Impressions Blog

Get Paid for Sharing Ads on Your Social Networks

2012-04-11T00:31:00.000-07:00

Advertisers are sneaking into your Twitter and Facebook feeds — with help from your social media connections.

Wingsplay, a startup that launched last month, pays its users to share video ads on their social networks. The distribution model is key; it relies heavily on connected social networks. The founder, Olivier Lasry, says the best way for online advertisements to resonate with people is if a link has been recommended by a friend or social media connection.

Even though you may not Like or follow advertisers, ads could trickle into your feeds via a friend who is trying to make a quick buck or just likes to watch funny ads. Users can earn money by sharing up to four video ads per week. Users are paid by cost per view. The service is not meant to be used to spam social media, but more to drive conversations.

“The Web made it almost impossible to reach people with boring ads,” Lasry said. “People don’t care about advertisers who interrupt them. But the opportunity is huge for remarkable video ads, which people actually want to watch and share.”

For example, Major League Soccer is promoting the April 14 Philadelphia v. Columbus soccer match on Wingsplay. After sharing the video, Wingsplay users are paid 21 cents each time someone from their social network clicks on the user’s link and watches the MLS video featuring David Beckham.

But the financial incentive isn’t enough for a person to share an ad. Lasry says users actually like the ads they choose to share.

“26% of our influencers shared the first videos we distributed on Wingsplay, which shows that influencers only share videos they like, and that the monetary incentive is only part of the experience,” Lasry said.

Oxygen and NBC were the first big names to promote ads through Wingsplay in an effort to target a larger social media audience. The week before the new shows aired on NBC and Oxygen, both networks promote their new series through Wingsplay. Users shared a video trailer ad for the new ABC show “Awake,” which premiered March 1 and Oxygen’s March 26 premiere of “Brooklyn 11223.”

Lasry said the site, which is still in beta, has started with trailers as a test. Moving forward, he wants the ads to be funny, gripping, cause-related or clever.

“[Trailers] might not be the best fit for our distribution model, but there are many of them and they give us a sense of the minimum performance that can be expected from our network,” he said. “Given the results of our first campaigns, we expect funny ads to deliver an Earned:Paid ratio around 6, which is unheard of in the industry.”

Lasry, who is originally from France, was inspired to start Wingsplay after seeing his friends share ads on their social networks. He figure if people are already sharing ads on Facebook, why not introduce advertisements through the consumer first? From there, real people can start coversations about the ads they’re interested in.

Unlike celebrity brand ambassadors, the average social media user talks with friends on a personal level about the content he or she is sharing. People or more likely to enjoy the same things their friends like, Lasry said. So far, Wingsplay users are posting to Facebook most — 84% of all Wingsplay shares have been distributed on Facebook.

What do you think of advertising encroaching on your social networks? Does advertising make social media better or worse? Will you sign up for Wingsplay? Tell us in the comments.

Photos courtesy of Wingsplay, iStock, kizilkayaphotos

5 Tips to Get You Started in iOS App Design

2012-03-29T08:57:00.002-07:00

5 Tips to Get You Started in iOS App Design

To say that mobile is hot right now is an understatement. A recent study predicts that users of mobile devices will overtake users of PC’s by 2014. This means that within 2 years, more people will be consuming internet content through their mobile device than through their computer.

As a result, graphic designers that are knowledgeable in mobile app design are becoming more and more in demand. Here are 5 tips to get you started in iOS App Design.

1. Understand the basic resolutions for apple mobile devices:

There are basic resolutions that you need to remember for the newest versions of the iPhone and iPad3. You don’t want to be left in the dust with a design that doesn’t look crisp on the new version of the iPad.

Take note that even though the resolution for newer models have increased, files should still be saved at 72 DPI — just like any other web design.

iPhone:

App Icon: 114 x 114 pixels
App Store Icon: 512 x 512 pixels
Screen Size: 640 x 960 pixels

Set up Photoshop like this:

iPad:

App Icon 144 x 144 pixels
Store Icon 512 x 512 pixels
Screen Size 1536 x 2048 pixels

Set up Photoshop like this:

2. Start with a wireframe

Sketch a mock up that shows the basic outlines of your app. The more detailed you get, the better. This part of the process is all about visualizing how the user will interact and experience your app.

When you are happy with your sketches, its time to turn them into digital wireframes in Photoshop.

Make sure to get all of your proportions correct. You don’t want a navigation bar that is narrow and appears crowded, but you also don’t want to use up the limited real estate you have available on a mobile device.

Maintaining consistent proportions throughout your interface is key to the app’s aesthetics and user experience. Check out some examples of digital wireframes here.

3. Start small and scale it bigger

Design for the iPhone first. By starting out with a design for iPhone, you will have less difficult decisions to make when you create the iPad version.

It’s easier to add elements, than to cut out elements the app needs. The best mobile designs are fully functional on the iPad and don’t feel like they lack features on the iPhone counterpart.

4. Provide the proper deliverables to your client/developer.

Like a web page, a layered .PSD file is the standard deliverable, however some developers may want you to slice the app into individual elements. All elements of the design should be saved in .PNG format — the preferred image file for iOS apps.

5. Use and Explore the iOS Dev Center

Apple has tons of resources available for app designers and developers in the iOS Dev Center. If you’re ever un-certain of best practices or any specific requirements for an App Design this should be the first place you go. The Human Interface guidelines section is especially useful for designers.

Have any questions or tips of your own? Leave them in the comments.

Source: http://99designs.com/designer-blog/2012/03/27/5-tips-to-get-you-started-in-ios-app-design/

5 Tips for Creating Hi-Res iPad Content

2012-03-19T08:52:00.001-07:00

Xavier Facon is CTO at Crisp Media, a rich media advertising technology company based in New York City. He blogs regularly about ad technology and mobile best practices. Designers and developers who create content for mobile devices with high-resolution screens often see the retina display as both a blessing and a curse.

For instance, the new iPad, with its 2,048 x 1,536-pixel resolution, has a million more pixels than your 1080p HD television. But while the new resolution affords stunning, visual experiences, the devices often require 4G Internet speeds, which aren’t available to everyone. Furthermore, designers are questioning how to start multi-screen projects in the first place.
Whether publishing digital content or building rich media display advertising, try these five tips.  

1. If Designing for Multiple Devices, Start with the iPad.

Although historically the order of creating digital content has been desktop first, smartphone second, tablet third, you will need to port experiences to all screens eventually. Therefore, reverse the order and start with the highest resolution screen and the most interactive platform.
Start with the iPad, the device that can handle the best interactive ingredients in terms of features and resolution. Then, revise the idea when porting to more limited devices, like desktops, smart TVs, smartphones and less advanced tablets. This ensures the content will be optimized to its fullest extent on every device.  

2. Use Web Fonts.

Web fonts allow you to use almost any font without having to render it as an image first. Download the font separately and render the text in the browser using the @font-face feature. This saves a lot of bandwidth on high-resolution screens.  
Combine the web fonts with shading and masks for high-res, customizable results. This font example looks like a hand-painted sign on your new iPad. Access these fonts from various vendors, like Typekit.  
Or apply compression technologies to an image that would normally create unwanted artifacts on your text. By keeping the text separate and using web fonts for design, you will always produce crisp, readable content.  

3. Use CSS Instead of PNGs.

Web technologies like HTML5 and CSS3 help optimize high-resolution displays in a bandwidth-friendly way. Use progressive enhancement to mark up the content; that way, it will still look decent on browsers that don’t fully support the feature. Then, take advantage of colors, rounded corners, gradients and opacity to create common graphic elements. Don’t resort to PNGs for shape-based needs, such as buttons, lines, corners and tabs. It either won’t look crisp, or it will cost many more kilobytes than it’s worth.  

4. Use a CSS Media Selector to Deliver Correctly Sized Images.

When creating photos and graphics to port across devices, try using a responsive design approach that scales content to the size of the canvas or browser window. Some JavaScript techniques allow you to download a high-resolution image, but may actually add weight to the page. Instead, try the CSS @media selector to download a photo sized specifically for the device.  

5. Borrow Some Tricks from Game Designers.

Making high-res graphics efficient is not new to game design. Common game development techniques, like texture maps or sprite maps, can be the best approach for your content on high-res mobile screens.
With these techniques, the designer puts many images and backgrounds in one single larger image to avoid downloading and drawing multiple images. Especially when dealing with animations or backgrounds — as is often the case when designing rich media advertisements or entertainment content — bandwidth and display performance improves.  
All of these techniques have been valid and viable for awhile now. However, with the advent of high-resolution mobile devices, these optimizations are even more necessary. The high pixel density revolution is forcing designers and interactive developers to save bandwidth by advancing the sophistication of their markups.

Source: http://mashable.com/2012/03/19/hi-res-content-for-ipad/

Create a minimalist web design layout using Photoshop

2012-03-06T08:03:00.000-08:00

Takeaway: In this tutorial, Ryan Boudreaux shows you the steps and settings to create a minimalist web design layout in Photoshop.

Minimalism in art and design began post World War II, and in particular was prolific largely in American visual arts, design, and architecture with rapid growth seen in the 1960s and early 1970s. With respect to web design, we find many examples of minimalist usage and the trend seems to be growing every day. In this tutorial, I will be using Photoshop CS5 Extended; however, all of the steps can be utilized in most versions of the Adobe Photoshop series.

What defines a minimalist website?

A minimalist website would be typified by a lack of unnecessary colors, images, shapes, textures, or any distracting elements. Rather, the focus is on function, where quality in a simple design overrides quantity of content. The often stated phrase “less is more” takes precedence, where the web design is reduced to a limited set of necessary elements.

What are “necessary elements?”

Do you ever go shopping and ask yourself, “Do I need this item or do I want this item?” You first have to separate the “wants” from the “needs”, and once you get your “needs” list pared down, then this becomes the short list and is a good starting point for your necessary elements.

The necessary elements might include:

The name of the site or organization
Short navigation area with only four or five links to sub-pages
Single graphic, image, and possibly a gradient background
One or two short paragraphs of recent content
Footer with copyright, navigation, link to disclaimers, social networking links.

Open a new document in Photoshop

#1 Create a new Photoshop document with dimensions of 1020px wide by 1020px height as shown in Figure A:

Create the background layer

#2 Next, unlock the background layer by double-clicking over the active layer and giving it a name of “Background” and then click OK; this will enable the layer to be editable, as shown in Figure Bbelow:

#3 Next, select the Gradient tool and then set the Foreground color to #b9c7c7 and the Background color to #e0e9e9. Then, set the Gradient type as Radial and drag the Gradient tool on the canvas as displayed in Figure C:

Start the location of the line within the bottom-left of the top right quadrant and move toward the top right corner, releasing to produce the gradient as displayed in Figure D:

Establish the Header Section

#4 Set a vertical and horizontal guide at 50px from the left and top edges, respectively, as displayed in Figure E. This will be our guide for setting the text areas.

#5 Next we will create the header text content using the Horizontal Type Tool, and then type in the website name and a sub-heading slogan or catch phrase. The following settings were used for creating two independent Horizontal Type Tool layers for the header text:

“Web Site Name”

Font: Campbell
Font Size: 32px
Font Weight: Regular
Anti-aliasing: Strong
Color: #333939

“The sub-heading slogan or catch phrase”

Font: Tahoma
Font Size: 18px
Font Weight: Regular
Anti-aliasing: Strong
Color: # 466d6d

#6 Now, using the Nudge Tool, align the two text layer areas to the top and left guides for correct placement on the canvas, as displayed in Figure F:

Adding in Navigation

#8 Add in a new horizontal guide at 150px from the top as shown in Figure G:

#9 After that, create a third Horizontal Type Tool Text layer starting at the 150px horizontal guide, and then, add in the following navigation text: “About”, “Blog”, “Products”, “Services”, and “Contact”, dropping two line returns between each text addition, with the following settings:

Font Family: Tahoma
Font Size: 22px
Font Weight: Regular
Anti-aliasing: Strong
Color: # 4b6262

#10 Nudge the new text layer to align with the vertical guide to the left and the horizontal guide at 150px; the result is displayed in Figure H:

Adding in the Search Bar and Submit Button

#11 Creating a search bar, we will utilize the Rounded Rectangle Tool with a radius of 7px and create a shape that is approximately 160px wide and 25px tall. But first, let’s drop in a vertical line positioned 100px inside of the right edge of the canvas, or at 920px on the canvas. We will align our search bar with the bottom edge touching with the horizontal 150px guide and the right edge aligned with the 100px vertical alignment. We will also add in an Inner Shadow with the following settings:

Blend: Multiply
Opacity: 35%
Angle: 30%
Use Global Light: Checked
Distance: 1px
Choke: 2px
Size: 3px
Contour: Default
Noise: 0%

The search bar rounded rectangle is shown in Figure I:

#12 Next, we will make the submit “Search” button, utilizing the Rounded Rectangle Tool again with the following settings:

Height: 25px
Width: 40px
Radius: 7px

Then add a gradient overlay with the following settings:

Blend Mode: Overlay
Opacity: 100%
Style: Linear
Angle: -90%
Scale: 100%
Custom Gradient Color Settings
Foreground Color: #598181
Background Color: #b0e9e7

Make sure the button layer is above the search bar and nudge the alignment as displayed inFigure J:

#13 Next, we will add in the textual content layer using the Horizontal Type Tool (T) and align it over the search bar with the following settings:

Text: “Search…”
Font: Tahoma
Font Size: 18px
Font Weight: Regular
Color: # e0e9e9

#14 Add in a white arrow shape using the Custom Shape Tool (U) and position it over the submit button layer; I selected Arrow 6. Then center align it over the button area as shown in Figure L:

Banner image area

#15 Next, we will construct a banner image background area which will define space on the design for either a static image or a set of rotating images, which can highlight current, relevant content. We will name it “Image Bg”. Before we create the shape, let’s add in a few more guidelines. The first is a vertical guide set at 200px, and the second is a horizontal guide set at 200px. Next, select the Rounded Rectangle Tool (U) and create a rectangle with the following settings:

Width: 600px
Height: 400px
Radius: 7px

Then, apply a stroke gradient layer to the rounded rectangle with the following settings:

Stroke Structure:
Size: 3px
Position: Inside
Blend Mode: Normal
Opacity: 100%
Fill Type: Gradient

Color Stops:

Foreground: #90a9a9
Background: #e7ebef
Style: Linear
Align with Layer: Checked
Angle: 0%
Scale: 100%

The top section of the canvas should look like that shown in Figure M:

In the next part of the tutorial, we will add in a sample feature image to complete the banner image area. We will also add in several feature content titles and paragraph block areas just below the feature image area, and finish with creating a footer area at the bottom of the canvas.

