www.digg.com/Digg.com is a great place for offbeat news and can be in indispensable weapon in your arsenal of traffic getting tools. You can submit well written articles to dig and if it is dugg a lot and becomes popular it can bring in a substantial amount of traffic to your website for free.

10. http://www.bloglines.com/Bloglines is a great way to organize all the blogs you read into one place instead of having to visit a bunch of different websites and is a good time saver.

11. www.mozilla.com/en-US/Arguably the best web browser out right now. I use it for most of my web browsing but don’t forget the other browsers when it comes to optimizing your website. Not everyone uses the same browser.

12. www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/This is my favorite email client to use. It’s simple, efficient, and easy to use with solid email alert features. Very handy if you get important emails often.

13. http://www.adobe.com/Home to the well known design software we all know and love. Good site to check out once in a while for updates and help regarding software such as Photoshop and illustrator.

Networking & Freelance Work

14. http://sfbay.craigslist.org/about/cities.htmlCraigslist is one of my favorite forums to use. There are tons of new design jobs and gigs added every day but the competition is stiff so bring your “A” Game.

15. http://www.getafreelancer.com/If you are looking for an affordable but professional coder this is the place to go. Freelancers bid on projects you post.

16. http://www.facebook.com/Facebook is growing incredibly fast and is a great way to network with other people and advertising your design services. Many professionals are moving to facebook over other social networking sites.

17. http://www.myspace.com/Myspace has tons of potential when it comes to snagging freelance gigs or networking. They have a decently active classifieds section that you can use to market your work.

18. http://www.linkedin.com/Linkedin is a very popular site for professionals and is a valuable networking tool.

19. http://www.krop.com/Krop.com has a database of jobs for designers, artists, and developers with an instant and easy to use search feature.

20. http://www.coroflot.com/Corofloat.com is a site where you can promote and host your design portfolio, search for jobs and post to hire some one.
Stock Photography

21. http://www.istockphoto.com/index.php?view=fullThis stock photography site has incredible photographers and even better prices for illustrations and photos. It will make your life way easier as a designer and has many other benefits such as making money selling your illustrations and photography, networking with other design professionals, promoting your portfolio site, access to active forums and much more!

22. http://pro.corbis.com/Corbis is one of the leading stock photography sites with millions of images online, featuring historical, fine art, business, technology, celebrity, travel, sports and nature photography.

23. http://www.shutterstock.com/Shutter Shock is a subscription based stock photography site with over two million royalty-free stock photos available.

24. http://www.bigstockphoto.com/Big Stock Photo lets you upload and download low-cost digital stock photography. They have well over a million photos organized into categories.

25. http://www.gettyimages.com/Home.aspxGetty Images offers a large searchable collection of rights-managed or royalty-free images and films. Getty Images is a great site if you are looking for current event and public figure related photography.

Color & Charts

26. kuler.adobe.comKuler is a useful site to go to find color themes for your projects. Users can submit their own themes to be rated and you can search for many type of color themes.

27. http://www.colourlovers.com/Colour Lovers is a great site with user submitted color palettes and even cooler is their blog that creates color palettes based on each blog posts at the end of every post.

28. http://www.logoorange.com/color/color-codes-chart.php
Nice chart that converts PMS colors to CMYK and RGB color codes for you.

29. http://www.ideo.com/visualizer.htmlThis extremely useful but simple web safe color chart lets you easily see exactly how different colors will look on your screen.

Inspirational Sites

30. http://www.cssbeauty.com/CSS Beauty provides its users with a database of well designed CSS designed sites, as well as news and happenings related to the CSS Community.

31. http://www.thecoolhunter.net/The cool hunter looks for the coolest and craziest stuff from around the world. Be sure to check out the design and art sections on the site.

32. http://logopond.com/The Logo Pond is a great site to go to if you are looking for inspiration while designing a logo. You can even submit your own logo designs to be voted on and reviewed. Good way to get exposure for your studio or freelancing portfolio.

33. http://www.go2web20.net/The Web 2.0 Design style is the big thing right now and many websites are redesigning their look to get with the times. This awesome site has a massive collection of all the new web 2.0 logos and links the websites.

34. http://cssvault.com/CSS Vault has a collection of spectacular CSS websites and resources including: Articles, Demos, Layouts, Tutorials, and more.

35. http://www.stumbleupon.com/After selecting topics of interest you can stumble upon quality sites related to those topics. I have found countless amazing sites doing this and not only is it great for finding new sites but it can be a killer way to promote and drive traffic to your own portfolio site or blog.

Portfolio Sites

36. http://altpick.com/Altpic.com is a great portfolio website for artists and designers where many people come searching for the best oif the best. It is a great place to showcase your designs and talent.

37. http://www.portfolios.com/Portfolios.com is a portfolio search site where viewers can easily browse through thousands of free artist and designer portfolios.

38. http://www.deviantart.com/DeviantART is a large community of artists and designers who share their work with each other via an online portfolio. Many digital artists and illustrator flock to this site and you can even buy prints of your favorite artwork.

Design Magazines

39. http://www.printmag.com/PRINT magazine is a very famous bimonthly magazine about visual culture and design.

40. http://www.howdesign.com/HOW Magazine covers many areas of design such as the business aspect, new technologies, up and coming designers and is a place for creative inspiration.

41. http://www.idonline.com/I.D. magazine is an International design magazine that covers products, graphics, environments, interactive media and other design related areas.

42. http://www.computerarts.co.uk/Computer Arts is an informative site with free downloads, tutorials, galleries, competitions, a published magazine and much more.

43. http://www.maclife.com/MacLife.com provides news and analysis of the popular Apple products and also has daily blogs from Mac Life magazine editors and a nice selection of articles to read.

44. http://www.pcmag.com/This magazine is definitely handy for any designer. The hardware we use is the back bone of most of our work and PC Magazine has solid reviews of the leading equipment. I always look up products on their website before I buy anything.

45. http://www.pcworld.com/PC World is a great place for Computer and Internet news and information, Resources, how-tos, downloads, products and more.

Fonts

46. http://www.dafont.com/Dafont is an easy to use free font site with a large collection of fonts to download it. It has been around a while and is updated often with new fonts.

47. http://www.urbanfonts.com/Urban Fonts is new to the font world but has quickly established itself as a leader in the free font community. It has an excellent design and is right up there with dafont.com in my book.

48. http://www.fontshop.com/Font Shop offers great font collections on CD, free fonts, downloadable fonts, typography tips and more.

49. http://www.linotype.com/Linotype has a massive collection of the most popular and well known fonts available for download. They also have a font lounge with many interesting font related resources.

Tutorials

50. http://www.pixel2life.com/Pixel2life is one of the largest tutorial search engines on the internet providing great tutorials to graphic designers and programmers.

51. http://www.good-tutorials.com/Good Tutorials is a massive tutorial website with tens of thousands of tutorials for Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator, and more.

52. http://www.w3schools.com/If you need to brush up on your coding skills then this is the place to go. The information is accurate and up to date and its def worth taking all the tutorials.

53. http://youthedesigner.com/2007/09/27/www.tutorialoutpost.comTutorial Outpost has a vast collection of thousands of tutorials for Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, 3D Studio Max, and more!

Photoshop Brushes

54. http://www.brusheezy.com/Brusheezy is a very useful site with lots of great sets of free brushes varying in style.

55. http://www.psbrushes.net/PS Brushes is home to over 500 Photoshop brushes that are all free to download and categorized for easy searching.

56. http://getbrushes.com/Get Brushes has sets of Photoshop brushes made up of various swirls, ornamental designs, and flourishes. flowers, dots, circles, and various other ornamentations.

Printers

57. http://www.4over4.com/4over4 is a good balance between quality and affordability and can handle most of the print jobs you would require.

58. http://www.modernpostcard.com/Modern postcard is known for its quality printing but can be a bit pricey compared to other sites. If you are looking for top notch printing though look no further.

