Designing a homepage is an exercise in discriminate puzzle solving. You have a list of possible design elements, widgets, and marketing pieces that can eventually make an appearance. Some are critical, others optional. All of them have a certain value.  Read more

For years, many modern businesses have recognized the value of communicating with their customers about events, news, policy updates, changes in leadership, and other significant happenings within their organization. In fact, some of that communication has been made mandatory by law—any publicly traded company, for instance, is required to provide quarterly financial information. Over the years, marketing and public relations departments have seen the tremendous benefits of maintaining an open line of communication with the public. On a basic level, this transparency builds customer trust, which builds brand loyalty, which can be gasoline for the word-of-mouth marketing fire.  Read more

No business can survive without marketing. Not my business. Not your business. Marketing brings in clients. And clients bring in the money that keeps your business alive. As Webmasters, we sharpen our design skills constantly and try to keep up with new developments in the field -- trends, new tools, etc. However, for many of us, our understanding of marketing theory is less refined.  Read more

The whole point of user testing is to catch the usability problems of your design before you go into production. Therefore, you must be mentally prepared for the feedback that comes out — it may not be pretty. In some cases, you may be faced with a substantial redesign if user after user can’t figure out your interface.  Read more

Asymmetrical balance, or informal balance, is a little more abstract, and generally more visually interesting, than symmetrical balance. Rather than having mirror images on either side of the layout, asymmetrical balance involves objects of differing size, shape, tone, or placement. These objects are arranged so that, despite their differences, they equalize the weight of the page. If you have a large object on one side of a page, and you partner it with several smaller items on the other side, the composition can still feel balanced.  Read more

When inexperienced designers start a Web site design, they typically begin by laying out the major functional blocks of the home page or by doing a color and graphic layout. But designing a site is just the same as building a house. You have to start with the foundation and work up.  Read more

No business can survive without marketing. Not my business. Not your business. Marketing brings in clients. And clients bring in the money that keeps your business alive. As Webmasters, we sharpen our design skills constantly and try to keep up with new developments in the field -- trends, new tools, etc. However, for many of us, our understanding of marketing theory is less refined.  Read more

In terms of a Web site’s “flip factor,’’ auditing, wireframing, and prototyping all lead us to the shaping of our site’s architecture and, ultimately, the site’s usability and content design. We’re creating the interface between a site’s technical backend and its welcoming front-end. If a book, which is a mostly linear medium, can benefit from user pathways, so can aWeb site. What’smore, because different types of people use navigation schemes and site entry points in different ways, creating a variety of pathways to information is a necessity.  Read more

How information is designed both from a conceptual and technical standpoint immediately impacts the short- and long-term evolution of a site. Understanding what information is available, how to structure it in such a way that makes sense both to the end-user and the behind-the-scenes interrelationship of other documents within theWeb site, and managing growth effectively can be extremely helpful in avoiding problems down the road.  Read more

The World Wide Web is in fact a global environment, with many languages as well as religions, customs, and ways of life. Creating visually stimulating designs that work for your clients—no matter how near or far they might be requires an understanding of a variety of practices: excellent Web graphic design skills and an awareness of the psychology of color and space.  Read more

Some web designers may think they are perfectly justified in glazing over this chapter. It is after all, about content, not design, or even traditional information architecture. But the reality is that the two elements are fundamentally bound, like hydrogen and oxygen atoms in a water molecule. In fact, their symbiosis is driving many designers to become increasingly conscious of web content—what messaging works and what doesn’t, how people react to typography decisions, how people scan content within a page, and so forth. Every day new research offers deeper insight into how the masses interact with content. Those theories and best practices filter down and permeate the decisions driving how interfaces, navigation elements, body text, and more are actually designed.   Read more

While there are many people reading this book interested in building a new company’s website, chances are there are just as many people looking to improve an old one. Redesigning can be a major undertaking. Depending on the magnitude, it can be as challenging as a brand new design. But listing the reasons for the revamp and the goals the site will accomplish, and then selling the whole idea to your management team, can help make your site better than ever. It can be assumed that any business that wishes to compete in the globalized world market has a website. The medium has been mature for over a decade. College dorm startups, old-world companies (think Ford or Coca-Cola), small businesses, and worldwide mega-corporations have all benefited from and praised the return on investment that a strong Internet presence brings.   Read more