Source:http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/webmaster/tutorial-create-a-minimalist-web-design-layout-using-photoshop/1250

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WDL Premium: Retro Website Headers

2012-03-01T21:15:00.001-08:00

For our WDL Premium members, here’s a Retro Website Headers kit from WeGraphics containing 5 retro style website headers and 16 pixel patterns to match. These headers will definitely give your website the retro look you were waiting for, check it out!

Be sure to check out WeGraphics for more high-quality design resources, like vectors, brushes, textures, icons, and more.

Here’s a preview of the kit:

Download Retro Website Headers

Premium Member

You must be a WDL Premium member to download this file.

About this Partner

WeGraphics is the definitive solution for designers who need high-quality resources but don’t want to be obliged to spend hundreds of dollars for them.

Here's some other articles that you will definitely find useful.

WDL Premium: Arabesque Vector Pack

WDL Premium: Texturize Photoshop Action Pack from Union Actions

WDL Premium: Guilloche Vector Pack

WDL Premium: Vintage Inspired Infographics

WDL Premium: Retro UI Set

Source:http://webdesignledger.com/premium/wdl-premium-retro-website-headers

Top 10 Web Design Trends - 2012

2012-02-27T08:26:00.000-08:00

Web design trends keep changing every year. Adding on the prevalent design and working out some new innovation is the need of the hour. Though some of the web design trends being followed in 2011 will be carried over, new additions are in the offering. Below are listed some of the web design trends that will gain popularity in 2012.

1) Getting mobile compatible

Over the last few years, minimalistic designs have gained immense popularity. This trend is expected to be carried over to 2012. The findings of a research study conducted reveled that over 1/5th of the web searches intended to be carried out will be done through mobile devices this year. Making the websites mobile compatible is the need of the hour and will help bring exponential growth in business.

2) Demise of Flash and emergence of HTML5

Flash used to be extremely popular till late. Adobe recently announced its policy changes that will have a significant effect on usage of flash, when it comes to mobile web use. Keeping these changes in mind, websites have started switching over to CSS3, JQuery and HTML5.

The interactivity of flash has no equals though, but 2012 will still see emergence of CSS3, JQuery and HTML5. Real time communication and multimedia support are some of the innovative features of the emerging technology that will propel its growth in 2012.

3) Emergence of 3D technology

Visually rich applications appeal to all. 2012 will see emergence of 3D technology thereby making the desktop more attractive. Increasing number of websites is working on devising 3D effects ranging from shadows to textures. Visually interactive applications are in the pipeline and 2012 will see emergence of some of these. This can be in form of graphics and interactive layouts that is sure to take web design trends to a higher level.

4) Interactive Typography

Use of creative fonts is being discussed in business circles and many websites are in the process of mixing fonts to come up with a masterpiece that is sure to make web more interactive. CSS3 has come as a boon in this endeavor of making web interactive. It allows free typography making the work of designers easy. Expect to see interactive typography techniques in 2012.

5) Making it big

Designers are thinking differently. Expect to see innovative headings, huge icons and designer logos. The idea is to make a lasting impression on the visitor. Creating an impression with the user seems to rule the mind of the web designers.

6) Interactive additions

Interactive additions in form of modal window are in the offering. This helps in adding inputs without the need of leaving the page. Login boxes and registration screens are sure to benefit from this innovative addition. This will not only save precious time of the users but will also ensure that web gets a creative look.

7) Hybrid layouts

2012 will see the use of hybrid layout technology. In this some aspects as text will be of fixed width making the other elements fluid. This is sure to give the screen a comprehensive look, without any inch of the monitor being wasted. Hybrid layouts will give the web a distinct character and make the web livelier.

8) Bright colors and fluid backgrounds

White or black backgrounds will be a talk of the past. Expect to see expandable backgrounds with bright colors. Bright colors will not only add life to the web but will also give the web world a raw an innovative look.

9) Compact information

Single page layout will be a great addition in 2012. All the required information will be compacted in a single page layout giving the web, an aesthetic touch. Precious time of the web user will be saved, as all the essential information will be available in a single page.

10) Social media

Social media sites as Facebook and Twitter will see increased presence on all web formats in 2012. This will not only make sharing information easier but will also bring increased web traffic to the site.

Evolution of new web design trends is a continuous process and 2012 will see emergence of new technology that is sure to bring a revolution in the web world.

Source:http://www.socialh.com/web-design-trends/

WordPress for Android – A New Launch

2012-02-15T10:16:00.000-08:00

WordPress for Android is pleased to announce their new launch of an innovative product that posts, edits and manages comments on your WordPress blog-site. Version 2.0 presents a new and exciting Dashboard UI with Quick Action bar.

These features offer an impressive new editor that makes for easy editing than ever. WordPress for Android supports self-hosted WordPress 3.0 and higher blogs and WordPress.com. This is truly an exciting launch that WordPress and Android have been more than happy to present to the world.

The Dashboard

You will find everything you need to do locatedin a central location. At first sight you will observe the Dashboard item. You will observe when you start the application that it offers one-tap access to usual features when creating blog posts. You will find the diverse features on the Dashboard that will enhance your blogging needs.

There is a new standard count-ribbon that displays unapproved comments you have waiting for approval. If you want to attach media files, Quick Photo and Video buttons can show you to the camera where you can take pictures of the moment while attaching it to a new blog-post. The Dashboard also provides a new Action Bar that lets you switch quickly between blogs.

The New Editor Features

The post editor has been improved, allowing more power than ever over posting content. The format toolbar can be located on the top of the keyboard. This will allow for rich-text editing and addition of links. You add media content while editing “Titles”, Caption, Placement and Size of images. The editor contains a full-screen, so you can see the text while editing. Post Formats have been added. You will seea menu in the post-editor that lets you select the desired Posting Formats.

The Ready for Tablet

WordPress for Android version 2.0 has been optimized for daily-tablet use. When viewing Pages, Comments and Posts on the Android tablet, you will witness scrollable lists on the left- side of the screen. If you own an Android tablet, you will find that WordPress has it all covered. Special attention has been paid to larger-screen devices with the current market launch.

The What’s new?

Version 2.0.4
Swedish, Italian, Danish and Bosnian updates
Fixes for Post Editor
Bug fixes

The Other changes

Reliable improvements
Post Status can now be found in post-list
Improvement of Stats-chart
WorPress.com improvements with Read Feature
Background post-uploading

WordPress for Android has been created as an Open Source project. Various individuals worldwide have contributed to release and proves one-and-all have performed a marvelous job.

WordPress has come a long way with evolving to meet the needs of blog, website owners and business owners. WordPress has revolutionized into a popular tool in helping businesses and companies worldwide. The latest version proves the dedication and hard work that is entailed into software and programs in order to make not only businesses better but the world.

The post is contributed by William Taylor. William calls wordpress as multipurpose piece of software. Its creative concepts have really transformed, the way websites used to be. Visit his site for adsl internet and digital tv.

Source:
http://www.screamingtips.com/wordpress-for-android-a-new-launch
https://market.android.com/details?id=org.wordpress.android&hl=en

15 Web Design Trends to Watch Out For in 2012

2012-02-07T06:16:00.000-08:00

I want to introduce 15 ideas which have grown very rapidly over the past year.

These trends encompass web and graphics design techniques which will likely play a big role moving into 2012. You have probably seen a few of these represented throughout many of your favorite sites online.
Thankfully the methods to implement these features are becoming easier to understand and much slimmer in code.

1. Responsive Interface Design

The average user’s experience is possibly the most important aspect to consider when designing a website. You want page elements to respond quickly to keyboard/mouse input and behave as expected. Some examples may include side fly-out menus, drop-down boxes, and popup windows.
Including famous JavaScript libraries such as MooTools and jQuery, it has become much easier to animate these features and even more. Most modern-day browsers support this code and even gracefully degrade when the scripts aren’t available. Ultimately you want to make the user feel comfortable when interacting with anywhere in the design.

Similarly you should take form input and data checking into consideration. On many registration pages you’ll receive small responses as you work through each input area. You can automate checking for valid e-mail addresses, duplicate usernames, and even double-check password inputs. This will save time on the user’s end and provides a handy guide throughout the signup process.

2. Touchscreen Mobile Devices

In the past couple of years it has become evident that smartphones are gaining support among even non-tech enthusiasts. But only since 2011 have we seen an explosion of mobile sites and mobile-specific templates.

The popularity of iPhone and iPad devices along with Android-powered phones means you will have visitors fully interacting with your pages through touch commands. This has to become a realistic consideration with every design mockup. Trends in mobile web design have shown that building an entirely separate mobile theme often provides the best results. In this way you can keep all the dynamic content in place on your main layout while serving up a slimmed version of the site to mobile users.

3. Tons of Freebies!

Who can say they honestly don’t enjoy free downloads? Web designers have been sharing their content online for years, but only recently has this become a very popular trend among digital artists. There have been a few communities built specifically around offering free downloads for web and graphic designers.
Two of my personal favorites are Download PSD and Designmoo, both of which get updated frequently by top-quality members. Additionally the Hongkiat Freebies archive has plenty of sweet goodies to check out. In any era before it has literally never been this easy to download free web interfaces, layouts, logos, banners, and practically any other type of PSD/AI file!

Some Neat Downloads

Below are just a few cool freebies to check out from earlier in 2011. And if you think this list has some great files, just wait until 2012 rolls around!

Mini Web UI Set

Dark Mini Music Player

Sliding Tags

Dark Photo Slider

Search Boxes

Login in/Signin Form

Login Modal Box

Clean Login Form

Pricing Tables

Minimal Loading Bars

Attachment Pop-up

4. HTML5 & CSS3 Standards

Both of these new design archetypes have accumulated an ever-growing following throughout 2011. Semantic web designers have been waiting years to churn out CSS-only designs rendering rounded corners and drop shadows. Additionally the W3C has made a lot of headway in garnering support from the most popular browsers.
I can only see good things for the future of HTML5/CSS3 web development. Front-end designers are often overlooked in today’s field, yet they serve such a great importance to the entire composition process. Try not to squeeze yourself into any set ‘label’ based on the techniques you know and practice daily. We offer a beginner’s how-to guide for HTML5/CSS3 coding if you feel the need to catch up.

Sticking with these new standards will also make developing in JavaScript and jQuery just that much easier. Developers have already been publishing and sharing their HTML5/CSS3 project code online, and if things continue we’ll surely notice a whole lot more of this going into next year.

5. Ribbons and Banners

Although this design technique isn’t exactly “new” it never truly broke through mainstream until just recently. You have probably seen examples of corner ribbons, banner navigation bars, and small ribbon badges. These trends have likely exploded because of the massive accumulation of detailed tutorials which can be found all through Google.

Web designers are more competent these days in launching their own blogs to share information. Now simple techniques can easily be passed around between designers to duplicate the most popular effects. There are even free PSDs you can download to save yourself the effort.

6. Premium WordPress Themes

The final release of WordPress 3.0 included a host of long-awaited features such as custom post types and unique article images. Yet the most profound changes I have seen are coming from WordPress development shops which specialize in premium WP themes.

After you purchase such a theme the installation process is similar to any other. Yet it’s now possible to include custom plug-in functionality, child themes, new admin menus, and a whole bunch of other features right from within the theme! WooThemes, ElegantThemes and Rocket Themes are few brands which stand out to me above all the rest. Their quality is impeccable and I feel their developers go above-and-beyond to create the best templates and most intuitive admin menus.
Going into 2012 I can only imagine WordPress will become even easier to use. This means more high-quality themes to be released, and more amazing blogs to be launched.

7. Online Magazines

Speaking about WordPress themes we should also bring up the quickly-adopted success of online magazines. These websites are not so different from any generic WordPress blog aside from the general structure and page layout. You can spot these larger mags by the sheer presentation of their home page, and collection of authors writing for the site.

As magazines begin moving online they will become a source of income for many writers. Granted a topic such as ‘web design’ targets a smaller niche than, say, gaming or economics. But the fact that we’re seeing more design magazines online than print goes to show where the world may be heading in the years to come.