59. http://www.vistaprint.com/vp/ns/default.aspx?xnav=welcomebackVista Print provides custom full color printing services. You can print business cards, Christmas cards, stationery, postcards, magnets, brochures, address labels, and even more.

60. http://www.clubflyers.com/Club Flyers is an easy to use online printing service with many options available and fast shipping times.

61. http://www.alocalprinter.com/If you are looking for a way to help the environment as a graphic designer then check out the new age of eco friendly printing.

Blog Hosts

62. http://wordpress.com/Wordpress is my blog host of choice. It’s free and easy to set up on a server and there are tons of great themes and widgets available to use. I use Wordpress for all my blogs.

63. https://www.blogger.com/startBlogger is another very popular blog host. It has many of the same features Wordpress offers.

64. http://twitter.com/Twitter is a surprisingly fun, easy to use and useful site when it comes to letting people know what you are up too.

65. http://www.squidoo.com/Squidoo is an easy way to put up a quick and free website page about any topic you want. It is very popular in the affiliate marketing industry.

66. http://www.tumblr.com/Tumblr is another super easy blogging tool that is very similar to Squidoo and twitter and just as good as both of them.

Blogs

67. http://www.designobserver.com/ Design Observer is a well respected site in the design community that features writings related to all aspects of design and culture.

68. http://www.lifehack.org/ This great site is dedicated to hacking your life by providing you with tips and tricks to get things done quickly by automating, organizing and increasing your productivity.

69. http://ilovetypography.com/ I Love Typography is a great web site devoted to typography, type, fonts and typefaces of all kinds. If you love typography you will enjoy this site.

Web Design Forums

72. forums.digitalpoint.com
This is one of the biggest and most popular programming forums around; there are many thread topics raging from coding and servers to search engine optimization and graphic design.
It’s a great place to ask questions, find help or promote your services.

73. http://www.webmasterworld.com/This is a very active and informative forum on the world of web design. It is a great place to learn and have questions answered.

Graphic Design Forums

74. http://www.graphicdesignforum.com/This is a discussion forum dedicated to all topics related to graphic design.

75. http://www.graphic-design-forum.com/This is another active design forum that allows you to chat about graphic design and post designs for a review.

76. http://www.steeldolphin-forums.com/This is a fine art and graphic design forum where many users showcase their work and discuss fine art and graphic design with fellow community members.

Source / Find more resources 99 Useful Resources for Graphic Designers

Outsourced Application Development India

2007-11-30T03:31:00.000-08:00

The process of development of applications on web is known as Web application development. Web applications are of great importance in this fast growing world where the virtual market has a lot to offer for growing businesses. Not only monetarily but also for promotion and advertisement, different application on the web can give you an upper hand to take the best advantage of changing market and world.

There are many benefits of application development online. Generating application on many websites can add an additional feature that can generate more traffic and increase visibility of the website to a new height. Further, many application may also help in better expression of services being provided and you can actually give a better demonstration of your offering to your ultimate clients. That is the reason; many companies are preferring website that has quality application to give them better visibility and web presence.

Outsourced Application Development

The system of application development is catching the nerves like never before. If you are a business person, you must require applications to get much needed oxygen for your business health. You can approach to various agencies, firms or companies to get your application designed. Further, you can forward your work to any foreign company where you can get the expertise of application designing. Outsourced application development has become really popular with so much to offer in really short span of time.

India is becoming a preferred hub of application development throughout the world. The country offers the best of everything to get the best of market. Till now, you have not heard about the usability of Indian outsourced application development, searching online can be the best thing to do. Search thoroughly and just have the best of everything.

Source : Outsourced Application Development

100 Unconventional Sources for Web Design Inspiration

2007-11-22T04:35:00.000-08:00

Most web designers look to the usual resources for inspiration : web design portfolios, social media sites and CSS galleries. But what happens when you do that? You get a site that looks just like everyone else’s.

Check out these resources that inspire you to build a website that separates itself from the pack.

Art & Illustration

Web design is a visual art, so take a look at the aesthetics employed by artists in other fields for inspiration.

Photography

The Photography Showcase: Check out The Photography Showcase for links to top rated photographers.
PhotoPost: Shutterbug’s PhotoPost is a gallery of user-created photos, divided into categories like monochrome, US National Parks, and Digital Doings.
Photo-eye: On Photo-eye, you can look for unique camera formats and print processes.
Flickr: This immensely popular photo sharing site is home to both amateur and professional photographers.
photoSIG: Check out the community-critiqued photos on photoSIG.
Fine Art Photography Gallery & Forum: For fine art photography from the stars of today and pioneers of the past, check out this gallery.
Photo Arts: On Photo Arts, you’ll find fine art and documentary photography.

Illustration & Comic Book Art

theispot: On theispot, you’ll find illustrations from over 1,000 top artists.
Illosaurus: Illosaurus is a portal for some of the best illustration sites online.
Children’s Illustrators: Check out this website to see illustrations made with kids in mind.
Drawn!: This blog features illustrations and cartoons that are sure to spark your creativity.
Comic Book Art: Check out Comic Book Art for loads of original illustrations created for comic books.
Illustration Web: On Illustration Web, check out amateur and pro illustrations.
Comic Book Pros: Here you’ll find comic art created by some of the best in the business.
Comic Art Links Directory: Get hooked up with covers, manga, individual artists, and more on this directory.
Masters of Comic Book Art: On this site, you’ll be able to find high quality comic book art, fonts, sketches, and more.
Illustration Friday: See how different artists respond to a weekly prompt in their own unique ways.

Fine Art

Fine-Art: On Fine-Art, you can find art from jewelry to sculpture in nearly any genre and subject.
Art cyclopedia: On Art cyclopedia, find historic works, art movements, and more.
Art Gallery Worldwide: This online art gallery has selections in fantasy, landscape, abstract, nude, and lots of other genres.
Fine Art America: Find art that’s being created in your region of America.
The Worldwide Art Gallery: On this site, discover art from all over the world.
National Gallery of Art: The US government’s National Gallery of Art offers online tours that take you through sculpture, works on paper, and many other creative mediums.
PBS-Fine Art: Find out the stories behind art by watching programs from PBS.
Web Gallery of Art: On this searchable online gallery, you’ll find European fine art dating from 1100-1850.
Fine Art Models: Fine Art Models showcases amazing scale models of trains, ships, automobiles, aircraft and more.

General Art

deviantART: deviantART showcases work from artists whose work is off the beaten path.
World Wide Arts Resources: Find art from all over the world here.
Warmtoast Cafe: The Warmtoast Cafe is home to loads of artists and designers that love to showcase their work.
Burning Word: Burning Word features a collection of poetry and prose.
Lounge72: Lounge72 is a portal for superior design, interviews, and a gorgeous PDF calendar.
Neozine: Here you’ll find a collection of art and resources relating to design.

Product Design

Whether it’s a DVD menu title, video game, or toaster, web designers can learn from what other design fields offer. Use them to consider usability, aesthetics, and create new effects that are usually reserved for offline design.

The Gamers’ Gallery: On the Gamers’ Gallery, you’ll find screenshots of the latest games.
Michael Graves Design Group: Take a look at Michael Graves’ product design gallery to study the way he employs functionality and friendly aesthetics.
Kotaku: Kotaku has the latest in game screen shots with insightful commentary.
B1 Media: Check out what this award-winning design firm has done with DVD menu titles.
Alessi: This Italian design group engineers thoughtful home accessories.
Highend3D: Check out Highend3D’s product design gallery, which ranges from cologne bottles to cell phones.
Charles and Ray Eames: Take a look at the historic designs and ongoing creations made in the name of Charles and Ray Eames.
Industrial Designers Society of America: Check out some of the leaders in industrial product design.
Gallery of Historic Patents: This gallery showcases the patents behind historic creations like the Statue of Liberty, Orville and Wright’s “flying machine,” and more.
Memento Navigation Guide: Take a look at the Memento DVD menu’s unique, yet frustrating navigation.
Great Buildings: Discover historic and inspiring architecture in this collection.
Pilots Product Design: Pilots has an extensive gallery of their design work, which includes interior and exterior creations.
UGO: Under Ground Online has screenshots of new and yet-to-be-released games.
Yanko Design: Check out modern industrial design news and product highlights at Yanko Design.

