Knowledge Tips for Web Designing and Web Programming
by ClearconceptsWe're entering an
exciting period in the history of the Web. Since the 90's, the Internet has
embedded itself in our lives in ways we couldn't have imagined. Web programming
is the best way to get our foot in the door. A programmer with little
experience can produce a useful web application in a matter of hours. Not just
playful or interesting, but something that can actually go into productive and
live use. The only other environment where that is possible is the command line
-- and managers never see programmers' command line tools.
Web programming is also a
kind of universal need. Sure, there are lots of things besides the web. But
unless you really try to avoid the web, as a programmer you are likely to have
occasional problems that are best solved with a web application. This is true
no matter what field you are in. In part because web applications don't just
touch on core needs -- e.g., embedded programming at a hardware company,
numerical analysis at an engineering firm -- but on any coordination needs, and
everyone needs to coordinate things.
Some
· Cascading
Style Sheets (CSS) are the way to go - use one style sheet and control how text
looks on your entire site. Make a change to the style sheet and your whole site
is updated. It makes life a lot simpler.
· Consider
your target audience. Even if they are a group of teenage girls looking for new
shoes, it's never a good idea to use tiny type. It doesn't have to be enormous,
but up to a point, larger type is better. 12-pt Verdana is better than 8-pt
Verdana.
· The
more contrast, the better. Black-on-white or white-on-black are examples of the
highest contrast you can get. Use colors if you like, but if you squint at the
page and your text basically vanishes, there's not enough contrast.
· Don't
stack lines on top of each other. Use the line-spacing directive in CSS and
give it some space; I'll often set line-spacing to 140% of the height of a
typical line.
· Making
your website's content more legible is easy. It doesn't take a lot of time,
mainly common sense. The payoff will be text that's more readable, customers
that stick around long enough to get your message, and improved credibility
with your visitors.
· And
finally (not one of the
In fact, if yours is a
website that sells website design services, that is, you want people to pay you
to design their website; it is in your interest not to make your site too
plain. Many potential customers see your site as an example of what their site
can become. There's no point claiming "Content is King" at this time
- they won't be around long enough to hear your claim. Such sites need a
certain amount of color, graphics, etc, although of course making it take too
long to load would also be a deterrent to your potential clients.
Like all things, how you
design your site depends on your topic and your target audience. Keep that
cardinal rule in mind and you'll be fine. Decorative graphics on a page are fine. They
make a page more pleasant to look at, and hence more likely to be read. But you
should at least make them as small as possible. While I'm hesitant to give a
hard and fast rule about how big such graphics should be, a decorative graphic
that is a few hundred kilobytes in size is definitely too big to be tolerated.
Once you start to
understand how to make web pages, you will be tempted to go all out with
animated gifs, rollover affects, and fancy designs. The problem with this is
that it can easily lead to confusing pages for the viewer and hard to maintain
sites for you. Web sites are always in need of changing and updating. You will
be thankful when that inevitable day comes and you have an easy to update
modular site to work with instead of an inflexible over-designed mess.
Author Bio:
Clear Concepts is a leading Saudi Arabian based software company focused on delivery the best and most cost-effective solutions to their clients in areas such as Web & Programming and design & Multimedia. To learn more about the clear concepts you can visit – http://www.clear-concepts.org
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Created on Dec 31st 1969 18:00. Viewed 0 times.