8. Easy Drop Shadows

As a facet of CSS3 it’s now easier than ever for designers to implement a drop shadow anywhere on the page. Box text and box-style elements have been given respective properties to render clear-cut shadow effects.
The text-shadow syntax is very easy to memorize and follows along as box-shadow. With images now unnecessary in rendering these effects, web developers can focus on expanding these basic ideas further. I personally love Matt Hamm’s page curls which were developed entirely with CSS3. You can find all the code on his website to duplicate the effect and implement a similar style onto your own pages.

9. Dynamic Typography

Fonts are a big part of the sphere encompassing web design tradition. The most notable fonts including Arial, Helvetica, Georgia, and Trebuchet MS have been around for years now. Although they continue to serve a deep purpose in web standards, there are plenty of alternate options for advanced webpage typography.
Typekit for example only requires a couple lines of code to be included in your document head. After this you can specify which font names to include and append them into your CSS. The best part about this technique is that it relies mostly on JavaScript, so the end user isn’t required to have the fonts installed.

Another alternative is Google Web Fonts which behaves in a similar manner to Typekit. I recommend interested designers to check out CSS3′s @font-face media query, as you are given much more creativity. This code can be used to import a .ttf or .otf font file from your web server and include it as a usable stylesheet font! With so many alternate systems used for building dynamic fonts I’m expecting 2012 to hold a surge of innovation and design talent in this area.

10. Image Gallery Slideshows

With the subsequent popularity of jQuery I have spotted more and more image slideshows being dropped into web layouts. Galleries are perfect for demonstrating a quick glimpse of inner-page content. This could be a set of portfolio entries, photographs, blog posts with featured images, demo screenshots, etc.

When you consider the many unique sliding and fading animations it has never been easier to construct a quick slideshow for your home page. I’m confident that 2012 will see an uptick in these trends, and not just between designers. Online web applications and software companies have been using slideshows as guided tutorials to display screenshots and unique features.

11. Modal Popup Boxes

I feel that modal boxes are still fairly new to the Internet considering they’ve been appearing in desktop software and mobile apps for years. The purpose of a modal window is to offer box content(such as user registration or login) on top of the current page without loading onto a new one.

Many of the open-source image gallery scripts use a type of lightbox effect where the background fades darker than the popup box. I really enjoy this feature whenever I see it, although it has yet to be adopted by many. And although modal boxes are sexy and sleek, they can also be very difficult to code and get working properly.

To get ideas for your own websites check out some of the more popular social news sharing communities. Reddit and Digg are the first two which come to mind as they both feature register/login modal boxes with a typical layout. Additionally the UI effects for Google+ boast a considerable amount of modal functionality.

12. Inspirational Lists

Collections of list items have appeared since the very early days of web design. As we moved into the new century designers began using HTML ordered and unordered lists to house navigation menus. But nowadays lists can and are being used for much more.

In most of the blog themes I find the entire sidebar is loaded with lists! Not to mention designers who have crafted awesome CSS styles for lists in their article entries. We covered inspiring list styles in another post earlier this year which may give you some more insight to the matter. Looking forward into 2012 I’m expecting some really creative examples, possibly on par with Flowapp’s custom layout for tasks & to-dos.

13. Generated Image Thumbnails

In the web universe we can agree that content is king. But most designers will also agree that a page of blank text becomes boring real quickly. Images can add that extra spice if you know how to sprinkle them in gently. One such method is using dynamic thumbnails to provide previews for each page or article.
Blogs today are continuing to adopt the featured image trend, so why not apply generated thumbnails into your theme as well? These often draw my attention towards the article headline and help to break up a page full of text links.

As another example Dribbble provides a whole gallery listing of thumbnails for each design shot. In such a table row-style layout it’s super easy to catch a glimpse of each thumbnail and scroll through to find what you’re looking for. This tactic has proven to grab the attention of the whole design community! Er, at least the members of Dribbble at best. I can only expect that 2012 will see further exertion of these ideas building upon such examples from the past.

14. Oversized Icons

This unique trend semi-originates from the popularity of Mac OS X icon designs. As programmers began to launch websites for their Mac applications we all too frequently have seen the enormous sizes represented in branding. Accordingly this trend has also been picked up through iOS developers and now comfortably rests within modern design culture.

It’s difficult to predict how these trends will fair as we move into 2012. On the one hand these icons can be clunky and take up more space than necessary. Yet we’re not even close to hitting a shortage of iOS/OSX apps and designers are still churning out pixel-perfect icon specs. Not to mention that web designers are now including oversized icons within just about any page branding! It’s a good way to nab your visitor’s direct attention and build a name for your company.

15. Exaggerated Hyperlinks

Anchor links are certainly within the top five most important elements of any website. These have obviously come a long way since the 1990s and popular design trends have only been growing exponentially. It appears we are moving into an era where exaggerated design takes precedence.

Check out a few of the link examples from Patterntap to see if any jump out and catch your eye. There are so many incredible ideas for hyperlink design, both in standard and hover effects. CSS3 rounded corners, text shadows, and custom font families add even more great ideas into the mix! One of my favorite examples is from SimpleBits which uses a short dynamic animation on each of their blog entry permalinks.

Conclusion

These ideas are only some of the more popular trends I have noticed gaining precedence throughout 2011. Great web design is always about focus and keeping user intentions as top priority. It’s unlikely these philosophies will differ moving into 2012, but how we build layouts and present data is always in change. Let us know your thoughts or questions in the comments discussion area.

Source:http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/web-design-trend-2012/

A Guide to Mobile Web Design Tips and Tricks

2012-02-01T09:27:00.000-08:00

Having a mobile-optimized web site can really make your site stand apart from the pack. Even though smartphones like the iPhone and Google Android devices can display “the full web,” having a web page formatted for smaller screens and with features that can take advantage of a touch screen, geolocation, or address book functionality can make the mobile web browsing experience that much better.

Even just a few years ago, optimizing websites for mobile browsers was a painful and difficult process, in part because of the limitations of most mobile browsers. Today, thanks to the proliferation of WebKit (which powers the browsers on the iPhone, Android and webOS devices, with BlackBerry expected to join the mix next year), it’s much easier to decide on a strategy for making your website pop on mobile platforms.

We’ve put together a toolkit of resources for the designer and non-designer alike to get you started. Did we miss your favorite tool or service? Let us know in the comments!

Services for Optimizing Your Content for Mobile Browsers

If you don’t have experience with HTML and CSS (or you don’t have the time), there are a number of services that can create mobile versions of your website for you.

MoFuse and MoFuse Premium — MoFuse has been offering a simple way for bloggers and businesses to easily create mobile versions of their websites for quite some time. For bloggers or smaller sites, the company offers MoFuse for Blogs, which is a free and easy way to quickly mobilize your web site (it uses your RSS feed to generate the new site) whenever it is accessed by going to “m.yourdomain.com.” For businesses or larger sites that want a little more control, MoFuse Premium offers more customizable options.

Disclosure: MoFuse powers Mashable’s mobile website.

Mippin — Mippin is another free service that can create a quick mobile version of your website using your RSS feed. The options aren’t extensive, but the version that Mippin creates should be viewable on almost any WAP compatible mobile phone.

mobiSiteGalore — mobiSiteGalore can create quick mobile versions of websites, offers users some customization options, and can take advantage of the .mobi TLD. mobiSiteGalore will let you create your mobile site from a computer or from your phone.

Plugins for WordPress and Other Publishing Systems

Having a WAP-formatted site is fine, but if you want to be able to offer visitors from an iPhone or Android device some really great optimized mobile features, you want to consider creating a separate stylesheet for your website. For users of WordPress and other publishing systems, there are a lot of plugin options available that make adding a mobile theme to your site extremely easy.

WPtouch — WPtouch is a fantastic plugin available for WordPress.org users (WordPress.com users can also take advantage of WPtouch with the recent addition of mobile themes) that automatically makes your site easy to read and access from an iPhone or Android device.

The plugin is extremely robust and even offers backend features like the ability to set an iPhone Favicon (so that when users add your web page to their iPhone’s home screen, it has a great looking icon), the ability to work with other WordPress plugins like FlickrRSS and Blip.it, support for AJAX, customized headers, and more. What I really like about WPtouch is that users can choose to turn it off and access the full version of a website at any time by flicking the mobile on/off switch at the bottom of each page.

WordPress Mobile Edition – Crowd Favorite created this plugin that allows users to easily define what type of devices should be shown a mobile web page (and what shouldn’t — for instance if you want BlackBerry users to see your mobile page but you want iPhone users to see the full site) and it comes with Crowd Favorite’s Carrington Mobile Theme which is easy on the eyes and also fully customizable.

WordPress Mobile Pack — The WordPress Mobile Pack is from the dotMobi team and it is a whole suite of tools for mobile web optimization. It includes a base mobile theme, which is very attractive, a mobile admin panel, mobile ad support and the option for visitors to switch between the full and mobile versions of a website.

WPtap — WPtap is a plugin for WordPress, and the site also offers up some alternative themes for users who want a more customized look and feel to add to their sites. WPtap looks very similar to WPtouch, but the emphasis seems to be on offering pre-built mobile styles.

WordPress Mobile by Mobify — This is a plugin for the Mobify service (see description in the next section). It handles automatic redirection of mobile clients to your Mobify mobile view page.

Mobile Plugin for Drupal — Mobile Plugin offers Drupal sites a mobile optimized view, comes with a mobile version of the standard Drupal Garland theme and includes device detection, hooks for adding mobile-specific features and automatic YouTube mobile replacement.

OSMOBI — OSMOBI is a service and plugin for Joomla and Drupal users that makes it easy to customize your blog for mobile visitors. The service is free for 150 page views every day but premium plans are also available.

Tools for Designers

Mobify — Mobify is a really interesting service because it makes it easy for designers or users who know HTML and CSS to painlessly modify and optimize their website for mobile access. The service is free (though paid monthly plans are available for more features) and it works extremely well with systems like WordPress, Drupal, ExpressionEngine and any other system that has predictable URL patterns and well formed HTML.

Mobify has a visual editor that lets you see what your content looks like on different device types and you can then modify the CSS and see the changes in real-time. Some sites that have used Mobify to create mobile optimized versions of their content include A List Apart and revered web developers and designers, such as Jonathan Snook and Veerle Pieters.

iPhoney — iPhoney from Marketcircle gives Mac users a pixel-accurate web browsing environment that is powered by Safari. Why does this matter? Because when crafting the mobile version of your site, it’s important to be able to see how the final product will look on your phone. iPhoney hasn’t been updated in a while but is still a really useful tool.

iWebKit — iWebKit is a framework of sorts for creating iPhone-optimized websites or web apps that can take advantage of the iPhone’s UI elements and other features.

jQTouch — jQTouch is a really innovative jQuery plugin for mobile web development on the iPhone and iPod touch. With it you can create websites or web apps with animations, support for forms, customized UI elements, additional extensions, swipe controls, and more. The developer is really active with the project and some of the stuff you can do with it is amazing.

iPhone Compatible CSS Layouts — Matthew James Taylor created a bunch of liquid CSS layouts that are iPhone and iPod Touch compatible and free for anyone to use. If you’re looking for a starting point for building a mobile optimized site, you might want to give these layouts a look.

Other Resources

Mobile Web Design by Cameron Moll — This is a really great book (available in print or as an ebook) with tips, best practices, and examples on styling and optimizing your site for mobile content. If it suffers from anything it is that it was written before the iPhone explosion really took off, thus it isn’t as up to date as it could be. Still, for mobile web enthusiasts, there’s a lot of great information here.

Craig Hockenbery’s “Put Your Content in My Pocket” — In August of 2007, Craig Hockenberry (from the Iconfactory and one of the brains behind Twitterrific for the Mac and the iPhone) wrote a great article for “A List Apart” and although some of the technologies have evolved, much of what Craig wrote then still applies today. A great read.

Smashing Magazines’s Mobile Design Showcase – Need some inspiration? Smashing Magazine did a great roundup of iPhone optimized designs in September.

CSSiPhone — CSSiPhone is a CSS gallery dedicated to iPhone optimized site designs. Like Picasso said, “Good artists copy, great artists steal!”

Opera Mobile Developer Community — As some of our commenters pointed out, the Opera browser lets you see what a website will look like on a mobile handset by pressing Shift-F11. Also check out Opera’s developer documentation for optimizing pages to be viewed on mobile devices. Opera Mobile and Opera Mini is a common browser on many cellular phones.

Your Thoughts

What do you think about the direction of mobile web development? Do you have any favorite mobile sites or mobile design tips? Let us know!

Source:Mashable.com

How to Improve your Web Designing Ability

2012-01-24T10:19:00.000-08:00

Designing the web is tough!

How many times have you found yourself stuck for ideas on how something should look, or whether you should put those colors together? In this article I’m going to confront a few ideas that I’ve had rummaging around in my head on what web design really is, and how we can all work towards a better looking web. I think this is especially important if you’re a programmer. It can be hard to let your artistically creative side out. Hopefully after this you’ll have a starting point from which you can move forward.

Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration. – @zeldman

Start thinking of Web Design as an art.

It is very easy to get caught up in the mathematic side of web design. For example, grids are a great example of something web designers use to align all their content properly. Rightfully so one might say, seeing as web design has its roots in a strictly mathematical idea: computer programming. I’m sure you’ve all seen early web designs. A lot of those people weren’t artists, they were programmers Since those days of colorless, bleak design and Times Roman text the web has become a lot more than a bunch of niche topics and ugly borders. Web design cannot always be brought down to logical and congruent ideas, sometimes you have to treat it as an art.