Information Architecture

Information architecture is key to building a highly usable site. Check out these resources for tutorials and other helpful information.

Defining Information Architecture: Peter Morville defines what information architecture is all about.
Recommended Reading: Check out these books for an in-depth look at information architecture.
Information Architecture Glossary: If you’re clueless about information architecture terms, check out this handy glossary.
Web Guide: This guide is full of information architecture resources, from associations to education.
Information Architecture Tutorial: Follow this tutorial for 5 lessons in information architecture.
Web Site Architecture 101: This guide offers an explanation of web site architecture in three easy steps.
Visual Vocabulary for Information Architecture: This collection of definitions will help you visualize information architecture.
Information Architecture Lesson: In this lesson, you’ll find information architecture ideas and how they relate to information science.
Effective Info Architecture: Andrew Chak runs down the basics of information architecture techniques.
Information Architecture of the Shopping Cart: Sarah Bidigare discusses best practices for information architecture in e-commerce.
Christina Wodtke: Read what Christina Wodtke has to say about the intersection of design, fine art, and information architecture.
The Art of Topless Dancing and Information Design: Denice Warren describes how to deal with the people you’ll work with in information design.
Information Architecture: Here you’ll find a nine-step guide to deploying a site with appropriate information architecture.
Information Architecture models: Here you can take a look at some common information architecture models.
The challenges of designing interactive systems: Find out about the challenges of designing easy to use interactive systems.

Usability & Accessibility

Designing an attractive website is great, but you have to make sure that it can be navigated. Use these resources to find out more about why you should pay attention to usability and accessibility, and how you can implement them in your work.

Accessibility for web sites: Find out why it’s important to build an accessible web site here.
Designing Web Usability: Read this article from usability leader Jakob Nielson on design for both users and search engines.
Key principles of user centred design: Get back to the basics with these principles for building a highly usable website.
Accessibility Tools: Check out this link for accessibility tools and wizards that will make your job easier.
Effective text: Find out why text is better than graphics in web design.
Usability First: Usuability First’s guide to web design encourages readers to remember that usability should not be an afterthought.
Readability: Check out this guide to clear, readable text.
The Usability Methods Toolbox: Check out this source for the latest in usability methods.
Affinity Diagramming: Find out about the method of affinity diagramming here.
The Perfect Pop-up: This tutorial shows you how to use unobtrusive pop-up windows that are accessible for everyone.
Questionnaires: Use these questionnaires to find out how usable people think your site is.
People are impatient: Find out why people aren’t going to wait for your website and what you can do about it.
How to promote usability in an organisation: Use this guide to implement usability in your organization.
Ten Quick Tests to Check your Web Site for Accessibility: Check out this tutorial to find out if your website is accessible or not.
Tips: Design for accessible Web sites: Check out this article for a good introduction to building a website that’s accessible to users with disabilities.
Clear Language and Effectiveness Tool: Use this tool to make your language more readable.
Lynx Viewer: See how your pages render in the Lynx text browser.
RoboBraille: Use RoboBraille to translate text documents into Braille, and more importantly, speech.
Methods table: Use this table to find the most appropriate usability method for your situation.
5-Second Tests: Measuring Your Site’s Content Pages: Make sure your content is usable by utilizing these tests.
An Introduction to Accessible Design: Get the lowdown on accessible design here.
How people use web pages: Check out this article for information on the difference between how web designers look at pages and how users look at them.
Better Accessible Forms: Read this tutorial to find out how to fix your forms to create a more accessible website.

Examples

These websites are excellent examples of unconventional web design. You’ll want to emulate their style-if you can figure out how in the world they did it.

Addicted Flavours: Addicted Flavours has a diagonal roll-over menu that goes completely against the web’s traditional vertical and horizonal style.
Michael Fakesch: Michael’s navigation is an unenven set of stairs.
Diana Stewart: Diana Stewart’s site has a bottom navigation with a fixed base.
Haus Hoyer: Haus Hoyer’s site is a virtual coffee table, full of interactive objects that can be clicked on and moved around.
Web Design 2.0: This site features a floating, rotating cube.
Subway Life: Check out the map-like design of this site.
C.DRIC.BE/GIUM: This site is inside a notebook and full of color.
Apex A: Apex A’s site is built upon a big, green leaf.
Jansochor: Jansochor’s site is divided into small black boxes.
Cartonagem Trinidade: This site uses a see-through cube for navigations.
Muziektheater: Like Jansochor, Muziektheater’s navigation and homepage is laid out on boxes.
Cathy Beck: Cathy Beck’s site is built into a tree.
No one belongs here more than you: Miranda July used her refrigerator and stovetop as whiteboards to create this site.
Triart 2000: This homepage allows users to float in any direction as well as grab and drag objects.
Alexdukal: Alex Dukal’s site artfully displays his work and uses smart typography.
B_Cube: B_Cube’s pages are laid out on a cut open cube.

Source : http://www.designvitality.com/blog/2007/09/web-design-inspiration/

Information design for the New Web

2007-11-05T22:36:00.000-08:00

Information design for the Web has changed.

People are changing the way that they consume online information, as well as their expectations about its delivery. The social nature of the Web brings with it an expectation of interaction with information and modern Web design is reflecting that. There are now alternate forms of navigation including the ability to browse by user, tag clouds, tabbed navigation etc. Advances in technology along with these shifts in user expectations are affecting the way that information is laid out on a webpage. Today’s websites are aiming for intuitive and usable interfaces which are continuously evolving in response to user needs. Website designers are approaching information design differently and designing simple, interactive websites which incorporate advancements in Web interface design, current Web philosophies, and user needs. Information design for the New Web is simple, it is social, and it embraces alternate forms of navigation.

Simplicity

Simplicity of Web Applications

In his Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwarz talks about the tyranny of small decisions and about how the proliferation of choices in our society necessitate that we invest significant time, anxiety, doubt and dread to trivial matters. He asks why it takes an entire day to shop for a pair of jeans nowadays? And he makes the point that this choice overload can not only cause frustration, but turn us from choosers who make careful decisions into pickers who must just grab onto this or that as a whirlwind of choices speeds past us. Every one of us has experienced this feeling with both the Web and with other computer applications, as well as in everyday life.

The design of today’s Web applications is being led by a principle of simplicity. Application authors are creating software that has less features and a lower learning curve for end users. The functionality which is included is that which is necessary, nothing more. Social networking websites include functionality such as user profiles which are essential – they do not include weather and stock quotes as well. The days of applications which are overly laden with features is passing. Today’s software programs are empowering to users because they don’t need a manual to use them, they are simple and intuitive. There is no software to install, and with many the commitment of user registration is not necessary to test drive the functionality. It is a DIY service model which outfits people with the tools that they need to succeed and nothing else.

This less is more philosophy can be seen in today’s productivity tools such as Google Docs and Spreadsheets (formerly Writely), and 37 Signals’ Writeboards in addition to a slew of other Web applications. New vertical search engines such as Healia search only one sector of the Web, becoming semantically superior within that niche area, while applications such as social bookmarking, photo sharing, and video sharing tools strive for excellence in providing focused services to end-users. These new websites are guided by a singularity of purpose and simplicity in functionality.

Simplicity of Design

This new trend of simplicity of web application functionality is mirrored in the design and style of today’s webpages. While we used to try and cram in as much information as possible onto our webpages, and preferably “above the fold”, today’s website designers are endeavoring to eliminate the unnecessary while presenting a clean and simple interface for visitors. They are attempting to engage the attention of Web users by drawing their eye to what is important, rather than trying to provide them with everything under the sun.

