Top tips for web designers and developers

The first thing you should know as a budding internet professional is the difference between web design and web development. A web designer is a bit like the window dresser of a web site. As a web designer your job is to grab the attention of window shoppers, in other words, people surfing the net.

In contrast your job as a web developer is behind the scenes. You are at the helm for the smooth opening of the site on various browsers. The web developer makes sure that all the apportionment of the web site operate flawlessly in the minimum of time.

Of course the exemplary person for the assigned task is someone who has both the attributes of a web designer and a web developer. A lot of free software is available on the internet today. Many people have learned simple web designing and developing by using templates and image libraries. One cool tip for budding artists of the cyberspace is that you need a deeper knowledge of web design and web development software to become successful. It is necessary for you to get professional training.

In the role of a web designer you must strive to create a home page that holds the interest of your visitor. This can only be adventurous if your web development has been efficient. The images should download immediately and the content should be in easily readable fonts. Try to keep it simple.

Trial runs of your website are very necessary before you put it on the World Wide Web. There are many prominent websites which grant you to assay your site on their software which simulates the most popular browsers. This will grant you to make sure that your web pages open on all genus's of screens and on all the popular search engines. This is where your technical adroitness as a web developer will be tested most.

The constituents of the web site have to be written by a professional. You might be great at web design or web development but it is a specialist's job to write the text. Remember to place the text on a background which makes it easily readable.

In the antiquity a lot of technical knowledge was required to be successful in web design and web development. Modern software has made it easy for you to design and develop without having to know all the technical stuff. Still it is necessary that you learn the ropes of HTML and CSS coding as you progress along your chosen profession.  

How to find a good web design company

Looking for a web design company? This article looks at how exactly you identify a good we design company from its portfolio page.

1. Presence of portfolio

It’s pretty obvious that web design company must have its own web site with a neat portfolio of its previous works. But don't be taken away by the site alone. Portfolio is like a "face" of a web design company. It tells you about what the company did and how well they did it. But this is not all.

2. Total number of works

Though this provides a lot of indications, there is no standard number that can guarantee that you’re going to deal with web design guru. It is true that 50 projects is better than 5, but quality is equally important. Check out on that. And while you do that, do remember that an average website design takes 2 to 4 weeks to be finished.

But what can this information then give you? Firstly, you can see whether the company has enough expertise. Also, it can tell you if it has a stable employee base, a well-oiled development process, and enough staff to enable round-the-clock performance, so as to ensure that when you commit your site design to the said company you can be sure that it won’t be new work for them.

3. Type of work done

Look carefully at each project in the portfolio page. How many of them are similar to the one you need? Analyse this by industry, site, technology used, and look and feel?

2-3? Good!

> 5? Excellent!!

None? There could be reasons for this too – such as the owner not wanting publish it, or web site not being live anymore - so if the company has passed all these tests, you must then ask the company if they have ever done the task that you now need.

4. Quality

Look at all the sites the company has designed/developed. See how long it takes for the home page to load

A few seconds? Fine, the web designer knows how to optimize images.
A few minutes? This is okay for a Flash site since the whole site is loaded at once in case of Flash and can also take longer because of sound and visual effects.

But if a simple HTML web site takes more than 2-3 minutes to load you know something’s wrong. Check other HTML sites from the portfolio - if they too take ages to load, it's better you search for another web development company.

Web Design Trends for 2015

Designers and developers across the world are looking to capitalize on the web boom and leap to higher returns on investment. In this article, we look at the dominant web design trends that will define the year 2015.

1. Material design

We’ll see design inspired from Google’s Material design language. It’s a richer approach to flat interfaces using touches from the physical world be leaving it open to what’s possible with digital interfaces.

Designers will build more layered interfaces and utilize animation as affordance. We will witness purposeful movements, flexible design components, and a graphical approach to design that is user action-based.

2. Typography

3D effects and typography is one area which could see lot of action. This would include gradients, shadows, and colour overlays. Subtle gradients, various forms of shadows added to create a sense of depth and multiple colours in illustrations makes the whole work more dimensional and designers are breaking new ground in it.

3. Mobile optimization

Mobile optimization must be accompanied by a better understanding of user needs and performances. This is a trend that could continue long after 2015. Its detractors say that it’s bad for performances, but that’s mostly when it’s poorly done, like when people try to fit a 1900px 10MB site into a 320 mobile phone.

4. Full-screen media

People love websites with big, full-screen displays of images, type and video- it is simply more engaging. 2015 will see an even greater use of large background images and full screen video as a means to connect with visitors and communicate with brands personally.

This approach to web design might kill the traditional brochure as a means of selling a service.

5. Bigger text and bigger image driven websites

With the increased use of retina and HD screens, it’s now essential for designers to serve large copy-driven text and high resolution images that will resize and optimize for both server load and screen sizes.

6. Cards, Cards, Cards

Cards are contained pieces of information that are visually delimited by their card-like appearance. Borders around or a drop shadow, usually with a white background, hit right in the spot of users who want small information bites before digging through the real and possibly lengthy, content.

7. Long scroll

This really caught on in the 2013-2014, and we expect it to continue in 2015 as well. This means companies will have to simplify their content, not to forget the parallax!