That is perhaps key to making a great website. The design is an art form. It is crafting a creative and unique holder for the content, so people will perhaps think of looking twice. Treat it as art, rather than something mechanical like coding. Remember that art is about creating a feeling, about making someone stop and notice, but perhaps most of important of all, it’s about letting people interpret for themselves what it all means.

I realise there are a lot of people who design websites who aren’t artists, heck, I’m one of them. Everyone has the ability to create. Sometimes I feel more comfortable designing a website in CSS than I do in Photoshop, and that’s okay. Do what feels natural to you, don’t get pulled down by the status quo.

Then again, can we define web design as just an art?

Okay, so we’ve started treating our websites as pieces of art, but is web design all just art? Well the simple answer to that is “no”. You can make something beautiful, something truly unique, but if it’s hard to use it wasn’t even worth your time. Never forget the fundamentals: Content, Coding, Usability and Design. Before launch, test a few routes you think a user will take through your website. If you can navigate easily, then you’re good to go.

Physically record ideas.

Ever consider not starting your design in photoshop? Perhaps totally unthinkable to a web designer, but sometimes it’s a good idea to grab a physical piece of paper and record ideas whenever you come across them. Sketch designs and feel whats right rather than awkwardly trying with the pen tool in photoshop. You can also practice more ideas this way, making you at least a little more efficient. You might even want to do something to get the artistic juices flowing, like drawing or painting.

Look for inspiration

Look around you! There are so many designs and so many years of people refining and recreating objects to make them attractive, or even to make them easier to use. Now try looking outside. The world is pretty darn beautiful. Take inspiration from the things you see. You might even want to take a picture or do a sketch of a great idea. If that still doesn’t help you might want to check out two of our roundup posts: Website Trends: 5 Things Web Designers are Doing and 15 Websites That Make Great Use of Typography.

Practice always makes perfect

A great way to learn new techniques is to mimic other designers (not in a real design, that’s plagiarism!) and to learn techniques. You can also visit some great tutorial websites such as:

Use a Grid System

I know earlier I begrudged the idea of grids, when comparing it to a more “mechanical” form of web design rather than artistic, but really, a grid is a great way to control your web designs. It’s not about caging your ideas, but moreover making them align correctly so you can produce content that feels ‘right’ to the user.

One of the best and most well known grid systems is known as 960. Seriously consider using it on your next project. A grid can really help you improve how your web designs look and feel. While on the topic of the math behind web design, don’t forget about the golden ratio. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a number seen throughout nature and was even used by the greeks when they created The Pantheon! The golden ratio is roughly 1:1.6. In other words, a simple two column web design that is 960 would have a 600 wide main column, and a 460 wide sidebar. This can sometimes look better than picking arbitrary numbers for your columns.

Color Coordination

Choosing colors is at least the part of designing that I find most difficult. Fortunately for you, there are a lot of great services which can help you. Don’t forget how important color coordination is. Colors invoke feelings in people, and the colors you pick can really determine whether or not a user will click on a link.

The Two Main Color Scheme Services:

Both of these will really help you out if you should get stuck on your color scheme. Another great way to pick a color scheme is to take a photo or picture you have, and sampling random colors on it. For example, take the lightning photo we had earlier. I did some sampling in photoshop and came up with this:

Of course, I’m sure you can do much better with your own pictures and color schemes! Keep these tips in mind next time you open Photoshop or try to think of an idea. Creativity doesn’t come naturally to everyone, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be creative.

Source :http://www.inserthtml.com/2012/01/improving-web-design/

Things Designers Should Teach Their Clients

2012-01-18T09:52:00.000-08:00

When starting as a designer, you might encounter some issues along the way, especially in the relationships you develop with your clients. This happens mainly because the clients quite often have the wrong idea of what we actually do and think that “anybody can design a website”. In their opinion it is as easy as opening Photoshop and drawing something, then writing three lines of code and there you go, you have developed a website.

We all know the reality of is totally different, but until we explain this to our clients, they will not start understanding us and will not value our work any more than they currently do.

The way of improving their opinion is trying to give teach them different lessons, either by telling them directly or by letting them understand through your collaboration. However, it is more likely to help if you do it before signing a contract, because your working relationship will change and will be clear to them from the beginning. This way you can set some expectations and they will better understand who they’re collaborating with.

1. You are an artist, not a laborer
It is good to start with this one. Explain to them from the beginning that what you do is called creative work. Tell them designers need talent, skills and experience to be able to deliver highly-rated products. Like any other kind of tradesperson, designers/artists know how to do their jobs. Nobody tells doctors how to do their jobs and this is because people know that their doctor knows much more than they do about their health. It should be the same with designers. Just because clients know that blue and red make purple or what an anchor or container is, doesn’t make them experts.

Tell your clients that regardless of what they may think, design is not easy, that’s the best designers are paid to make it look easy. Explain to them that even though you accept feedback (we will talk about this a bit more down the road), you are the expert and you’ll only do what you believe is better for the final product, even if they may disagree with you.

Image by toomas

This happens mostly with freelance designers. If you work in a studio, you will most likely be left to do the job the way you want it. The situation changes for freelancers, however. Clients think that because you’re a freelancer and don’t have an office or work 9-5 Monday to Friday (which many of them do, by the way), you are not a professional. Tell your client that you have working hours like everybody else and don’t allow him to call you at 10:30 at night asking for a one final small adjustment before the flyers go to print the next morning. By setting these boundaries clients will also be more cautious and will think twice before calling you too often or outside of your office hours.

2. You are the expert, not them

This is a huge one and I tell you this because there have been many times that a client has called me and told me how to do my job. The bottom line is that you know the web better than they do and they should not doubt that. They shouldn’t come and give you lessons about social media, usability and design, because you already know those – and most likely he or she doesn’t know them better than you.

Many people think that just because they know how to open Illustrator or made a nice wedding invitation in Microsoft Word once that they are designers. Establish from the beginning who is the expert, but be careful about how you tell people this, you don’t want to sound harsh or arrogant. How you can handle your clients depends on so many things that I can’t tell you how to properly explain this to them, but here are some ideas:

Try to explain all the reasons behind the major decisions you make. By hearing that you did something with a clear purpose they will realize you know what you are doing.
Showing data or research to support things you say is very powerful. Google this and use it if you can, clients will always believe in your solution when they will see that many other people do.
You could also use books, design rules and principles or even academic discussions or files to show that the way you do things is industry standard (or truly ground breaking and different).
The power of example is very useful if you know how to use it; show your clients other important web sites using the same technique or principles. By showing him that “big players” use it, he will ask for it himself.

Image by sachyn

There might be some other stuff you could use, such as showing up on time to client meetings, dressing appropriately, being organized, writing professional and well-thought e-mails and, obviously, meeting deadlines. The most important is to be taken seriously by the client and you can’t do this if you don’t follow these simple rules.

3. Feedback is taken into consideration, impositions are not accepted

This is another important one, especially when everybody thinks they can be a designer. Feedback should always be accepted and considered, because others might have better ideas. They might also have some ideas that will improve the final results. Moreover, if the web page you make heads in a direction that the client doesn’t want, this is not really good for your reputation, so always accept feedback.

There is a clear difference between feedback and imposition. If a client starts giving you guidelines and ideas on how to do everything, you should stop him and explain that you know what you’re doing. Assure him of the fact that the final result is going to be actually better than the one he wants, because you are the expert, as mentioned above.

However, it is a really difficult to explain your clients, so take care about not being too harsh. Take some time in the beginning to listen to their questions and answer them as accurately and precisely as you can. Most of the clients will feel that their need to be involved in the project is lower once you have a talk with them about it. Explain in the beginning that you would like feedback from him up until the deadline, but you will be the one who makes the final decision.

4. Communication is crucial

It is very important to have a good relationship with your client during the project and also after it. Therefore try to maintain close contact with the client while you work together. This is also important because it is the only way you can find out what your client thinks and wants. Don’t just show up after three weeks with the final product done for delivery. Even if you respect the deadline and work within the budget, the client might still not be happy because he was not involved in the development process at all.

Image by YOdesigner

Many clients tend to be too involved in their projects so many designers try to stay away and only show up on the delivery date with the project, charge the money and leave. This is rather likely to end your relationship on neutral terms and the client will never come back to you for more work.

If you involve the client a bit, he will feel that he is part of the project and that he is the one who makes the decisions – although we know it is not like that. Explaining from the beginning or better yet specifying in the contract that you will ask for client meetings a few times is a good idea to make the client feel he will be part of the development process more than he actually is. Including clients usually means they have a great appreciation for the work you do as they see it develop from basic idea to final product.

5. Web is not print

There is a general misconception out there that web and print are very similar. Well, they’re not and we know it, but how do we explain this to our clients that are mostly familiar with print? They might want a web site that looks like a brochure – while you don’t. It is important to take the time and explain to your clients that the web is very different from print (even though I think we can all agree that until you know the difference it’s easy to understand why people think they’re almost the same) and there are different rules. We just decided upon who is the expert, so why not show you are one and educate your clients? You don’t need to read them a whole design book, just explain some basic principles and provide examples – clients will be more than happy to accept you as the expert when you show them and act like you are one.

6. “One small final change” does not exist

If you have even the smallest bit of experience you’ve heard this quote already. Another problem is that this usually comes at the last minute before the deadline and it affects the whole process, including the probability of you meeting the deadline. Even the simple process of changing a color might be complicated, because you need to go back and re-export the files, change the stylesheet and even make general design changes to complement the new set of colors.

In my opinion one the most important clauses you need to stipulate in a contract is the revision clause. Explain to the client in detail that for every change from one point in time on, he will have to pay extra. Allow them one or two revisions (depending on the size of the project) and charge money from then on. They will think twice before calling you with four hours before the deadline with a small, minor final change.

7. Set reasonable deadlines

We know that all the clients want the product as fast as possible, but some clients don’t understand the time it can take for even a simple website (for example our first lesson) and set difficult or impossible deadlines. Explain to them that a web site can’t be designed, developed and deployed in two days and don’t sign the contract if the deadline is not reasonable. It’s better to avoid these clients than work for them and not get paid, or get paid less because you didn’t deliver by their difficult deadline.

This is not easy to explain either, but you can actually come with a schedule draft and explain to the client what will you use each hour for. There is a high probability that he will understand. Another tip is to never deliver a schedule draft that you think is just enough for that kind of project. “Just enough” is never enough. Double or triple the time you think you need – the client doesn’t know how much the design phase takes anyway. Now I’m not saying to scam the clients into paying you more than you work for, but you need to make sure you have enough time for those minor, small changes and for the emergencies you might encounter.

Another good thing about setting such a deadline is that clients will always be happy to get the product earlier than expected. I always say: “Under promise, but always over deliver.” This makes clients think you worked more on their project than you should have and they will be happy to pay you at the end of the collaboration and even hire you again some time soon.

8. The contract is not just for fun

We’re not playing the designer – client game. This is serious business and the contract you sign with the client has to be respected. It is important to have a strong contract, but regardless of what kind of deal it is, always turn back to it if needed. Moreover, tell the client from the beginning that the contract is important and you want it to be respected. He will actually get a good impression about you and will see that you are serious and professional about what you do.

To give you some ideas about what should the contract include I made a list for you, as it follows:

Client meetings
Work hours
Contact hours
Milestones
Licensing (who owns the product at the end of the project)
Budget
Payment rules
Revising rule

This is not everything, but those are some of the most important clauses you want to include in a contract with a client.

Keep in mind that this tip is not about having a contract (we shouldn’t even talk about this), but about revising it together with the client. Make sure he knows what’s written there. Nobody reads contracts nowadays, especially with banks, car rentals and many, many others. Therefore keep it short and force the client into revising it by being there when he signs it.

Bottom line

Being a designer or developer is not easy and I am not saying this only because of the amount of skills you need, but because you need to work with people and they are always different. You will never have two clients or projects that are the same. Challenges and difficulties in communicating with them always appear and it’s up to you to solve them. It is not easy to stand up to someone who pays you, but it is worth doing. They will respect you more after you do it and most of them will just accept the rules. Don’t be afraid to share these lessons with your clients, only be aware of how you do it.

Have you encountered these issues with your clients? How did you solve them, or you just worked without working anything out?

Source:http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/things-designers-teach-clients/

How to use Google Analytics to Drive more Traffic to Your Website

2012-01-08T10:18:00.000-08:00

There are probably thousands of articles on the web talking about Google Analytics, such as how to use the free reporting tool, how to set up Google Analytics for your website, and what Google Analytics reports you can take advantage of. This is all great information, especially for novice website designers. What I think is missing is the most critical piece of information, which is “How do I analyze these Google Analytics reports in order to actually make impactful changes to my website?” In this article we are going to answer that question, as well as, provide you with some examples of taking certain data from Google Analytics, analyzing it, and then using it to make changes to your website and/or website marketing.

Analyze Your Website on a Quarterly Basis

Tools like Google Analytics allow you to check your website traffic data as frequently as you’d like. I definitely recommend keeping an eye on your Google Analytics reports daily or weekly. With that said, we all know that checking your reports and actually taking time to analyze them are two different tasks. This is why I recommend that every website owner take a full day each quarter to analyze their reports and implement any needed changes to their website based on what the data is showing.