Many of the New Web design changes have been influenced by the stylistic tendencies of Apple and the Mac OSX interface. A modern lexicon of design has developed for the Web which has established itself as design with a purpose, not just design for its own sake.

Centered Design – Since we aren’t so concerned about crowding the page with all but the kitchen sink, we are able to present our information in a clean and self-assured centered orientation. This design choice is a practical one as well because it is much more compatible with various screen sizes and resolutions.
Rounded Edges – The current trend is to round out corners, even on fonts - not presenting anything sharp or severe. It is reflective of the informal attitude and casual tone of today’s Web.
San Serif and Lower Case Fonts – In harmony with the casual tone of the New Web, and the tendency to round corners, there are a lot of san serif fonts found on today’s new websites. Similarly, lower case fonts are utilized, especially in the logo to convey a comfortable, casual rapport with the user.
Large Fonts – These are often used by New Web sites to point out key concepts to users, or to boldly convey a simple, clear message about the website’s main purpose or “elevator pitch”.
Simple Persistent Navigation – The navigation on New Web pages is distinct and obvious, it is set apart from the busy-ness of the content and body of the page. Oftentimes it is found running across the top of the page. It is persistent meaning that it appears on each page throughout the website.
Bold Logos – New Web applications are bold and confident and so are the company logos which represent their brands.
Strong Colors – These are used by today’s websites to emphasize important concepts as well as for creating distinction between areas of a page.
Complementary Colors – Modern websites tend not to be monochromatic, but rich in color. Many new webpages are utilizing complementary colors such as blues and oranges, and yellows and purples to enrich their design.
Subtle 3D – You won’t find garish 3D effects or optical illusions on today’s new websites, but instead a subtle use of drop shadows, gradients, and mirrored surfaces that add a realistic edge to the interface.
Reflective Surfaces – This trend of creating the effect of a reflective, or mirrored surface may be found on many new websites, oftentimes surrounding a logo.
Simple Icons – Because of the genuine nature of New Web applications, there is very little if any stock photography to be found. In the place of these marketing images with happy business people shaking hands, are original icons representing actions which can be taken by the user.
Whitespace – Website designers are keeping a simple and Zen-like layout by increasing line heights and adding lots of whitespace to pages. Instead of crowding the page with information overload, New Web designers are focusing on the essentials, and producing clean and fresh pages.
Starbursts – These exciting, exploding shapes are very in vogue on today’s websites. They can be found all over the Web, and are most often utilized to promote and highlight a free service.

Advances in User Interfaces

In addition to design styles, there have been several recent advances in user interface design which have made the Web a simpler place to be.

AJAX - is an evolution in Web interface design which allows information to be processed without reloading the page. This advancement has brought with it several new capabilities in webpage design.

Large Tabs - Since toggling between tabs is now possible without completely reloading the entire page, Web designers are making good use of them.
Drag & Drop – The drag and drop functionality which AJAX makes possible enables designers to create rich, interactive experiences for website visitors. Many of today’s personal start page applications utilize this functionality, allowing users to drag desired widgets and gadgets into their customized space.
AutoComplete – Filling out forms has never been so easy since the AJAX AutoComplete feature with which website authors can specify suggestions to appear as the visitor types a response.

Maps – Just a few years ago it was ridiculous to think that you could combine any set of information with a map of the world and allow your website visitors to zoom into street level and even get a satellite photo of the area. But mapping capabilities are becoming a commonplace and integral part of the user experience today. And they are something that users are coming to expect.

WYSIWYG – It is no longer necessary to know HTML code to create content online. Blogs, wikis, content management systems, and other web-based applications are providing “What You See Is What You Get” editors which imitate a Word-like interface for content authoring.

Previews – Webpage visitors no longer need to make the commitment of clicking through to another website before knowing exactly what they’ll see there. Through applications such as Snap, it is possible to provide users with webpage previews for all the links on a page.

Social

There are at least two trends emerging in the design of today’s websites, and increasingly there is crossover between the two.

The Socialization of Media and Applications

There has emerged on the Web a trend towards socializing things which are not inherently social such as books, photos, videos, and text such as news articles, papers, and posts. This inclination extends to Web applications such as collaborative project management programs including as Basecamp, document sharing applications such as Google Docs & Spreadsheets, and many others. With these changes comes an added expectation among users who now assume that they will be able to interact with the information that they discover on the Web. These new trends and expectations require that today’s website interfaces include a baseline of social functionality

Commenting – Website visitors are no longer passive readers, but active ones who want to join the conversation and add in their two cents.

Rating & Reviewing – Rating items and authoring reviews are capabilities which are quickly becoming requisites for websites with products and media.

Send to a Friend – Savvy website designers let their members do their marketing for them by providing them with the tools to send articles, videos, photos, and products to their friends.

Share - Today’s Web user is a collaborative one who expects Web applications, documents, calendars and other content creation tools to be shareable with a team.

Subscribe – When website visitors discover a column, article, blog post, video, or person they are interested in, they expect to be able to subscribe to the source on the spot.

Save – Multitasking Web users expect to be able to bookmark articles to read later, favorite entertaining videos, and save other Web content to their own bookmarking service with a click.

Websites can no longer be islands - visitors want bridges elsewhere. It’s not enough to provide enticing, quality content and provide no connection to the global community that is now the Web.

What are Others Saying? – When readers find an interesting news item on a website, they want to know what others are saying about the topic. This is possible through services such as SphereIt and others.

Sharing Discoveries – When visitors unearth choice news stories, top ten lists, or controversial blog postings, they want to be able to share their discoveries with the world, and be credited for them on social news websites such as digg.

Creating New – There are thousands of mashups on the Web today because tech-savvy users want to remix unique websites through their APIs or RSS feeds.

The design of these basic social tools needs to be simple, easily accessible, and exposed. It’s not enough that users know that they can go to del.icio.us to bookmark an article or blog post, readers are expecting a link right there at the base of the entry. It shouldn’t be necessary for users to click through to view the comments following an article. To be effective, tools need to be close at hand.

Social for Social’s Sake

In addition to websites which socialize media and applications, there are websites which are social for social’s sake. These websites are all about connecting people and building community. They are the social networking websites such as the MySpace, Gather, Facebook, and Ning networks. The primary component on these sites is the user profile around which both the navigation and activity revolves. This type of website interface also requires a baseline of social functionality.

User Profiles – The main ingredient in any social networking website is the user profile which can be tailored to match a user’s personality.

Friends Lists – What’s the point of joining a social community if you can’t make friends? The friends list enables people to create their own network of social connections and display them to the world.

Comments – These remarks are left for users by users. They are the casual “chatter”, the friendly “writing on the wall”, and the “shout outs” that are left on a person’s profile page.

Communication – An integral part of any social network is a means with which to communicate with other members be it an internal messaging system, email, IM, or live talk.

Subscribe –Just as with social media websites, members of social networking communities expect to find the tools which will let them subscribe to members who they find interesting.

Groups – These sub-communities within a social ecosystem enable members to associate with a focused group of people who share a similar interest, profession, or defining characteristic.

Tools for Personal Expression – Popular social networking websites provide their members with tools to create content such as personal journals and blogs, as well as the ability to upload media and other items like photos, slideshows, videos, and widgets of all types.

Not unlike social media websites, the design of these community tools must be easy for members to use, close at hand, and obvious.

********************************************************************************

Alternate Navigation

Today’s website designers are embracing alternate pathways to information. It used to be that visitors landed on a website and navigated around it by how the creator thought that they should see the world. Now websites are offering alternate and organic ways to navigate content which they hope will be more effective. Many of these new ways to navigate involve providing visitors with tools for discovery while others present a visual representation of what is important, offering multi-tasking, time-starved visitors an instant digest of information.

By User - It’s not enough just to find information any longer, people want to explore each other and find like minded individuals. This type of navigation is natural on social networking websites where the primary purpose is to connect with other members.

The Tag Cloud – This is a complementary taxonomy to the controlled vocabulary created by website designers, one which is organic to the user community. There are no instructions required with this intuitive tool which is obviously clickable and oftentimes san serif.

