Archive for the ‘ Website Design Trends ’ Category

What’s New in Navigation Bars?

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

Posted in Website Design Trends, Website design and function |

The Internet seems to change almost daily. Trends that were popular a few months ago can become outdated almost overnight. Nowhere is this more true than when it comes to website design. With each new evolution, new standards emerge.

Navigation bars are one aspect of site design that seem to constantly change. So, what are the current trends?

When the web was still in its infancy, navigation bars took the form of a graphic interface and some were even Java-based. These types of navigation bars worked very well and are still fairly popular today.

However, as webmasters soon discovered, the function of a navigation bar played a large role in how deep visitors would travel into a particular website. Many web designers realize that simplicity is what visitors want in a website, which is why the current trend in navigation bars is gravitating toward using text links as opposed to the graphic interfaces or Java applications.

One of the most popular ways to navigate a website now is through the use of drop down menus. Drop down menus are popular because they offer superior functionality and ease of use while maintaining the integrity of the overall design.

Drop down menus are extremely easy for the average visitor to use and blend seamlessly into the website design. They also offer quick navigation of the entire site by being easy to access, yet still unobtrusive.

A growing trend is the use of mega menus. Mega menus are useful for navigating large websites that have multiple pages and sub-pages. Essentially, designers could create sitemaps with links to every page, but as sites become bigger – and more pages are added – these sitemaps become too big and too tough to navigate.

Another option would be for the designer to use dynamic drop-down menus or expanding menus, which would give readers access to any page on the site. However, the problem with these menus is that they can be tough to access, and since most require Java Script, some users will be left out in the dark.

Mega menus bridge the gap between simple menus and expanding menus. They’re easy to use and don’t suffer from the accessibility problems associated with some of the other navigation tools. Also, mega menus look good and can be seamlessly blended into virtually any site’s design. Check out the navbar on my site.

While your website can still function well using older style navigation bars, you might want to consider a switch in the near future. Your visitors will appreciate it.

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Low Cost Web Site Design: Top 7 Design Trends for Web Sites (continued)

Wednesday, December 20th, 2006

Posted in Top website design trends, Web Site Design, Website Design Trends |

Top 7 Design Trends for Web Sites continued…

4. Buttons

Back when the web was new, the way to navigate a site was either by moving your mouse over text rollovers or by clicking square buttons. Today, though, many designers are using buttons that have rounded corners or are full circles. Why? Some people speculate that humans prefer organic shapes. Others suspect that we have deep-rooted fears of sharp corners. Whatever the reason, round is the way to go.

5. Big type

A lot of people don’t like reading off of web pages. Too often small type together with the eye-strain that goes with staring at a monitor turn people away from text heavy pages.

But now, many designers are making it easier on the reader by employing bigger, easier to read type. And not only is the type larger, but designers are flowing text onto multiple pages rather than trying to make everything fit onto one. This might make the size of your site a bit larger, but your readers will thank you for the lack of headaches.

6. White space

Many people, especially advertisers, fear white space. They feel that if the whole page isn’t filled then they’re not getting their money’s worth. But the opposite is true. Pages that contain a lot of white space, or empty space between elements, is easy on the eyes and helps people focus on what’s really important – your content.

A good rule of thumb is: if it doesn’t enhance your message, leave it out.

7. Centered Layout

More and more sites are aligning their content in the center of the page with plenty of white space on the sides. Why? Well for starters, this helps to ensure that visitors don’t have to scroll side to side in order to read all of your copy.

Another reason why this is popular is that it helps people to focus on your content, which is why they’re at your site in the first place.

These are just a few of the current trends in web design. If you’re thinking about creating a new site, or giving yours an overhaul, give some of these a shot and see if you don’t get better results.

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Low Cost Web Site Design: Top 7 Design Trends for Web Sites

Monday, December 18th, 2006

Posted in Web Site Design, Website Design Trends |

The Web is constantly evolving as technology improves and web site design is evolving right along with it.

Online businesses are slowly realizing that the saying “If you build it, they will come” doesn’t always apply to their web sites.

A successful, high-traffic web site requires a lot of work in the areas of design, content and search engine optimization.