It’s easy to get lost in Google Analytics. There is SO much data that you can analyze. Not only is there a ton of data, but the ways in which you can slice it up seem almost endless. Every website owner is going to have different reports to focus on, but there are a few main data points that all website owners should be aware of during their quarterly reviews:

Traffic Sources – Keywords: Knowing which keywords are driving the most quality visitors to your website is crucial. You can begin optimizing more of your website around these keywords in order to capitalize on those searches.
Traffic Sources – Referring Sites: Understanding which websites are sending the most quality traffic to your website will allow you to focus more effort and time on those sites, and less of your time on under performing websites, moving forward.
Visitors Overview: How much of your website traffic is new visitors versus returning visitors? Knowing this might help you phrase content different or run certain marketing programs geared towards one type of visitor versus the other.
Content Overview – Top Pages: Having an idea of what pages are performing best will tell you what content your visitors are interested in. Produce more of that!
Visits: What days do you have the most traffic to your website? Knowing what days visitors are coming to your website allows you to publish new content or launch promotions on those days in order to capture the most attention.

Now that we have an understanding of some of the most important reports to analyze for your website, let’s dig into each of them to provide examples on how you can use the data to make real impactful changes to your website and website marketing.

Use Keyword Reports to Optimize Your Website

Knowing which keywords to optimize your website with is crucial in attracting the right visitors. Here’s how you can utilize the Keyword reports in Google Analytics:

Go into the Traffic Sources Overview section of Google Analytics
Find your Top ten performing keywords and make a list of those keywords
Go back through your website and begin infusing them into your website content
Use them as anchor text for your URLs
Name your images with your top ten keywords
Add title tags and Alt tags to your images using your top ten keywords
Create a list of new blog topics that you want to write about and be sure to infuse your top ten keywords into those articles

By analyzing your Traffic Sources – Keywords report and following the steps above you will significantly increase your website traffic for those specific keywords.

Once you have completed this first main Keyword optimization during your Quarterly review, go BACK through your Keyword report and sort the results by Average Time on Site. Find five keywords that might not be driving a lot of traffic to your website right now, but the traffic that is coming to your site from those keywords tends to spend a lot of time on your site. These are your “growth keywords”. Repeat the steps above using these keywords to see if with a little more use throughout your website they can produce more traffic.

Spend more Time on the Websites that Refer the most Traffic to Your Website

Knowing which websites (or social media channels) around the web that are referring the most traffic to your website is critical. As a website owner you only have so much time in the day to market your site. It’s best to use that time wisely. Follow these steps in order to analyze your traffic sources and make impactful changes to your website marketing:

Go into your Traffic Sources report within Google Analytics and review the Top Referring Sites data
Ask yourself, are these the websites that I assumed would be near the top? Are these the websites I’m spending the most time using in order to drive traffic to my website?
Start trying to figure out why some sites are near the top of this list, while others are near the bottom. Perhaps one of the websites near the top is a site that you recently wrote a guest blog article for. Contact the owner of that site and see if you can write another article for them.
Is LinkedIn outperforming Facebook? If so, you may want to tweak the amount of time you spend on both social media sites, with more time being devoted to LinkedIn next quarter instead of Facebook. This strategy can be repeated for all social media sites that you use.
Is Banner Ad ‘A’ outperforming Banner Ad ‘B’? If so, perhaps you want to cancel Banner Ad ‘B’ and ask for more space on the website that’s hosting Banner Ad ‘A’.
Is there a website that you don’t recognize that’s currently sending a lot of traffic to your website? Reach out to the owner of that website and see if you can partner with them in some way in order to capitalize even more on all of the traffic they are sending your way.

Using the Referral Sources report in Google Analytics will help you become more efficient with your marketing time and more effective at driving traffic to your website.

Run a Contest for New Visitors, Say ‘Thank You’ to Returning Visitors

Analyzing your Visitor Profile through the Visitors Overview report in Google Analytics will let you know how much of your traffic is composed of ‘New Visitors’ and how much of your traffic is composed of ‘Repeat Visitors’. You want to encourage new visitors to become return visitors, as well as, continue to attract even more new visitors. Here are a few ways that you can take your data from the Visitors Overview report and actually use it to improve your website:

Post some sort of a ’Thank You’ message somewhere prominent on your website for returning visitors OR send out the periodic ‘Thank You’ email to your email list just letting your supporters know you appreciate them.
Do you have an e-Commerce website? Give repeat customers a discount on their next purchase.
Create a ‘FAQ’ page to help new visitors quickly understand your website and how to use it.
Make the ‘Contact Us’ page as prevalent as possible in case new visitors have questions and need to contact you.
Create a survey for returning customers to capture information that you think will help you provide more value to them in the future.
Run a contest to encourage new customers to get engaged with your website/brand.

Produce More of the Content Your Visitors Like

Understanding what content is resonating with your visitors will help you come up with new content topics for the next quarter.

Go into the Content Overview section of Google Analytics and navigate to the Top Pages report
Find the top 5-6 pages visited over the past 3-6 months
Think about what information is displayed on each of those pages and determine what information the majority of your visitors are looking for
Develop a Content Plan for the next quarter, comprised of topics that you think are most relevant based on your findings above. A few ideas might be:

Write blog articles around popular topics
Focus social media efforts in promoting those top pages or discussing those top topics
Write an eBook expanding on some of those topics that your visitors are finding valuable
Shoot YouTube videos around those topics and embed them into your Top Pages

Producing more of the content that your visitors are finding valuable will keep them coming back, get them to share your website with their friends, and attract new visitors.

Publish New Content, Contests, and General Website Updates on High Traffic Days

Are the weekends a popular time for your website or do most people visit your website during the week? Knowing what days are high traffic days for your website and what days are low traffic days for your website allows you to be much more strategic in regards to publishing new updates to your website. By analyzing the Visits report in Google Analytics you can see which days seem to generate the most traffic. Make a list of your high traffic days and then start taking advantage of those high traffic days in the following ways:

Publish blog articles on those days
Begin and end contests on high traffic days
Spend time on social media during those days
Publish events to your website
Make architecture or functionality updates on low traffic days

Knowing when, and when not to, publish new information to your website can drastically alter the number of views your new updates receive. Be smart about when you publish new content, news, events, etc. Use the Visits report in Google Analytics as your guide.

Turn Google Analytics Reports Into Impactful Changes for Your Website

Google Analytics is great. The website data provided by Google Analytics can help website owners learn a ton about their website. With that said, unless website owners take time to review and analyze their reports on a regular basis, and then take time to use that data to make changes to their website, they are missing out on the biggest advantage that Google Analytics provides. Google Analytics provides you with a blueprint for giving your visitors what they want, when they want it. Be sure to take advantage of that.

Source:http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/google-analytics-drive-traffic/

Put Your Customers First

2012-01-04T10:10:00.000-08:00

No doubt you've wrestled with products that are impossible to pry open, electronic device tags that can’t be removed with anything short of napalm, and clothing labels that are so scratchy they result in bodily harm.
Why do companies put you through that? Because they’re so focused on what’s important to the company that they don’t consider what’s important to you.

Here’s an example. We called a mobile-phone company about an accounting issue, and they told us we had to go in to a store to solve the problem. What? You can’t do business by phone with a phone company? If the company was more interested in what’s convenient for me, not what’s convenient for them, I’d be a lot happier.

In fact, all the devices sold by mobile-phone companies are made by someone else. Sure, they provide a network, but what are they really selling? They are selling service. Yet, they repeatedly earn among the lowest retailer customer-service ratings.

So how do you keep your business from falling into the “it’s all about me” trap? Here’s how.

Make it easy for me to understand what you sell

I’ve been investigating dashboard software that can make brain-numbing spreadsheets more understandable. I downloaded a demo, and was immediately contacted by one of the company’s “customer success representatives.” A little pushy but, so far so good.

When the demo didn’t work (as in “at all”), I contacted her, but received no response. So I went to the website and watched what was described as an introductory video. It explained how to change the colors of the user interface. When I signed up to download a tutorial, I didn’t receive a download link. I managed to find a set of instructions billed as “First Steps” but the very first step didn’t work. I gave up.

Make it easy for me to do business with you

Every company struggles to find ways to attract customers, and some do an amazingly good job. But many could flush the money they spend on ads down the toilet for all the good it does them. They make it so difficult for hard-earned prospects to do business with them that would-be customers simply go elsewhere.

Websites have broken links or links to the wrong places.
Every company struggles to find ways to attract customers, and some do an amazingly good job. But many could flush the money they spend on ads down the toilet for all the good it does them. They make it so difficult for hard-earned prospects to do business with them that would-be customers simply go elsewhere.

Websites have broken links or links to the wrong places.

Ads and websites don’t provide contact information, maps or directions.

Web forms don’t fill in city and state when a zip code is provided.

Telephone systems require endless navigation to reach an operator who spends the first five minutes asking questions (like verifying your address) that solve their problems, not mine. Why not start with, “How can I help you?” and solve the customer’s problems before solving the company’s?

Apple has made it so easy for you to do business with them. They even let you use your iPhone to pay for accessories in their stores. The Apple Store app lets you scan a UPC code, touch a few buttons, and just walk out of the store with the product. It’s so easy some say it feels as if they’re shoplifting.

Make it easy for me to return your products

From an odd sort of perspective, one of the important ways to make people happy to do business with you is to make it easy for them not to do business with you.

There are plenty of apocryphal stories about people who have been allowed to return products to Nordstrom and Home Depot that, in all likelihood, weren’t purchased there. Costco will accept returns without question on almost every product they sell. Zappos is famous for paying shipping both ways, as they put it, so you can’t not buy from them.

The message? If they treat unhappy, non-customers so well, imagine what they’ll do for you.

Where to start

If you think about it, the golden rule is a pretty good place to start thinking about customer satisfaction. Ask yourself, would you like your business to do unto you as you do unto your customers?

Tom Harnish is a serial entrepreneur. Always on the bleeding edge of technology, he learned what works (and what doesn't) by leading projects, products and companies to success (mostly). He can't play a lot of musical instruments.

Source:http://www.openforum.com/articles/put-your-customers-first

The Best Design Tutorials in 2011 for any Web Designer

2012-01-01T04:06:00.000-08:00

Web designing has become a very integral part of the internet. Web designing is used world wide to design mock-ups that later on are transformed to a practical and efficient HTML / CSS template and makes a website look more attractive and appealing. Photoshop is a technique which is generally used by the web designers while designing as it gives fabulous outcomes. Web layout is a very essential part of web designing and Photoshop is always used in creating these layouts irrespective of whether it a simple one or a sophisticated one.

Photoshop helps in creating these web layouts to a great extend and with the rise of demand, there are more and new sorts of layouts in Photoshop being developed every day. Everyone wants to learn the new stuffs available, there are many way in which you can learn Photoshop, but the best way to improve on your Photoshop skills is by taking tutorials. Some of the best design tutorials created throughout 2011 are given below.

1. Creating an expressive painting using a freestyle method in Photoshop

This tutorial was developed in the month of February this year and it shares the new process called freestyle expressive painting in Photoshop. This tutorial is more of an experimentation based on your imaginative powers and involves the trial and error method. This is not a technique meant for creating a master piece or something of that sort. But it is a technique meant for creating something that is very fresh and raw straight out of your imaginations.

2. Creating a 3D portfolio layout in Photoshop

With the increase in popularity of 3D, this was a new technique developed in 2011 to design web layouts in 3D. This is a tutorial which helps in learning how to use simple techniques to create a portfolio layout with a 3D look to it. The 3D look that this tutorial provides is not very high profile; it is done only by using some simple shadows and light.

3. Creating a flaming car in Photoshop by Lincoln Soares

This Photoshop technique has become quite popular this year. The tutorial will show how to create a car in flames. The effect that we see by using this technique is very good and looks attractive and it is equally simple to do it. You can always try this on various other objects and give them an attractive look.

4. Creating a comic book themed layout in Photoshop

This tutorial is meant for the die hard comic fans. This Photoshop technique gives you the freedom of designing a web layout in the form of a comic book. This tutorial helps you in picking up the simple techniques by which you will be able to create this web layout and the outcome is really awesome.

5. Creating a sports car layout in Photoshop

Every one fantasies about sports cars and this is Photoshop layout basically meant for all sports car lovers out there. This tutorial will teach you new and exciting stuff and how to create a sports car web layout in Photoshop.

6. Creating a sweet donut icon in Photoshop from scratch

This tutorial will teach you how to create a sweet and tasty donut icon from an initial sketch. The entire process is very simple and exciting and you get to learn new things.

7. Yummy cookies typography in Photoshop

With the help of this technique you can actually create texts in a cookies texture. This tutorial will give you a brief idea about the entire process of creating a really nice text effect using the cookies layer styles and texture. The entire process is very simple and the outcome is very attractive.

8. Creating a trendy wordpress themed layout in Photoshop

This tutorial shows you how to create a trendy wordpress themed layout in Photoshop. By the help of this technique web designers can design a simple yet sophisticated web page. The entire process is quite simple as well and doesn’t take much time.

9. Creating a warm and cheerful website interface in adobe Photoshop

The layout designed by the help of this technique is very colorful and warm and looks very appealing to the naked eye. This tutorial helps you learning the process in which you can create a warm and cheerful interface in adobe Photoshop.