The Top – Including such lists as the most popular, most searched, most recent, top commented, top voted, and top emailed, this feature provides a scannable summary of what’s important in a community at any given time. There is still room here for editors to list their own featured items alongside these community lists.

The Zeitgeist – This is a container for all of the top and most lists as well as the tag clouds, providing a glimpse into the culture and personality of a particular website community.

Related Information – Not all pathways to information need to lead to content within the same website. Navigating now involves weaving in and out and around websites and data sources to provide visitors with relevant content. SphereIt as well as custom tools can provide this functionality.

Heat Maps – Websites such as CrazyEgg and Summize are using heat maps as visual tools to help users navigate and digest information.

Relationship Maps – Digg Labs is experimenting with innovative, interactive, visual representations of information with its Swarm, Stack, and BigSpy applications.

Time Tools – On today’s websites, visitors may even travel back in time and navigate information temporally.

Maps – Overlaying information on a map, especially with the availability of Google and Yahoo! maps is a commonplace capability of new websites as a form of navigating information. It is particularly crucial for e-commerce sites with brick-and-mortar locations.

Widgets – Gadgets are another way users are navigating information. They are aggregating custom data in one place, and navigating it from there. Websites are no longer simply text displays, but are applications containing other applications.

Mashups – Web users are creating their own ways of navigating information by remixing content from different services to create new applications.

Principles of Information Design for the New Web

Keep it Simple - Include only necessary functionality and provide a clean efficient design.
Make it Social - Meet users expectations by enabling connections through social tools.
Offer Alternate Navigation – Reflect the Zeitgeist of the website community and embrace alternate pathways to information including utilizing visual tools.

New Web Philosophies

Evolve – Today’s Website creators aren’t afraid to try new things. There is no right answer and everything doesn’t need to be figured out at the outset.
Be Nimble – Respond to advances in technology and changes in market needs. Be willing to abandon bad ideas
Be Open – Issue and API and design badges and widgets for your users – or they will design them for you.

Source :

Information Design for the New Web

10 ways to make your Web site 'sticky'

2007-10-16T04:42:00.000-07:00

Here are 10 ways to make your site "sticky."

1.Comfort your visitors with familiar items and navigation. Think about walking into a department store or supermarket for the first time. Previous experience tells you where to go to find what you need because there are conventions — established and traditional traffic patterns for you to follow. Similarly, there are online standards now to help orient visitors, making them comfortable and ready to learn more.

In a recent study, Nielsen's consulting firm, the Nielsen Norman Group in Fremont, Calif., found the following page elements on roughly four out of every 10 sites.
• The term "site map" for the site overview
• A different color after links are clicked and expired
• Shopping-cart links in the upper right corner
• Left-hand navigation for peer-level links
• Logos in the upper left corner
• When used, search boxes on the home page

There may be other standards that apply to your business or industry. Check out competitive sites and, if you decide to flout convention, have a good reason.

2. Keep it simple. The faster and easier the navigation, the happier your customer will be. If you're launching an e-commerce site, it might pay off to outsource some of the complex management and tools you'll need, such as with Microsoft's Commerce Manager. And set up a plan to monitor every page periodically so that you catch broken links and make sure every page loads quickly.

3. Offer a guided tour. "Find out who your visitors are and make suggestions about where they might want to go," says Thomas Obrey, co-founder of PixelMEDIA, a Portsmouth, N.H., Internet services company, explaining that it can be done via navigational cues or by a click-by-click page tour or demo. "It's the same concept as a salesperson greeting you at the store, understanding who you are, and guiding you to what you want."

As an example, Obrey points to the ECCO shoes site (www.eccousa.com), which his company recently redesigned. "The site is 100% engineered to lead visitors around." It has a "front end that markets shoes and a back end that sells shoes," Obrey says.

4. Tell your story. "A Web site is like a mini-broadcasting station," says Terry Isner, creative director at Jaffe Associates, a Washington, D.C., marketing consultant. "It starts right on the home page, which should set the stage by telling a compelling story that positions the company against its competitors." Include clear, concise information about whatever differentiates your company in your industry or niche.

Having an "About Us" section enables you to present the human side of your business by profiling your management team and detailing your company's history. Also, a section devoted to company news allows you to announce new clients, new hirings, new products or features — through press releases you post there. These are "conventions" to many users. Don't discount their value.

5. Update your content as regularly as possible. If you want repeat visitors, you need an answer to every returning user's question: "What's new?"

Even if your site is not content-rich, a key to getting repeat visitors is to offer something new when they return — new graphics, new product information, new offers, new article links, new company news, whatever. If you sell products or offer services, updating your online catalogs and product or services pages regularly will let people know you're still active in the business. It also gives you a chance to vary the offerings you tout and test what resonates with your target audience.

Also, if your business caters to a particular community of users — such as outdoors enthusiasts, musicians, movie buffs, or even retail store owners — consider having a communities section on your site, or a blog. (For more on blogging, see this article.)

6. Say yes to archiving pages. When designing or upgrading a site, it takes little additional cost and effort to add an archiving channel for press releases, investor bulletins, media clips, company fact sheets, sales presentations, product announcements or specs, conference briefings, white papers and other content that you originally posted in more prominent places. You never know when a client will remember some data point or presentation you had on the site and return to forward it to your next prospective customer.

7. Test your labels and links. Before signing off on copy or design, put it through a usability test. Watch a live customer click page by page through your site to see if it's intuitive.

You should also test all top-level site labels, suggests Marcia Yudkin, marketing consultant and author of "Web Site Marketing Makeover." "It's essential to learn whether the labels you've come up with make as much sense to your audience as they do to you." Also use phrases or call-to-action sentences instead of one-word labels for your active links. "Granted, longer labels can pose design challenges, but what's the point of an aesthetically perfect home page with options that perplex visitors," Yudkin says.

8. Always fine-tune your site after launching it. The most common mistake, say many experts, is doing everything right in taking the site live — — but then walking away from the considerable consumer information it can yield.

You should be checking into your server logs to monitor visitor and consumer behavior and traffic patterns. What site or search engine does which kind of customers come from? How long do they stay? On which pages? How do they move through the site? What products or information do which customer segments focus on?

Inexpensive, automated software such as Microsoft's FastCounter Pro can quickly analyze Web traffic and provide you with easy-to-understand reports. Once you get these reports, do something with them! Use the information to edit your pages, fix the navigation, change links, change content, and alter your search engine marketing to respond to customer needs. (See this article to learn more.)

9. Establish trust in your users. Many consumers have now been burned by online experiences, so you must quickly establish business bona fides. Web design conventions (see No. 1 above) can help put customers at ease, but you must also establish individual credibility. The options depend on your business. For example, Richard Solomon, a New York State attorney and author, runs SmallClaimsBook.com, which helps people learn about winning in small claims court.

"I post my television and radio interviews, in addition to book reviews. This shows visitors to the site that I have a product [a book] and a service [public speaking] that are recognized by the media," he says.

Other possibilities:
• Prominent bio or expert credentials
• Customer testimonials
• 100% money-back guarantees
• Free or discounted shipping
• Perks or discounts for second-time buyers
• Generous and clear product return policies
• Live chat online sales support; see Microsoft Office Live Meeting for details
• Letting customers track their orders
• Contact information, with a phone number, on every page
• Online customer access to your inventory
• Online client access to your appointment calendar, such as with Microsoft's Appointment Manager

10. Empower your visitors. Design your navigation and online applications so your visitors can find what they want. Yes, the site's overall look and feel is important and, yes, your copy and content must be assured and professional. But the main mission of your site should be to make each visitor feel that he or she is in charge of the experience.

That's the route to attracting customers — and motivating them to return.

