Archive for the ‘Website Design’ Category

Edit CSS

Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

When i first started out with my first website, i knew nothing about CSS let alone website design. So over to the forums, learn’t basic CSS and installed EditCSS. EditCSS is a Firefox add-on where you can make changes to your stylesheet and see the results in real time.

For a beginner there are thousands of free Wordpress and Joomla templates out there, but i noticed that most of the ones i liked, there was just one or two little things i did not like about it and just kept on searching for one i could use.

That is actually what got me into CSS in the first place, i was sick of seeing the same templates over and over again on different websites.

When you run this add on it brings up a left hand sidebar where you can make changes to the CSS of any page and you see the results straight away. ( See picture below )

Say i didn’t like the colour of my left and right sidebar of my template and wanted to change it, but i am not sure of what it will look like, let alone what i am doing to my template!

So i open EditCSS, find the section i want to edit change the colour of my sidebar.

edit_css

Oooops, doesn’t look too good now does it, better change it back.

That change took 2 seconds, not only can you make CSS changes before implementing them on your website and seeing the effect, it can save you time too. At the moment i dont think you can save changes and upload the stylesheet but it is still a usefull tool to help you learn CSS.

Now the evil side come out! Whose website can i change… hehehe

I was going to do Google, but thought i better not.

If you are a beginner to CSS and just want to make changes without worrying about damage to your website, this is just one of a few Firefox CSS addons around, just search here for one you feel comfortable using.

Posted in Website Design | 4 Comments »

Website Design Tips

Tuesday, February 5th, 2008

Now please let me start off by saying i am not a profesional designer, it actually takes me a few weeks of adjusting templates to get it right. But on Entrecard.com i have seen a lot of websites i actually leave before they load.

So having said that, I would like to offer these website design tips,

Your website is where your business resides — it’s like the headquarters of an offline company. Hence, it is important to practise good design principles to make sure your site reaches out to the maximum number of visitors and make you the most amount of money possible.

Make sure you have clear directions on the navigation of your website. The navigation menu should be uncluttered and concise so that visitors know how to navigate around your website without confusion.

Reduce the number of images on your website. They make your site load very slowly and more often than not they are very unnecessary. If you think any image is essential on your site, make sure you optimize them using image editing programs so that they have a minimum file size.
i cannot even think about the number of sites i have left even before it loads.

Keep your text paragraphs at a reasonable length. If a paragraph is too long, you should split it into seperate paragraphs so that the text blocks will not be too big. This is important because a block of text that is too large will deter visitors from reading your content.

Make sure your website is cross-browser compatible. If your website looks great in Internet Explorer but breaks horribly in Firefox you will lose out on a lot of prospective visitors.

Avoid using scripting languages on your site unless it is absolutely necessary. Use scripting languages to handle or manipulate data, not to create visual effects on your website. Heavy scripts will slow down the loading time of your site and even crash some browsers. Also, scripts are not supported across all browsers, so some visitors might miss important information because of that.

Use CSS to style your page content because they save a lot of work by styling all elements on your website in one go.

I know i am going to cop some hostile feedback with this post, but if you want me to drop a Ecard on your site, please it should load a bit quicker than 10 seconds, if not i will just exit your site before dropping .

Posted in Website Design | 9 Comments »

Google Lego Logo

Monday, January 28th, 2008

Now that title is a mouth full.

It always amazes me when a special event is happening Google.com seems to find a nice little design for their search page.

This week marks the 50th anniversary of Lego brick. When i went to search Google.com.au for some info look what i found.

Ahh all those hours spent building a lego project just to find the dog has chewed the last piece.

i thnik it looks pretty cool.

 

lego

 

 

Posted in Website Design | 2 Comments »

Website Design Mistakes

Friday, January 25th, 2008

Common mistakes to avoid when using web templates

Website templates are very affordable and they save you a lot of effort and time when you want to create a new layout for your website. However, a lot of people make mistakes in the process of choosing and using a web template and end up with something that was unlike the image they had in mind. Here are some guidelines to help you avoid those mistakes.

The first obvious mistake you should be aware of is using a template that is very popular. If many people use the same template, your website will not appear unique at all and your credibility as a solid, different website will be tarnished. In other words, you will appear generic just like your next-door neighbours.

To whole point of using a web template is to save time and effort. You just change the title and appropriate details and you’re done. The biggest mistake one makes is to customize the template beyond recognition. While that may be good in the sense that you’re creating a unique graphic, you’re defying the very purpose of using a web template — saving time and effort.

However, on the opposite side, if a template you purchase is suitable but some changes must be made to suit your site’s theme, then you will have to take some time to make the changes. For example, you can find a very nice template that suits your hobby site except the original designer has put an image of stamps in the header. You can find images of garden plants and spades to replace the stamps for your gardening hobby site. However, do only make the necessary changes and don’t redesign the whole template.

In some circumstances, some people simply make the wrong choice of templates. This is a very subjective issue but you have to be careful in selecting templates to suit your audience. Do not choose templates just because they are pretty, choose them because they serve your purpose.

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Basic Website Design

Friday, January 25th, 2008

This is an important question i think you need to answer if you want to make money online and before designing your site,

Who Is Your Audience?

Understanding the type of people who visit your website is a very important task because you can use that information to enhance your site to suit them. As a result, you will gain more loyal returning visitors that come back again and again for more.

What is the age level and what kind of knowledge does your audience have? A beginner might linger around a general site on gardening, but a professional gardener might turn their nose up at the very same site. Similarly, a regular person might leave a site filled with affiliate products but a well educated money maker will find that site interesting.

Take your audience’s emotional state into consideration when building your site. If a very irritated visitor searches for a solution and comes across your site, you will want to make sure you offer the solution right up front and sell or promote your product to them second. In this way, the visitor will put their trust in you for offering the solution to their problems and is more likely to buy your product when you offer it to them after that.

When you design the layout for your site, you have to take into account the characteristics of your audience. Are they old or young people? Are they looking for trends or are they just looking for information served without any icing on the cake? For example, introducing a new, exciting game with a simple, straightforward black text against white background page will definitely turn prospects away. Make sure your design suits your site’s general theme.

Try to sprinkle colloquial language in your sites sparingly where you see fit and you will create a sense that your audience is on common ground with you. This in turn builds a trusting relationship between you and your audience, which will come in useful should you want to market a product to your audience.

I hope you find this basic website design tip useful. Another good tip is to check out the sites on google.com’s first few pages and copy what they are doing, THEN do it better.

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