10. Creating an exploding light text effect in Photoshop

This is yet another technique in which you can present a text. By the help of this tutorial you can learn how to create and exploding text effect. You can add several other effects and make the entire layout look more dramatic and attention grabbing.

These are the 10 best design tutorials in 2011 for any web designer and are sure to help them enhance their creations.

About the Author: The above article is composed and edited by RP. She is associated with many technology and logo design communities as their freelance writer and adviser. In her free time she writes articles related to technology, business logo design, etc.

Source:http://www.technology.am/the-best-design-tutorials-in-2011-for-any-web-designer-074454.html

Are you being innovative?

2011-12-29T10:27:00.000-08:00

With the recent passing of Steve Jobs, a lot of people and experts are crowning him one of the greatest innovators of our time, if not of all time. It’s rather hard to disagree, as he’s helped bring forth many innovations that have seriously changed the way we look at our future. And with all the talk about innovators, folks are starting to celebrate the lives of other creative geniuses at any level or platform before it’s too late. But all the talk about innovation is leaving people thinking, what is real innovation and how can one be innovative in whatever they’re doing?

Is innovation just a synonym for “invention”, or is it really just a positive spin on “imitation”? I guarantee if you ask five different people, you’ll probably get five different answers. Not because everyone is wrong, but because the exact definitions for ‘innovation’ and ‘innovator’ seem to vary by situation. Once you feel like you’ve answered the question, the next step is to figure out how you can be innovative so that it might help you go further in your situation.

Below, we will go through some definitions and examples to eventually get you to a better basic understanding of innovation, and how it can help you as a designer.

And the answer is…

The word “innovation” kind of varies and is almost completely subjective; it has to deal a lot with the situation and it’s surroundings. Some will tell you that it’s the act of coming up with a new idea while others will tell you it’s just taking any idea and making it your own. I think it’s safe to agree with both points to a certain extent.

The dictionary lists it as something new or different introduced. That’s a concise textbook definition but innovation is not just about an idea or just about creating something new. If that was the case we’d be talking invention, right? And if we were talking just about ideas, we’d be just dealing with cultivating creativity, right? Innovation is much deeper than that, and lies in creating new processes.

Coming with a new and creative idea is just one point of being innovative because the next step is making something tangible from that idea. When you make that tangible thing, are you just hoping people like what you came up with or are you really thinking about it? Innovation begins with research so that you can, in turn, come up with a great process.

Think about this: some of the most innovative things are not new ideas, they’re just better processes. You create a better process by looking at what’s out there, figuring out what’s right and what’s wrong with it, and coming up with something new. The “idea” portion isn’t the most important thing; it’s about how you portray it. For example, if you are a web designer with your own business, your innovation doesn’t necessarily come from an “invention”, but it may come from the way in which you carry out your process: for example, finding a great way to figure out what your client wants or creating an easy way to communicate with clients can be your claim to innovation. You may also show it through your super intuitive designs.

The most important part, however, is doing something different. It’s a competitive world out here, and when a company sees another company come out with something new, oftentimes they try to mimic it and mark it down a couple bucks. I guess I understand the current marketing strategy, but how does doing something like that gain you real loyal customers? Companies in this situation (where they feel behind), have a better chance at re-doing the process and coming out with something new—pay attention to what those customers are saying they hate about said product and fix it. Don’t make the same thing and expect people to come running.

What are the differences?

Once again, trying to really define and teach innovation is really sticky, so perhaps one could understand it when being put against related terms. Innovation can be a completely new idea or a borrowed and improved idea. The thing, however, is not to get caught up in the “idea” of it all, but to focus on the finished product. We all have ideas.

Invention has a very similar definition to our topic. When we think of inventing, we obviously think of making something new. But the process of invention really only deals with creation. In the invention stage, we are working things out, on what’s usually a new idea. In the invention stage, we are trying our hardest to put money into the creation of an idea. We want whatever it is to work and be amazing. Innovation suggests that whatever we have isn’t necessarily a new idea, but it’s our new attempt to basically put it in front of people’s faces. In innovation, we have our finished and tangible reflection of the idea and now we typically want to make money off that, or at least get it seen on a larger scale.

For example, if you’ve studied a bit of science history, you may know we attribute the invention of the telescope to Galileo. The problem with this, is that telescopes were around for a while before Galileo got his hands on it and many people used them. He actually joined that bandwagon fairly late; he was about a year or so behind. Telescopes prior to Galileo’s usage weren’t used as a device to look at moons and stars—it was basically a pretty useless magnifying glass, sometimes purchased for fun. However, Galileo decided there was something important in the sky and he wanted to take a look at it, so he researched the product, made it better by increasing the distance in which you can see things and ended up giving us the precursors of the modern day telescope.

Galileo did not invent the telescope, but he helped to innovate and cultivate the idea. Steve Jobs didn’t create the MP3 player, but he helped to innovate the idea. Being or creating something that is innovative is about making the right connection to your consumer. There are many products that take extremely complex topics and scale them down to put them in front of an individual so that they may use it. There are also products that seem to be useless, that can be innovated into extremely useful products. However, if you have a simple audience and try to sell them an extremely complex product, you’ve completely lost hope. It’s just about making the connection between an idea or invention and an individual who has a problem to solve. Inventions can be innovative, but innovations do not have to be inventions.

Innovation relates not only to creation and making connections, but the organization as well as the design. If you want to create a better process that relates better to your audience, you’ve got to design it and organize it in a way that is easily understandable to your audience. Else, you’re a lost cause once again. Any product usually does not live without invention in some stage, but at some point there has to be a focus on the process and how to make it better for what ever problem needs to be solved. It’s easy to confuse invention and innovation, but the truth is, innovation is much more important.

Moving forward

Any good business, whether large or small, knows that in order to stay ahead of the game, they’ve got to be innovative. It isn’t about being better than anyone else, instead it’s about creating products and services that will have longevity. The great thing about innovative products is that they are typically timeless. Gimmicky products? Not so much.

Why is it so important to cultivate innovativeness? For one, people have short attention spans and get tired of new things fairly quickly. Secondly, innovation is what changes the world—it changes our interests, it changes our government and it changes the way we move in the future. Some products are for a time period, even some categorically innovative ones. But it takes that quality to be continuously visited in order for the product to remain relevant. You don’t just update features, but you update how it works, how it interacts and what it looks like. For example, the Nintendo GameBoy at every stage in its life (from the bulky handheld to the slim two-screen), hasn’t just simply added a feature, it changed the way you played handheld games. Not only did other copycat companies have to keep up, but game developers had to do the same, as did mobile phone makers and full gaming consoles. Nintendo has always been an innovator in the game console arena.

Companies that spring up just to copy off another company won’t make it. Even as designers, if we are trying to design like our favorite and follow the same path, we aren’t going to make it. You have to be different. You have to want to change something. The longevity of a company is in question when their main purpose is to copy every move of another company. Think about two companies that have broken the mold of typical companies; for example Starbucks, Apple, and PayPal just to name a few. Now think of the companies that came to be because they felt like “they could do that too”. The innovators mindset is not “I can do that, too”, but rather “anything you can do, I can do better.”

We must also keep in mind that innovation is not just directly related to products and commercialism. There are ways available to innovate in society through economics, laws and much much more. It is the propeller for all things linked to progressive movement. Innovators have to keep in mind that they have an opportunity to change the lives of 6+ billion people. It isn’t all about products and consumerism, but it is definitely about raising the bar for everyone.

How can you be innovative?

As a freelance designer who has clients, you’re probably not thinking you have to be innovative. That’s just the job of your clients and you follow suit. But as previously stated, any business knows that they must be innovative in order to prosper and be successful. Don’t you want that for yourself?

You already have the upper-hand because if you’re a good and mature designer, you know that graphic design is about visually solving a problem. You have a client that wants to use their website to sell their product; how would you do it? Your client needs a flyer for an event that people have to RSVP for; how do you do it? If you can answer these questions, you are already a problem solver of sorts and have no issues thinking in that mind frame.

The thing about innovation, however, is not just what you’re going to use to carry out your tasks but how you’re going to do it. See, innovation for a designer can present itself in several different ways. Do you find yourself and others in the same situation often, so you want to try to invent an app to take care of something? Do you want to change the way people look and see design, so you create the difference? Or perhaps you just want to change and better the process of graphic design all together, so you want to organize things differently.

Many innovators have mastered the task of paying attention. If there is a problem that needs to be solved, you must pay attention to the solutions already out there and you must also pay attention to the way consumers have reacted to the solution. Figure out what works and what doesn’t work and come up with something new. The trick to creating that new thing, though, is creating it so that it is used intuitively by your audience. If a solution or process is outdated or doesn’t work, flip it around and look at it from all angles. Try to figure out what works.

In order for innovation to take place, of course you need some creativity and you need some entrepreneurship capabilities, and you need an excellent relation between both. But you must know how to make things intuitive. Products and services are used when they make sense for people without the use of training and such. You must know how to find the bigger picture and act on and solve that.

You also want to make your self as susceptible to innovative thoughts as possible. It really begins when you attempt to think outside the box. It sounds cliche and boring, but the truth is a lot of people have issues thinking outside the box. Many of us our cultured into believing certain things and in some systems, that when one thinks against it, you automatically get scared. As a musician, I run into a lot of other musicians who are looking for fame and fortune. If anyone knows anything about the music industry, it isn’t doing so well. These musicians want to catch their big break while they are still running through the dying techniques of the industry, and when they have an out of the box idea, they shy away from it because it’s “too different.”

If you want to be innovative and move forward, you have to abandon the thought that all different ideas are bad ideas. Keeping an open mind and paying attention to your surroundings are some of the best things to do in order to be innovative. Innovators look for unique ways to solve problems. There’s no better way to think uniquely than to be open, daring, and bold; don’t be afraid of your creativity. Taking risks and not being afraid to break down barriers and walls will take someone further than playing it safe. There’s nothing wrong with being different, especially if you can bottle it up in a product that people will love.

Conclusion

The definition and thoughts on innovation will always vary, but there’s never any real question of those who are innovative. Innovation doesn’t have to be this thing you put on a pedestal or fear but it should definitely be something you strive for and try to welcome. It comes in many different scales and in many different situations, you just have to open your eyes to it.

Is there a difference between the person who creates his own new innovative idea or the guy who borrows an idea and makes it better? Not really, as long as both things work and are accepted as such. Is there a difference between the guy who invents something but it’s deemed unusable for the public and the guy who takes that invention and flips it so that it is usable for the public? Absolutely—the latter person is an innovator.

You don’t have to invent the newest, shiniest technology, but you do want to bring something different to the table. If you find a consistent problem in some sort of process, turn it upside down and see if it still works. If it does, use it. If it doesn’t, try some other amazing idea. Innovation doesn’t require you to reinvent the wheel, but it does challenge you to look at that wheel differently.

Kendra Gaines is a freelance designer from Virginia, USA. Connect with her.

Source:http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2011/12/are-you-being-innovative/

Some of the Key Perks of Ecommerce

2011-12-28T10:58:00.000-08:00

Due technological advancements, anyone can easily make money online via various ecommerce methods that are available to them. As a website owner, there several ways you can make money but here we are going to focus on ecommerce. This is where people conduct business via the internet, a method called electronic commerce in full. For ecommerce to be possible there must be computers that are networked together and software that will enable the process. There must be shopping cart that will enable people buy and sell online. Some of the benefits of the electronic commerce include:

The method helps break geographical barriers when it comes to shopping. With ecommerce, anyone in any part of the world can shop and add whatever they would like to buy into their shopping cart with ease. It does not matter the time or place one is located, provided they access internet and are able to pay for whatever they would like to buy, they are good to go.

For those who like to sell online and have niche products, ecommerce gives them the perfect platform because the internet offers a wide market, which makes it easy to sell certain unique products with ease. This is something that may not be easy if you were to look for a market locally.

It makes shopping faster and cheaper compared to making use of local stores. All a person needs is to look for the products they need and add to their shopping cart in a much faster manner. For those who are looking to sell online, the method makes it easy for them to sell because the market is big and chances of someone somewhere in the world looking for your particular kind of product are high. When it comes to cost, it is cheaper because of high competition as many people are looking to sell various things that they may no longer be in need of.

For those looking to set up business, ecommerce makes it easy for them to start one as not much is needed to make it happen. Provided you fulfill the requirements for online shopping, install an easy to use shopping cart software, provide quality products and spell out methods of payment, they are good to go. There is no need to set up a physical company and the costs of starting up one are much lower.

Customers too get to enjoy selecting products with ease. Provided you know how to make use of a shopping cart, that is adding and removing products into the cart, they can get whatever they want at the comfort of their homes. All you have to do is to select products, add into the shopping cart and pay up to order. The delivery work is done by the company one is purchasing from. There is no need for one to drive out to shop or miss a certain product simply because they did not manage to get to their favorite local store on time as ecommerce runs for 24 hours a day.

Resources:
Trisha Barkley is the author of this article on ecommerce

Source:http://www.articlesnaps.com/2011/12/26/some-of-the-key-perks-of-ecommerce/

Build an eCommerce Web Website Design

2011-12-26T09:24:00.000-08:00

What does it take to construct an ecommerce website online? This text assumes you may have accomplished your analysis regarding whether your product has a market. After getting determined you may have a viable product then the technical aspects of constructing a website online takes over (garmin forerunner 610).