Source : http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/resources/marketing/online_marketing/10_ways_to_make_your_web_site_sticky.mspx

Screen Resolution to design Websites

2007-10-08T04:27:00.000-07:00

It's impossible to design a website to look the same in every browser, platform and screen resolution, so don't bother trying. Instead, use a fluid, tableless layout for your design, with % widths that expand and contract to fit a visitors browser setting. Design for the 1024x768 setting and ensure it contracts properly, or 'transforms gracefully', to the 800x600 setting. Margins, page widths and indentation are aspects of page design which can aid readability.

Basic Resolution Facts

640x480 is not dead

While 640x480 is not as required as it used to be, 640x480 is still around. Older computers, laptops with smaller screens, and people who need larger fonts do browse the Web. Even if you choose not to design your page to this resolution you should test your site at this resolution.

. 800x600 is not guaranteed

Many Web site design guides recommend designing Web sites for 800x600 resolution. While this resolution is more common on the Web at large, this may not be the case for your customers. If you're planning on redesigning your Web site, take a few weeks to analyze your browser statistics to determine the most common resolutions used by your customers.

. 1024x768 and higher are still less common

This resolution can be fairly hard to read for many people. A 14-inch flat panel monitor might support 1024x768, but the text is virtually unreadable. Also, many computers sold are set up with lower resolutions by default.

Resolution Items to Think About

Not all users maximize

If you determine that your customers browse at 1024x768, you may be building pages that require horizontal scrolling. Why? Because while they are browsing at that resolution, they don't maximize their browser window, so 800x600 might fit their window better.

Don't forget the browser

Browsers subtract as much as 50 pixels on the right and left, and 200 pixels on the top and bottom. So if you create a table that's 800 pixels wide, customers with maximized browsers on 800x600 resolution screens will have to scroll horizontally

What to Do ?

1. Determine who views your site

Review your Web logs, or put up a poll or a script to determine what your readers actually use. Use the real-world browser size script to track your readers.

2. Base your redesign on your customers

When you redesign your site, build it based on the facts of your Web site. Do not base it on statistics of "the Web" or other sites.

3. Test your site in various resolutions
Either change your own screen size or use a testing site.

4. Don't expect your customers to change
They won't. And placing restrictions on them just encourages them to leave.

Source : http://webdesign.about.com/od/webdesign/a/aa123002a.htm

Steps to Create a High Quality Website

2007-10-01T00:08:00.000-07:00

What you need are goals, content, structure, design, programming and maintenance. What you need is expertise – constantly. This article outlines – without attempting to be comprehensive – the ten most important steps to create a good website.

1. Commitment
2. Planning
3. Information Architecture
4. Design
5. Programming
6. Quality Assurance
7. Public Relations
8. Success Control
9. Maintenance
10. Quality Assurance

1. Commitment

A high-quality website requires a lot of commitment and effort. Good content requires a lot of commitment and effort. Your users and visitors demand commitment and effort.

2. Planning
You have decided that you really want a website and that this website should really be of an acceptable standard. What you need to do now is a plan:

What is the goal of your website ?
What is the target audience of your website ?
What content do you intend to offer ?
Which key data and metrics will you use to determine your success? (Determine your key performance indicators.)

If you are in any doubts or even fail to find an answer to one of the questions, you probably need a break. Or you could try to seek for help regarding your decisions. Your website won’t mind the wait.

3. Information Architecture

After the planning phase has been completed, don’t immediately start designing and implementing: First, you need to create, test, verify, and reconsider the structure and architecture of your offer. To do this, read a good book about information architecture, look at a few heuristics and have at least 15 users do some card-sorting.

4. Design

Consider a few points before you start the design process:

. It doesn’t hurt to have a look at a few principles, whether specific ones by Tufte or Tognazzini or abstract ones like the golden ratio or wabi-sabi.
. It is essential to keep accessibility in mind, even during the design phase. It is easy to address color blindness, photosensitive epilepsy or sufficient contrast during this stage.
. Test your drafts (don’t wait until the final version). Carry out tests, whether with five users, with more than five because that’s not enough, with n users, just as long as it is cheap, or with none because you place your trust in experts. Test and read through basic rules about usability.

5. Programming

After completing the design process, which should have led to a well operating design, you can now start the implementation. (It is, however, possible, that you start this at an earlier stage already.) In addition to environment (server) and dynamics (script languages), you need to consider the following points:

6. Quality Assurance

After having worked out an elaborate, high-quality information offer on the basis of the aforementioned points, you should still absolutely and definitely carry out Quality Assurance (QA). The launch of your offer is part of this phase, ideally after a final QA. It may be possible to launch your website immediately after having carried out the QA, but only if you have focused on quality from the beginning.

7. Public Relations

Market your website without feeling guilty. Your HTML should already be suitable for search engines (semantics and accessibility). Use a moderate link strategy from this point on and perform conventional Public Relations (PR).

8. Success Control

Make sure that the “key performance indicators( KPI ) you determined at the beginning are measured. If your existing statistics don’t determine these numbers, ensure that they do. There are some useful statistics tools: Google Analytics, Mint, WebSideStory. Use these metrics to evaluate the development and the success of your offer.

9. Maintenance

Maintain your website. Update your website. Look after your website. Add new content on a regular basis.

10 Quality Assurance

That’s right, quality assurance is a process. Keep validating, checking, and testing your documents, contents, and design … again and again.

Eager to know more in detail. Click -
10 Steps to Create a High-Quality Website

Google's website Design and content guidelines

2007-09-21T23:34:00.000-07:00

Following Guidelines should be considered when developing any web site. These points are directed by Google. These points are your Guide to Professional Website Design and Development

Google's Design and content guidelines

1. Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.

2. Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages.
3. Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.
4. Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.
5. Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images.
6. Make sure that your TITLE tags and ALT attributes are descriptive and accurate.
Check for broken links and correct HTML.
7. If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a "?" character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few.
Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).

Source : http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769

Art to design great looking / beautiful web sites

2007-09-14T01:35:00.000-07:00

. Understand the design process, from discovery to implementation
. Develop pleasing layouts using grids, the rule of thirds, balance, and symmetry
. Use color effectively, develop color schemes and create a palette
. Use textures: lines, points, shapes, volumes, and depth
. Learn how good typography can make ordinary designs look great
. Effective imagery: choosing, editing and placing images
. Understand what makes “good design

Top 10 Website development Guidlines

2007-09-03T01:12:00.000-07:00

1. Use clean CSS (cascading style sheets) codes
2. If websites are built on a dynamic platform, make sure that your Content
Management System is search engine friendly
3. Keep your codes clean by calling all java scripts and CSS using an include file
4. Use keyword rich H1 TAGS
5. Use ALT Tags for images to enable your site to be read by visitors with
visual/hearing impairments and name all your images keyword rich
6. Keep the download time low by reducing images on the site
7. Float the content right at the top and make it easy for the crawler to index your
page
8. Make sure phone numbers and address are on every page as text
9. Use Absolute Links, no relative links
10. Check for browser compatibility so the site appears the same across all platforms

Source : http://blog.milestoneinternet.com/milestone-top-10/milestones-top-10-website-programming-guidelines/

What to choose - web site template or custom development ?

2007-08-26T23:50:00.000-07:00

What should site be to positively influence business and not bring heaps of problems?”.

In this article we want to analyse the parameter of how site is created. There are two major variants – you can get custom developed site or you can buy off-the-shelf ready solution for a site. Exactly these two variants or choice of web sites appearing will be discussed in this article.

variant 1: you decided that you don’t want to be like all the rest and that your business deserves a lot and, constantly, your company web site should be the best in the whole world, especially if you consider it to be a very important constituent of your business. Welcome to the category of people willing to get a custom developed site (exclusive and perfect). Advantages of such a site are:

* custom web site development always allows taking into consideration current and future (which is the most important) needs of the market and customers;

* every field of activity and, consequently, target group has lots of details which you will be able to provide for;

* you will get exactly what you wanted as a result of custom web site development;

* if you want to get profit and benefit from your web site’s work, you will need to constantly develop and improve it (both content and functionality). It is difficult to do this with off-the-shelf solutions, but custom developed sites can be easily improved, developed and changed.