Web design has grown by leaps and bounds from the days of blue text on black backgrounds, type that goes all the way to the edge of your screen and beyond and sites that are packed with graphics.

Now, both web designers and online business owners are paying much more attention to how their web sites look and function. The following are 7 of the hottest trends currently in web design:

1. Design for Function

While the overall look of your web site is important, good looks will only go so far with visitors. Your design should be used to enhance your content as opposed to competing with it. The message you have for your visitors is what brings in sales, not how pretty your web pages are.

Most site owners and designers now recognize that the functionality of a web site is more important than how it looks because, if people can’t find their way around and purchases can’t be easily made, then the site has failed to do its job.

2. Colors

Back in the “old days” of the web it seemed as if the color palette people drew from consisted of eye-burning neons or black. Today the shift is more toward soft, neutral colors. Many designers are using gradients and reflections to make the site feel warmer and more inviting. Color palettes are leaning more towards earth tones, which don’t stand out or cause people to lose focus on your content.

3. Simplicity

While graphics and Flash animations continue to grow in complexity, the best web designs go for a simple approach. If you look at sites like Apple, Ebay and Amazon, you”ll see simple, easy to navigate designs that draw customers in and make their shopping experience as easy as possible.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about the remaining 4 design trends for web sites.

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Low Cost Web Site Design : Out – Static Sites

Sunday, September 10th, 2006

Posted in Web Site Design, Website Design Trends |

What’s a static site? A static site is a web property that doesn’t change. It’s like a catalog or a billboard, it just sits there advertising the company. There was a time when it was appropriate to have a site that basically exiwted to proclaim your dominance over your competitor for being on the web… that time was oh… about 1997.

Today, what you want to have is a dynamic site. Not necessariy just a site that is a super-cool web app or a huge community site with forums and other communication tools, if they are outside the realm of your company. But even if your company doesn’t actually conduct its business online, your site should have the ability to tell someone how to reach people at your company, and offer some level of interactivity with your clients.

Maybe they can look up account information, or perhaps they will be able to see when their next appointment is. You could have video demos of your products, that clients can comment on. Or you could just have an area where you talk about industry news.

Even if it’s just a form to fill out in order to send an email, or customer service buttons that allow your staff to chat with interested parties wh are visitng the site, a little interactivity goes a long way. The more useful your site is, the more visitors will return. The more they return, the more they bond to your brand.

Nina

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Web Site Design : If Hit Counters are Out, What’s In?

Friday, July 14th, 2006

Posted in Web Site Design, Website Design Trends, Website design tips |

In vogue for web site design where statistics are concerned, are keeping your numbers relatively private, and putting the focus on the quality of your site. Learn more about common web statistics terms mean, and learn how to see what they mean for your site.

A hit, for example, is generated by each object that loads on your pages and registers with a web browser. That means if you have 5 graphics on a page, each one of them will register a hit. More important is a web page view, or page view for short. That measurement tells you that the page loaded successfully in your visitors browser. If you have an informational site, it may be important to have more page views – no one wants to have a resource site that people immediately click away from, for example. Conversely, if most of your blog readers follow you by your feed, you’ll only get a page view registered for each time they access your feed, no matter how many entries they read.

In these cases, it’s even more important to count the visitors. The visitors are counted by the number of times a unique address, computer or person visits your site. Sometimes, the address that would normally determine one visitor is shared, so when visitors go by unique IP address, as they are called, it isn’t always accurate.

It may under-estimate how many visitors, in the case where an Internet Service Provider such as AOL, may use the same IP address to represent all the visitors from one particular area. It may over-estimate how many visitors are coming to your site in the case of an auto-surf program or purchased visitors that aren’t generated by re-directed expired domains or manual surf exchanges. Your web visitor log or statistics program may register thousands of visitors from thousands of IP addresses, and yet none of them view your site.

A more reliable way to measure is by a program that places cookies on a remote user’s computer to track their visit, however some visitors don’t like them as much and may block them. The Google Web Analytics program uses cookies to track visitors, and is free.

If you have visitors that you think will have a problem with cookies, add the purpose of the cookie to your site’s privacy policy. Before you use a program that includes cookies, weigh the probability that more sophisticated users will block them, or not use your site, against how valuable having that data will be in helping you server your clients better.

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