Whenever you construct an ecommerce website online preparation is important. Set up your products ahead of time. You can use an excel spreadsheet or just a phrase document. Gather photos of the products. It is rather essential that you’ve got superb images. Do not forget that a picture is value a thousand words . Some of the issues that you simply might contemplate accumulating are:

a) product classes and subcategories ie books and historic fiction
b) product options ie sizes, colors, paperback or hardcover
c) product ID number ie 00001 you will want to provide you with a numbering scheme that can develop
d) product description a phrase description of each product
e) product image the identify of the image file for the product
f) product price
g) transport calculations
h) tax calculations

By accumulating info to Whenever you construct an ecommerce website online ahead of time you possibly can decide what your needs are. Now there are a variety of ways you possibly can construct an ecommerce internet site. Principally a service provider account lets you acquire cash on the internet. You will need a service provider account and a payment gateway or buying cart in an effort to sell on the internet (teeter hang ups ep-550).

One solution to accomplish this in an multi functional product is Paypal. Folks usually Whenever you construct an ecommerce website online where Paypal is the official payment processor. You can sell one or multiple objects in the buying cart that PayPal gives free of charge. You will pay a small amount when you sell each merchandise however is not going to should pay a monthly price or equipment rental price in an effort to course of credit score cards.

Whether or not you chose PayPal or another payment processing answer you’ll need to register a domain name. Selecting a reputation that is straightforward to spell and bear in mind makes it simpler for the customer to return to your online store. You can register a domain identify in a variety of locations online for much less then $8.00 a year.

Next you wish to chose a web host firm when you construct an ecommerce internet site. When selecting a internet hosting firm to your ecommerce website online you have to contemplate the quantity of internet space available, the monthly bandwidth monthly, number of e mail accounts, whether they permit autoresponders. In addition, website statistics, database (if wanted), quick customer support and whether they are fairly priced.

Construct your ecommerce website online – decide on how many pages you want in your website (this would possibly not apply in case you have a database pushed website). Identify the navigation hyperlinks for the online pages in accordance with the principle product classes you might be using. For instance you may need, Homepage, Category 1, Category 2, Category 3, Category four, Category 5, Category 6, Insurance policies, About Us and Contact

There ought to be a consistent theme and design operating all through your website use the identical header image and/or logo, slogan, navigation, copyright and colors. Include a summary or mission assertion about what the positioning contains on the home page.

Including a paragraph of text at the prime of each page (250-500 words) which incorporates the key phrases you may have researched for that product. It will attract potential guests to seek out your website based mostly on the key phrases they insert in the search engines.

After you construct an ecommerce website online ensure you check your internet site. After uploading your website information to your internet host, thoroughly examine your website by testing for, broken hyperlinks, browser compatibility, screen decision, html/xhtml validation, that the optin type works, website loading time.

It’s not a case of, for those who construct an ecommerce website online they are going to come, it’s essential to market your site. You will not make any sales for those who do not actively market your internet site. Some of the essential duties it’s best to do on a consistent basis to increase your presence in the search engines is to construct your hyperlink recognition (number of hyperlinks pointing to your website). Contact sites associated to yours and alternate hyperlinks with them. You also needs to submit your website to the principle search engines and directories.

Other strategies of marketing embrace writing articles associated to your website’s materials, promoting in ezines and pay per click advertising. Be sure you embrace offline promoting by together with your website online tackle on all of your stationary.

To build an ecommerce website online does not should be complicated task. By following the steps outlined above, you possibly can quickly and simply set up your website and begin promoting your products (http://www.longisland-discounthotels.com).

Source:http://www.numis-cs.org/build-an-ecommerce-web-website-design/

How to right-size your website for mobile screens

2011-12-25T02:19:00.001-08:00

Takeaway: Sankalp Waingankar shows you how to make optimum use of the screen width provided by different mobile devices even when you have to design for older devices that don’t support the use of HTML tables.

A few weeks ago I posted my first blog on TechRepublic. It was about designing mobile-friendly portals. In this article, I had made a passing reference to the eight sizes in which we cut up the horizontal banners on the web pages so that they make optimum use of the screen width provided by different mobile devices. Ever since that article got published, I have been inundated with questions on what these eight sizes are. So this post is solely about these sizes and how and why we use them. I recommend that you go through the original posts to understand the context.

See:

Are you prepared to negotiate the mobile Internet challenge?
Tackling the screen resolution challenge on mobile devices

Why do we need the banners cut up in eight sizes?

Given the non-standard screen sizes of mobile devices, the best way of displaying data without letting it get distorted and without causing horizontal scroll bars is by arranging the sections and the content pieces within them one below the other instead of one beside the other. (Refer to Figure A in the second article mentioned above.)
The best possible way to ensure that the differing screen widths on mobile devices get utilized properly without distorting the page display is by arranging the content within tables and setting the table width to either 100% or to an appropriate size based on the device calling it.
However, the above-mentioned strategy will work for you only if you have to support devices that are relatively newer. If your client mandates that you have to support old devices too, you will not be able to rely on the table width properly. Many old devices do not support HTML tables.
In this case you will have to place the images and content one below the other in DIVs. When we do this, the different sections will obviously assume different widths. This will give the web page a very inconsistent and untidy look.
To tackle this issue we create the banner headers in the form of images and place them as section headers on top of each section. These section headers ensure that the page looks consistent in its width and makes optimum use of the available screen width on the mobile device.

What are these sizes?

These banner headers are created in the following eight sizes.

91 pixels
118 pixels
166 pixels
198 pixels
230 pixels
310 pixels
342 pixels
640 pixels

These sizes cover most of the old phones that we have on our client’s network.

For the newer phones we do not have to depend so much upon section headers as almost all of these new phones support most of the HTML tags and properties. Hence, for newer phones we use either a table or a div with width specified as 100%.
How do we use these section headers?

We use WURFL (refer to www.wurfl.com) to maintain a database of different screen resolutions for devices. We detect the width of the calling device and accordingly forward the section header that is the same size or just a tad smaller. This may result in some small white margin towards the right of the screen. But there are not many easy ways of avoiding that.

I hope the information out here helps you make your web pages more mobile friendly. Do let me know what are the strategies that you use to achieve the same.

Source:http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/webmaster/how-to-right-size-your-website-for-mobile-screens/177?tag=content;siu-container

Zen and the Art of Good Web Design

2011-12-22T08:09:00.000-08:00

1. Give your site an edge

That minimalist site of yours will look more cozy and inviting if you add a little color to the background on either side of the content area.

I know, I know: you like white space. I hear you.

Unfortunately, your reader probably doesn’t like it as much as you do.

When they get to the end of each line of text, your reader’s eyes have to make the trip back to the beginning of the next line.

With no background color to give them a signal that the end of the line has been reached, they just continue on, sort of floating into your white background.

You see, we’re used to reading on paper, or on devices. Both of these have edges. When you remove the “edge” from your content area, you’re setting your reader adrift.

So, add a little color.

It can be very, very subtle, and just one shade away from white. If you prefer, a thin outline around your content area will work, too. (Notice the way both of those are used here on Copyblogger.)

Anything that creates an edge and shows your reader where the content area ends will improve their reading experience.

2. Add color to your subheads

Adding subheads to your posts help your reader process your information. They’re like signposts that point the way through your text.

To make them stand out, consider making them bolder and adding some color. If you’re afraid of too much color, this is a great way to dip your toe in and try it out without it becoming overwhelming.

Colored subheads stand out from your body text and immediately add personality to your page.

3. Use compelling images

Yes, adding images to your posts is an extra step.

If you wait to do it when you’re done with your post and ready to hit Publish, it can be hard to find the motivation to do an image search.

But if you’re not taking time to add a compelling image, you’re leaving readers on the table. Our brains process images first, and then text. We react to images with emotion, and on instinct. It’s an opportunity to engage your reader before they begin to read your words.

And there’s no excuse for not having great images. You don’t even have to spend money on them!

If you’re watching expenses, use the resources available to you in the vast collection of Flickr images available under a Creative Commons license.

Be sure to read the terms for each photo carefully. As long as you’re permitted to use it, credit the photographer and add a link back to the original photo.

To easily find Creative Commons Flickr images, try compfight.com which is a search engine designed expressly to uncover Creative Commons-tagged treasures in the Flickr archives.

4. Create a custom header

The English language is read from left to right, and top to bottom.

That means your visitor’s eyes hit the top left corner of a web page, and work their way across to the right side.

The first thing they see is your site header. It’s like the cover of a book, or the opening credits of a movie. It’s your chance to make a great first impression.

But if the top of your site has a plain text header, and the next site does, too, and the site after that … don’t you think they’ll all blend together in reader’s memories after a while?

To make a stronger first impression, create a custom site header. This doesn’t have to be an earth-shattering design masterpiece. At its simplest, it can be a matter of finding a good-looking font and applying it to a colored or patterned background.

This is a good place, though, to invest a few bucks and hire someone. Negotiate with your designer for the right to re-use the image as an email header, email signature image, and more.

About the Author: Pamela Wilson helps small businesses build enlightened brands at Big Brand System. Get her free Marketing Toolkit for more great tips on marketing your business with a memorable visual brand.

Source:http://www.copyblogger.com/good-minimalist-web-design/

Effective Web Design Ideas

2011-12-19T09:02:00.000-08:00

We have hundreds of websites that are launched every day. This makes it much harder to be noticed online. There are some webmasters who resort to using unethical means for getting ranked high with the search engines. However, Google’s ranking algorithm can sniff this out and they will take action. Only the sites that stick to the rules remain. They are the ones who will fight it out for that top spot on the search engine results pages (SERPs).
If you want to be popular with search engines and enhance the experience of your users, then you need to incorporate these important steps into your web design:

Navigation – Poor navigation can be very frustrating for users who are surfing your website. If they have trouble finding where to go then your web design is truly a failure. To prevent this a web designer needs to think carefully about how they can make the navigation easy to use. Your design needs to be implemented in a way so your users can answer the questions – “Where am I at this moment?” and “Where should I try to go next?”

Relevance – All of your elements on your site need to add meaning to the site. Never have irrelevant information on your site just to fill up space. Inept details give your site an unprofessional image, so refrain from this kind of content and focus on your defined path.

Typography - Text is always crucial in web design. A web designer needs to ensure the text is visually appealing and easily readable. This will be based on your font size, types, color, and line length.

Balance – Any website needs to maintain symmetry all throughout its web design. This will ensure that all necessary elements placed on the site will be in balance. To maintain the balance of your web design you should visually assess position, color, contrast, size, and design elements.

Alignment – Unorganized pages can make the best information look irrelevant. Aligning the web design will make it look much more ordered and consistent.

Spacing – Whenever you stuff too much of any one element like content, advertising, and images, you only cause the site to be cluttered and very unreadable. You need to have proper spacing on your pages to ensure your images and words will convey the message you’re shooting for. You have 3 aspects to consider about spacing:

1. Space Between Your Text Lines

2. Padding

3. White Spacing

If all your text is too close together it doesn’t make sense. And if your images all overlap your text or overlap each other it is going to be visually unappealing and can hide parts of your text. White space is also a crucial element for making your web pages readable.

Sharpness – Last but certainly not least, your web design needs to be crisp and really sharp. You need the proper layout with well defined content and clear crisp images. This should be your priority.

Will you be interested to learn more on the writer? Kelly works for the marketing department of http://www.wish.co.uk where you can get some interesting ideas when it comes to choosing gifts for your loved ones.

Source:http://www.screamingtips.com/effective-web-design-ideas

A Secret Weapon for E-commerce Sites Looking to Engage with Social Influencers

2011-12-14T08:29:00.000-08:00

If you’ve ever been in charge of marketing for an e-commerce site you know just how tough it can be have success engaging with social media influencers or potential SEO link-building partners.

This is particularly true if said e-commerce site does not have any social-friendly content formats (e.g. blog posts, videos, infographics, etc.). What’s more, the very nature of an e-commerce site can sometimes work against you in that static product pages do not make for very enticing link bait or social influencer currency. Sadly, these very common conditions can result in a demoralized social media marketer (or link builder) that is limited to only the most basic of techniques (things like paid engagement campaigns or directory submissions).

But the good news is that more often than not, e-commerce sites have access to a steady stream of potential social (and SEO) influencers available to them. And this steady stream is usually untapped and sitting right under their noses, just waiting to be found via advanced analysis of referring site data.

Still not sure of what I’m referring to? Let me give you a concrete example:

Let’s say I’m a blogger writing a blog post on weird christmas gifts. I’m going to need some examples, right? So I’ll probably do some searching, and when I come across a nice example (like this iPhone-compatible toilet paper holder) I’ll likely link to it from my post. And if my site has any semblance of influence (and site traffic) chances are that at least one of my readers will click on the link and be referred to that e-commerce site, which means that my site will be listed as a referring site in his/her analytics data.

This happens more often than you think, and it’s one of the ultimate forms of social media engagement (an unsolicited link or mention). Moreover, it comes in many forms (blog post, blog comment, forum thread, review site, etc.). And best of all, the individual or business entity responsible for the link/mention is indirectly expressing a desire or willingness to become an influential ambassador for your brand. In other words, if they were willing to link to you or mention you without being asked, they will likely be willing to do it again (and perhaps on an ongoing basis).

But here’s the catch; you have to be looking for this unsolicited engagement in order to cash in on the full social media (and SEO) value it can provide in the long-term.