Unfortunately, this variant of web site development is not ideal. There are two big disadvantages: time and money. Custom web site development is labour-consuming and takes a lot of time (of course, time of development depends on, first of all, your requirements) and, therefore, it requires great expenditures. So, if you have time and big budget for the project, take this variant into account.

Second variant : you need to get site (probably, not the most special) as soon as possible and it is highly desirable that site should be not very expensive. You belong to people who need web site, so to say, pro forma. In this case, site will be used not for conducting the business, but will act as means of informing about the company, so it’s functionality can be very simple. If this is your case, there is no doubt that it will be better to choose off-the-shelf solution. We already listed the major advantages of such solutions; these are time and money savings. As for disadvantages, there are a little bit more of them:

* first of all, you will not be able to profitably realize unique aims and objectives of your business (if there are any);

* off-the-shelf solutions do not take into account all your needs and requirements, so you will have to manage your work with what the solution has;

* every time you decide to change or add anything to your site, you will have to turn to developers for help.

So, these are the basic advantages and disadvantages of two major ways of web site acquisition. Of course, we could give some advice, for example, not to create web site only for yourself, the site will be used by your clients and their needs and wishes are of the highest priority and other. But in general, you should decide which variant of those described above to choose. The main thing is to clearly define, why you and your company need a web site and for what you are going to use it.

Source : http://www.selfseo.com/story-19368.php

Snappy design, full color ? Nowadays, senior yearbooks aren't what they

2007-08-18T01:18:00.000-07:00

Island Packet Online - Technology has allowed for the advancement in design and production of yearbooks, with some components expanding online. Web sites such as www.myyearbook.com allow yearbooks to be done entirely online. Brainiac Studios, based in Jasper County, is more

Wired News - Easy Tiger (Lost Highway) The Web is full of crap (duh). And until recently, Ryan Adams was adding to the pile: Last year all 20 episodes are on DVD, so we can watch our heroes as they build the first telephone with Alexander Graham Bell, design more

Earthtimes - AVENTURA, FL -- 06/25/07 -- Netspace International Holdings, Inc. (Netspace) (PINKSHEETS: NSIH), a provider of web design and custom internet marketing services, announced today that it has completed its reverse merger. Under the company's new more

Palm Beach Post - I knew that hiring a culturally diverse team would add more depth to the graphic and Web design projects we create, and it has." Her team includes Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Cuban-American, Asian-American and black men and women employees; along more

Forbes - systems utilizing VDC Display Systems Marquee(TM) and ESCP line of projectors. Video Display Corporation operates eight sales, design and manufacturing facilities throughout the United States and Europe. For more information, visit the Company's web more

CNET News - Web security does build on established computing principles of application design and creation, such as input validation and the principle of least privilege, a widely recognized design consideration to enhance the protection of data and functionality more

AZCentral.com - It's hard to get customers to appreciate the design or color of a product if they're just looking at a picture on a Web page, he says. But consumers are more fickle and price sensitive than businesses, says tech analyst Roger Kay with Endpoint more

Building Your Small Business Website

2007-08-17T02:43:00.000-07:00

Whether you're planning to build your first website or revise a current one, follow these tips to make the process easier:

. Decide its purpose. Before you build a new website or modify your existing one, decide what role it will play in your marketing mix. Websites should be designed to achieve one of these three goals: To inform, to promote or to sell products and services. For example:

Auto manufacturers don't expect you to buy a car online. It's too big a purchase to be made sight unseen, so automobile retailers use websites to inform prospective buyers about their products.
Movie producers design their websites to promote their latest flick by profiling actors, presenting story descriptions and adding downloadable video trailers.

3. Traders flock to eBay.com to actually sell or buy products online.

. Set a production schedule. A website is like a resume. you just keep adding things to it and making little adjustments. Therefore, it's very easy to spend way too much time building your website to get it "perfect."

Unlike a brochure or flyer, your website can be changed at any time. Decide what you want your website to achieve, what will go on it and how quickly you want it to go up. It's better to have a functioning website that isn't completely finished in your mind than no site at all. Get it done on time and schedule regular updates.

. Work with a pro. Interview three qualified website developers or designers and ask for references. You'll want to hire a firm with experience in building sites like the one you envision. Be sure there's a personality fit as well.

Ask the developer to prepare a Production Schedule outlining 1.e how he or she will construct your site between the project start date and your launch deadline.

Add a blog. Blogs are the hottest thing on the Internet today. A blog is your very own easy-to-use mini-website, where you can easily post thoughts, information and interact with people.

Your visitors can read the latest items. Your visitors can comment on what you've posted, link to it or email you. Visitors may sign up to receive your daily blog posts.

Small business owners use their blogs for different purposes. You can create a blog to share advice, post news or link to your customers' websites. Blogs can link to your website and help you build online traffic.

Find out more about blogging at www.blogger.com, www.wordpress.org, www.typepad.com or www.blogware.com

Help people to find it. A website is like a retail store - some people will stumble upon it, others need help finding it. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) wires your website into the world's top search engines, Google, Yahoo and MSN, so surfers can find your products or services.

With billions of websites fighting for customer attention, an SEO expert could become one of the most important members of your small business team. An SEO expert understands the complicated world of meta tags, programming code, search strings and website rankings.

Test your site. Smart restaurant owners hold a "soft" opening a week before their official opening to work out any operational kinks. The same principle applies to your website launch. Launching your brand new website just before a major marketing campaign can lead to disasters such as customers not being able to place orders, page crashes or dumped shopping carts. Hold off on any major marketing that draws attention to your new site until you know it is working flawlessly.

Source : http://www.visa.ca/smallbusiness/articles/article.cfm?article=295&category=60

website design resource - 500 free fonts

2007-08-10T02:09:00.000-07:00

I found this Fantastic website. Fonts 500 -
The website contains top 500 free fonts, calculated based on download counts from some of the biggest free font archives which are seeing helpful for every website designer. I hope you like it and suggest me more website like it.

Everything You Need to Know About Web Design

2007-07-24T04:40:00.000-07:00

A representation of content, related to an individual, business or any other topic; using design and graphic principles on the internet in the form of web applications and web sites is known as web design. Web design usually involves and uses technologies and standards such as HTML, CSS, XML, SSL, PHP, ASP, etc.

Web design differs completely from web development, which is more technical and deals with issues concerning the web site dynamics, validations and constraints. The principle of web site design further involves conception and collection of web pages, that in turn, collectively are known as a single entity, a web site. Web pages are usually the basic content and design holders for the entire web site.

Web design involves great many characteristics of design. The web site design usually depends completely on the type of content. The web site design should be consistent with the content offered by the site and should be able to please the target population looking for such content. Web site design, should be such that it renders the site almost maintain ace free. It should also be user-friendly, with the most basic navigational concepts instilled and an interface that keeps bringing its users back for more. Thus web design plays a very heavy hand in retaining the web traffic. Aesthetics should be eye pleasing and should be consistent throughout the web site. The whole idea of web design, caters around the presentation of the content posted on the web page, this should be kept in mind during the design phases, so that the content is stark and completely readable without any hindrances. Web design definitely affects the online business and visitor retention a lot, no body wants to visit a web site again which is poorly design and the navigating is a pain.

Written by William Amerson. Find the latest information on
Web Design.

This article is free for republishing
Source: http://www.articlealley.com/article_182884_4.html

Web Design that is Screen Resolution Friendly

2007-07-09T04:08:00.000-07:00

Surfing the web always brings up a swath of different problems all based on the different settings implemented by the web designers in their signature web designs. Among these problems is a major one that has to do with the screen resolution settings of all the different visitors who may visit any given web design. When it comes to screen resolution, it doesn't matter how perfect and beautiful the web design may be, it is very frustrating when a viewer either cannot see the images or text properly, or the viewers have to scroll to the side to see the rest of what the site has to offer. It is truly annoying when the width of the site doesn't fit within the width of a visitor's monitor's screen size.