For example, I’m 99% sure that the owner of the e-commerce site with the aforementioned iPhone toilet paper holder will not notice that I linked to him/her today. Why? Because like most e-commerce site owners, he/she is likely not filtering through his referring site data to check for new referring sites.

Mind you, it’s not enough to simply review your referring data on a daily basis (although that’s probably fine for smaller sites that have minimal referring traffic). Instead, the key is to filter referring data so that you can isolate sites that have referred traffic for the very first time or for the first time in a long time. For very large, enterprise-caliber sites it’s a good idea to review referring traffic data on a daily basis so that you can identify new referring sites and strike while the engagement iron is hot (e.g. within a day or two of the link/mention occurring).

This technique actually works for all sorts of sites, not just those of the e-commerce variety, but I chose to focus on its value for e-commerce portals because this particular technique circumvents the common e-commerce obstacles that I mentioned at the beginning of this post.

If you’re not already mining your referring site data in this manner, you know what you need to do. From here on out, every day could be filled with social media engagement gold that’s yours for the taking, and that has been slipping by you, unnoticed, until now.

Source:http://socialmediatoday.com/hugoguzman/402913/secret-weapon-ecommerce-sites-looking-engage-social-influencers

6 Ways to Enhance Website Performance During the Holiday Season

2011-12-09T22:18:00.000-08:00

With an estimated 226 million people having shopped online over the Thanksgiving week, it signaled the start of the busiest ecommerce holiday season ever. Each day moving forward through Dec. 31 will present an opportunity to further increase holiday sales and grow revenue.

For those retailers who depend on their ecommerce sites to deliver added holiday revenue throughout the season, ensuring those sites are optimized to operate effectively under heavier than normal volumes is of the utmost importance.

Increased website traffic and overstuffed cyber shopping carts are expected to hit year-high peaks not just between now and Christmas Eve, but also the days and weeks after, as many retailers push sales items out the door to make way for next year’s inventory. Taking the time to implement best practices for your ecommerce store can be the difference between a record-setting holiday season and an average one.

To meet the demands of online holiday consumers, retailers are preparing their sites through the following means to ensure they are prepared throughout the holiday season for the increased traffic they’ll see. The following precautionary measures should enhance website performance:

Minimize updates: Minimize, or completely eliminate, site updates over the next six weeks. If critical updates are required they should be done during off-peak hours, between 3 a.m. – 8 a.m.

Test and re-test: Design changes should be kept to a minimum and avoided if the site can go without them. However, many online retailers will want to highlight special holiday promotions online. If updates are made, test those changes thoroughly before they go into production – then test them again. Add software that enables testing in multiple browsers, as there are a number of popular options available and you can’t predict what browser any one customer may be using; create and use a test page, never a live page and keep a backup of the original page in the event there are issues with the new page when it goes live.

Prepare for the best: Imagine the highest number of shoppers or buyers that might visit your site at any one time. Now run a test using that number to see what happens to performance and site behavior. This can be done by using software that simulates many simultaneous shoppers all browsing and clicking at the same time.

Upgrade rich media solutions: Now that Adobe has announced it will begin phasing out support for Flash, merchants should look to take advantage of other rich media solutions, like HTML5.

Organize data: Do your best to make sure your data, such as product descriptions, codes, prices and inventory is on hand, up-to-date, clean and indexed. Any bad data could introduce negative changes that result in lost sales.

Keep open communication: Always make sure your suppliers support contact information is available and know when they are accessible. Surprisingly, most merchants don’t know the exact times that they can contact their service providers for assistance, and many offer 24/7 customer support services.

One online merchant, Condomania, treats each month as if it’s the most important month of the year, but will minimize any changes to its site prior to the holidays, posting specials and deals on items they know will be sought after well before the Christmas rush.

Condomania will also increase its inventory to meet increased demand and will make sure any advertised specials are implemented in the system well ahead of schedule so there is little tinkering with the site when traffic is peaking.

Following the implementation of these best practices, retailers should monitor the performance of their sites on a routine basis in order to identify any issues that are abnormal and remedy them swiftly. If retailers spend the extra time to adjust their sites now for maximum performance, they will certainly yield dividends come year end.

Fred Lizza (mailto:fred.l@dydacomp.com) is the chief executive officer at Dydacomp, a provider of business technology platforms for small and mid-sized ecommerce and multichannel merchants.

Source:http://multichannelmerchant.com/ecommerce/news/enhance-website-performance-1209tpp9/

Top 5 Web Trends of Next Year

2011-12-08T02:15:00.000-08:00

1. Mobile, Mobile, and more Mobile

Many web designers will have to take their designs and use their skills to bring them to the small screen. According to Search Engine Land, more than 1/5 of all searches will be conducted on mobile devices in 2012. For this reason, it is extremely important that all company websites can be easily navigated as well as read on the small cell phone screen.
2. More 3D Effects

The web has slowing been moving into 3D web effects to help draw in readers. This next year 3D graphics are expected to grow in popularity, so be sure your 3D skills are ready to go. Use shadows and textures to help create dimension, but remember not to go overboard!
3. No more flash—think CSS3 and HTML5

Flash was once extremely popular amongst web designers, but it has slowly lost momentum. In 2012, flash will likely lose all momentum forever. It simply does not work well with mobile devices, and CSS3 and HTML5 offer many benefits (interactivity for users, faster loading, etc.). If you’re afraid to leave flash, consider learning about these newer methods from the Web Design Ledger.
4. Think Typography

More browsers now support different types of font, which means more and more websites will start to utilize more creative ways to use lettering. While past years typography was tangled up in copyright issues, CSS3 will allow designers to use free and/or subscription-based typography services. This will help get you away from those boring Arial and Times fonts you’re so tired of seeing.
5. QR Codes will explode

Last year was about consumers understanding Quick Response (QR) Codesand trying them out for fun. This year, many companies are hopeful that QR Codes will make a big difference. They are completely free to create, and many more people understand how they work. Because they are so easy, your boss will likely have you throw up a QR Code whenever possible.

Design is one of the aspects of business that every gets to see evolve with the times. For this reason, it is important that your designs continue to improve and grow with all the latest trends. The great part about it all—you will likely be able to create better designs with the same amount of work. Things often get easier for designers, and 2012 will be no exception.

Photo Credit: dreamstime.com

Amanda DiSilvestro is an expert writer on business starting a small business in San Diego, California. She writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs such as HR Software. You can find more of her articles as well as vendors comparisons for your small business needs at Business.com.

Source : http://www.socialh.com/2012-web-design-trends/

Make the most of your mobile Web site

2011-12-07T08:24:00.000-08:00

Summary: The FiddleFly service, delivered through Web design and marketing affiliates, helps small businesses optimize their Web sites for mobile visitors.

How many of you have spent more time than you should trying to navigate around on a Web site using your mobile phone? Now, ask yourself: “Has my small business done all it could do to optimize its mobile Web site presence for customers or potential customers?”

More likely than not, the answer is “No.” But as more of the general population uses smartphones, tablets and other devices with a relatively small screen to interact with the Internet or even to buy products and services, small and midsize businesses will miss out if they don’t take steps to ensure that their Web site is easy to negotiate from mobile gadgets.

Enter a service from FiddleFly that helps SMBs optimize their Web site for mobile browsing.

Web2Mobile Full Demo from MOS Creative on Vimeo.

Alex Kutsishin, cofounder and CEO of Web2Mobile, said the FiddleFly service is targeted at businesses such as real estate companies, restaurants and retailers that benefit from helping customer prospects on the go. “When you are looking at something on your mobile device, you want it designed for that experience, not for a desktop,” he said.

What does that mean? According to Kutsishin, here are three big things to keep in mind:

Don’t include EVERYTHING on your mobile site. That means if you have 15 different pages on your main site, it might only be three or four series for the mobile version.

Make it really easy to find the phone number and physical address. It is surprising how hard it is to find address and phone number information on many Web sites.

Avoid unnecessary graphics that make the site slower to load.

Pretty simple, huh?

FiddleFly’s service is delivered through graphics designers, media companies and other affiliates involved in helping small companies market their products and services.

Kutsishin said agencies pay an annual fee to FiddleFly in order to use the service; they are in charge of designing and hosting mobile sites on behalf of their SMB clients. Those fees vary depending on the extent of the site and on the agency doing the design and hosting, but a typical annual fee range would be $250 to $1,600 per site, he estimated.

Again, the main guiding theme for the mobile Web experience: keep it simple and make it easy to find the most important information for getting customers to walk in the door. Things like phone numbers, addresses and directions to your physical location. “People search on the mobile Web are looking to take action NOW,” Kutsishin said.

Source :http://www.zdnet.com/blog/small-business-matters/make-the-most-of-your-mobile-web-site/830

Search Engine Optimization!

2010-06-23T10:03:00.000-07:00

Every person who has launched a website recently must have spent sleepless nights thinking about the best methods that can be adopted to make their website ‘search engine friendly’! He has one consolation, though- every other person who has a website shares the same fate!

With the web being thronged by countless websites everyday, search engine optimization has become more challenging for many, and more interesting for some! Websites are increasing every passing minute and so it becomes difficult to hunt for these sites on search engines. So, they adopt certain techniques to make the ‘hunt’ for their websites easier; these techniques come under what we call search engine optimization.

• As they always say, content is the most important element in a website. What is an excellently designed page without the intended message? So, the web page should be filled with meaningful content that is worth being read. Users do not want to waste their time. So, meaningful, creative content always has its benefits!

• It is possible that some have misunderstood what is meant by ‘keyword density’. For one thing, it is definitely not forcing in words that are not necessary in irrelevant places. The Search Engine Optimization specialist derives some words that the users are most likely to use while searching for a particular web page and these words that are anticipated by him become the keywords. It does not mean that the page should be filled with these words. There should be a flow in the content and the subject being discussed should demand the usage of the keywords.

• Another important technique that will remain important, regardless of time, is ‘linking’. Blackhat SEO techniques actually exploit the usage of links. Sometimes users are led to a link that appears to be useful but only contains meaningless, useless content. Blackhat SEO is not entertained by search engines and is termed unethical. Links should be for relevant pages.

• It is always good to have a sitemap on all or most of your web pages. It will help the users to know where they are while they are visiting your website. It is just like visiting a new town on you own! It does good to have a map of the town in hand, does it not? (Whether it is comprehensible or not is a different matter altogether!) Nevertheless, it is better to have one. Similarly a detailed, clear sitemap will do a lot of good to your website. It will keep your visitors on your site. And when they know what is in store for them, their curiosity increases and they will visit more pages. This is a good Search Engine Optimization technique.

• It has to be understood that using unethical techniques are perhaps enough for quick benefits. But one would live to regret it because the easiest way to make enemies of search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN is to use Blackhat SEO! So, use ethical Search Engine Optimization techniques and enjoy top ranks!

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5 Tips to Get You Started in iOS App Design

5 Tips to Get You Started in iOS App Design

1. Understand the basic resolutions for apple mobile devices:

iPhone:

Set up Photoshop like this:

iPad:

2. Start with a wireframe

3. Start small and scale it bigger

4. Provide the proper deliverables to your client/developer.

5. Use and Explore the iOS Dev Center

5 Tips for Creating Hi-Res iPad Content

1. If Designing for Multiple Devices, Start with the iPad.

2. Use Web Fonts.

3. Use CSS Instead of PNGs.

4. Use a CSS Media Selector to Deliver Correctly Sized Images.

5. Borrow Some Tricks from Game Designers.

Create a minimalist web design layout using Photoshop

What defines a minimalist website?

What are “necessary elements?”

Open a new document in Photoshop

Create the background layer

Establish the Header Section

Adding in Navigation

Adding in the Search Bar and Submit Button

Banner image area

WDL Premium: Retro Website Headers

Download Retro Website Headers

Premium Member

About this Partner

Related Posts

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WDL Premium: Texturize Photoshop Action Pack from Union Actions

WDL Premium: Guilloche Vector Pack

WDL Premium: Vintage Inspired Infographics

WDL Premium: Retro UI Set

Top 10 Web Design Trends - 2012

WordPress for Android – A New Launch

15 Web Design Trends to Watch Out For in 2012

1. Responsive Interface Design

2. Touchscreen Mobile Devices

3. Tons of Freebies!

Some Neat Downloads

4. HTML5 & CSS3 Standards

5. Ribbons and Banners

6. Premium WordPress Themes

7. Online Magazines

8. Easy Drop Shadows

9. Dynamic Typography

10. Image Gallery Slideshows

11. Modal Popup Boxes

12. Inspirational Lists

13. Generated Image Thumbnails

14. Oversized Icons

15. Exaggerated Hyperlinks

Conclusion

A Guide to Mobile Web Design Tips and Tricks

Services for Optimizing Your Content for Mobile Browsers

Plugins for WordPress and Other Publishing Systems

Tools for Designers

Other Resources

Your Thoughts

How to Improve your Web Designing Ability

Start thinking of Web Design as an art.

Then again, can we define web design as just an art?

Physically record ideas.

Look for inspiration

Practice always makes perfect

Use a Grid System

Color Coordination

The Two Main Color Scheme Services:

Things Designers Should Teach Their Clients

How to use Google Analytics to Drive more Traffic to Your Website

Put Your Customers First

The Best Design Tutorials in 2011 for any Web Designer

Are you being innovative?

Some of the Key Perks of Ecommerce

Build an eCommerce Web Website Design

How to right-size your website for mobile screens