The reason for this is that many older monitors ? frequently VGA monitors ? have a maximum of 640x480 pixels that they will support. There area also many visitors to your website who have older video cards. This means that no matter how good their monitor and your website, they simply will not be able to handle higher resolutions. You will need to keep this in mind when you are creating a web design for a large target audience. After all, you will want the maximum number of people possible to be able to easily and clearly read and view your website.

So why is it that web designers continue to write for such large screen resolutions ? such as 800x600 and 1024x768 when it means that they'll be sending so many people away from their sites due to the inability to read them or being frustrated from having to scroll sideways all the time? Actually, there are quite a few reasons to explain this web design pattern. For one, there are likely quite a number of web designers who don't even realize the issue that they are creating. Similarly, there are those web designers who don't care that some people will not be able to enjoy their websites. Also, we must consider that some web masters have recognized that their target audience are typically equipped with high screen resolution capabilities, and therefore are simply catering to their desired market.

It is indeed hard to believe that there are some web designers out there who can call themselves professionals and not understand the way that the different technologies used by their viewers will be impacted by the web designs that they create. It is hard to believe that a supposed "expert" may not recognize that their web designs won't look the same on every computer. Of course, web designers can't always be blamed, since they often have the latest technologies to make their work more pleasant and professional. However, it is up to them to understand that the majority of the internet using world is not using state-of-the-art technologies. These web designers are only trying to put out the most impressive looking visuals for a website.

When it comes to those web designers who know that not everyone will be able to see their website properly, but they just don't care are the most likely to lose the highest number of visitors. Any graphic larger than 600 by 620 pixels will definitely create a horizontal scroll bar for several website visitors. This is frustrating to visitors who have to scroll in order to read each line of text. Navigation also becomes a struggle because menus may become partially or entirely hidden as the rest of the content is viewed. Furthermore, if the viewer doesn't realize that the horizontal scrollbar has appeared, they may simply assume that the site is not finished, that it has errors, or that there is nothing additional to see. If the webmaster simply doesn't care, they're turning away an awfully large number of people who could be potential clients, part of a potential network, or even contributors.

When the webmaster has recognized that the primary audience of the site has higher screen resolutions, it is quite natural to create a website design that caters to that resolution. While they will usually meet the standard, making certain that a viewer of 640x480 can still see the vital information on the site, the entire itself will have been optimized for their main target audience. This is an extremely professional way to function because it avoids creating problems of viewing the site no matter what the client, and it still gives the most accurate settings for the equipment used by the main visitors.

Mark Nenadic
Mark is the director and face behind FifteenDegrees-North http://www.15dn.com , where you will find articles and resources to help with SEO, marketing and Web design.

Source: http://www.articlealley.com/article_37432_4.html

Web Page Designing & Development : Get Connected Online

2007-06-29T04:08:00.000-07:00

In this ever-Changing business market, website is one of the most important source through which you can develop your business. In fact website is your window to the world. Technology has changed the face of communication and effective communication has transformed this world into a global village. A global village which is using the facilities provided by e-commerce. Online marketing has increased the demand for a strong web presence so that companies can add more clients to their existing list of clients and in the process generate more business. In order to take advantage from this trend, all companies should have a powerful website.

At Our Development Center, we offer a full range of web design solutions for businesses as well as individuals. We cater to the needs of the clients based across the globe. Our team of thorough professionals with proven expertise in the field of website designing & development are capable of providing high quality and cost-effective solutions including complex-database integrated websites, e-commerce websites, website redesign and maintenance solutions.

Web site designing is an art and it needs lot of creativity. You should be very careful while designing templates. You should have color sense and the most important thing, you should have visualization power. If your website is attractive, then visitors will enter your website. The second most important thing is that your content has to be search-engine friendly. It should have keyword-rich content. You should always remember search engine loves keyword-rich content. you can be sure of receiving a website that not only attracts traffic but also generates more sales. We specialize in web development. We have the requisite expertise to translate your ideas into results.

We equipped with with professional Web designers who have years of experience in creating a website that sells. Our team of creative web designers will work with you to establish a specification of your website’s look and feel, functionally and navigational framework. We will provide at least 3 mock-up designs based on your specification for you to choose from before we proceed with the development of the website. Every company is unique and therefore each design we create reflects your ideas and needs. While constructing web pages, we keep search engine in mind. Our search engine friendly web pages ensure top rankings. Our content writers are experts in writing excellent content enriched with unique keywords that will help your website gain maximum mileage in the long run.

We not only work with in a area but whole world is our home,we love to work with Offshore Client as we are Offshore Web Development Company, so in the end it can be said that an effective website design is one which has an elegant, creative look representing company’s vision, needs, products and services to its targeted audience as well as put an impact on untargeted client.

Article Directory: http://www.articlecube.com

Author writes Articles mainly on Web Design India and Offshore Outsourcing where he shares his knowledge about the Related and current hot topic. Author is specializes in producing creative marketing materials and making strategy for both online and offline advertising.

The Importance of Website Design and Development

2007-06-20T00:31:00.000-07:00

The Internet bubble may have burst, but online business is here to stay. Your business must be online, and you must be making the most of the internet opportunities. In order to do that you will need the following:

Website Designer: You need an experienced website designer who will analyze your needs and build, design, and manage the website solution that is right for you. Your website designer must understand your business and your business operations and design a website that is the best for you. Your designer must know Macromedia Flash, Dreamweaver, and animation for your website.

Website Design: You can have an HTML website that acts as an electronic brochure for your business, or you can have a custom website designed that is dynamic. Dynamic sites are database driven websites that generate pages on demand. This could be anything from displaying your inventory on your site to an interactive test or survey.

Website Remodel: You may need your site remodeled to give it a fresh new look. You want your website to convey the look your company image demands in your market. Your a website can be designed around your current logo, or you can develop a whole new look and corporate identity image around your company.

Requirements Analysis: Your website designer must analyze your business and your online strategy to design a solution that is economical and effective and meets the requirements of your business.

Information Architecture: Your website should be designed as a navigation structure and user interface that lets your customers get to what they want quickly and easily. Ease of use is one of the top factors in developing a loyal clientele.

Graphic Design:Set yourself apart from your competition with clean, fast-loading graphics that express your identity and unify your site.

Front-End Implementation: You must have lean, fast, easily maintained html, javascript, and style sheets that work on all major browsers. Ease of Use: Whatever server or various types of databases, your website needs the right combination of technologies to create a reliable, scalable solution that fits your needs.

Content: The content of your website should be reviewed and edited so that it gets your point across to your customers.

Website Optimization: You must implement the many ways that you can attract customers and create business from your website. Your website must be compatible with the search engines and set up to insure that your site comes up with the correct targeted search terms. This can mean a real boost in your sales.

Market Plan Opportunity: Your website should advance the goals of your marketing plan and present the best image of your products or services. Your website should be better than your competitors.

Keywords;You must choose the right keywords or phrases that describe your product or service so that your website will be easily located. They must have the right prominence and frequency and the right amount of text to satisfy the search engines.

Meta tags: Your keywords must be placed in met tags, and all tags must have the right prominence and frequency in HTML to satisfy search engines.

Links: You need to create links from other relevant websites to yours to improve your link popularity and improve your ranking with the search engines.

Jo Ann Joy, CEO www.IndigoBusinessSolutions.com, Phone (602) 663-7007 The future of your business starts here.

For more information about these and other important business topics and for legal consultation, please visit our website at IndigoBusinessSolutions. Copyright 2006. Indigo Business Solutions is a registered trade name.

Jo Ann Joy is the CEO and owner of Indigo Business Solutions. She has a law degree and an MBA, and an undergraduate degree in Economics. Her background includes commercial and real estate law, accounting, financial planning, mortgages, marketing, product development, budgeting, sales and banking. She ran a successful business for 10 years, and she has written and given presentations on various business subjects.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jo_Ann_Joy