The techniques during this article justify however we are able to leverage this powerful capability of CSS to conjointly modification imaging, alter the navigation on hand-held devices, and created default CSS for compatibility older browsers.
Assign images to HTML elements :
Images are typically added to a web page using the image tag.
Assigning pictures to an element’s background permits US to vary the documented graphic file,
additionally to having the ability to change the size and position properties of the container.
With the fast-moving nature of the net, it’s solely natural that web site design trends modification frequently. The year 2013 will prove to hold just as a lot of modification in web design practices as any previous year. it'll be a fun and exciting year in web design, and here are seven of the most popular trends to expect to come months to come back.
1. Responsive Web Design
Responsive design is that the approach of developing one set of code to accommodate the show of a web design all told display environments, no matter screen dimensions. for instance, you'll see one variation of the design on a desktop, another on a tablet’s horizontal view, another on a tablet’s vertical view, and yet another on a smartphone. Responsive
We all grasp of the standard web safe fonts, you know, Arial, Verdana, Georgia, Times New Roman etc? They’ve been around for years and became the quality for web typography, however there’s a bunch of fonts out there that are simply waiting to be place to use in web design. Semi web safe fonts is a term I’m using to refer to those fonts that aren’t typically found on multiple operating systems as normal, however are usually bundled with common software package applications like office or the Adobe creative Suite. what percentage individuals do you recognize WHO have Microsoft office on their PC? quite an few I’d imagine. the same goes if you’re making a design connected related, the users will all probably have the Adobe creative Suite. This means there’s a bunch of fonts on their system that may be targeted with CSS, if
It’s simple to get carried away with colours. Why choose a pair of or three colours after you will have 12 or 13? however so as to alter your web site style visually, you wish to limit your combination. once doubtful, use fewer colours. It’ll vary supported your style in fact, however try sticking with no over two or three colours to start out off. If you wish more subtlety and texture to your visual style, use shades of an equivalent color – lightweight blue for the background and darker blue for header and menu things.
I’m as guilty as anyone with obtaining wild with colours in the past. I’ll add this color, then another, and another – and before i do know it, it's sort of a rainbow looseness of the bowels everywhere my web site. you'll have your web site constructively simplified, however if the colours distract the eyes after you look at it instead of complimenting the content, then all that effort was for naught. therefore use fewer colours together with your web site style instead.
2.Reduce the number of pages:
A large part of simplifying your web site design is to easily have fewer places to explore and click on around. you'll try this by trimming the page count. Either get rid of inessential pages that inside within you recognize aren’t required, or at the terribly least, fuse multiple pages into one. I mean, you don’t really want to separate "about the site" and "about me" pages.
Firstly, get within the mindset of the visitor – if you were to arrive on your web site, what are the key things would you would like to do? for example decide what your stuff is about? Or contact you? Next, ensure that your pages facilitate what's necessary and zip additional. Don’t keep inessential pages on your web site as a result of you think that you would like to, or as a result of alternative websites have them. once you cut back the quantity of pages on your web site, not only it's easier for your visitors to specialize in your content as a result of there’s less places to click around, however your navigation menu is easier too.
We’ve all been on websites with too several nav menu things. we have a tendency to don’t know where to begin navigating as a result of we get flooded by the choices. And once we get flooded by being presented with too several choices, we go together with choosing nothing. By having as few nav menu things as possible, you create your web site not solely easier however more inviting and friendlier to visitors.
3.Just The Essential Elements:
This first step most likely looks forehead-slapping obvious: of course I should place the main focus on the essential parts in my web site, what am I, an idiot? however a stunning range of internet sites fail to attain this and also the result's a giant mess of necessary and unimportant parts spewed onto a page. I’m as guilty of doing this in the past as anybody. It’s exhausting to be objective and prioritise what’s necessary or not, because everything looks essential. If you wish your web site design to be easier, establish what has to be focus, just like with any smart visual style or piece of art. which means that putting the main focus only on the essential elements.
Use The 80-20 Rule
What 200th of what’s on a page provides 80th of the value and content that individuals go there for? It might be the copy, some social proof (review snippets, testimonials, media badges), and a signup form or call-to-action button, for instance. That’s the 200th right there. On your web site, likewise as on every individual page, focus on displaying only the 200th of web site elements that are delivering 80th of that quality.
This isn’t a technical step however a principle that you simply can use as your guide to simplify your web site style constantly. The 80-20 rule can facilitate simplify your {website|web web site} style by pushing you to trim your site parts all the way down to the necessities. What’s very cool is that the 80-20 rule help facilitate increase your required results that you simply hope to attain on your web site. for instance, associate degree enhanced conversion rate in guests subscribing, signing up, or buying. How? You’re creating it so there ar less distractions and things for visitors to click on to depart the page.
As we all understand, we’re continuously looking for an excuse to not purchase one thing at the ultimate step, and any reason to navigate away could be a smart one. reduce those reasons and click-away choices with the 80-20 rule.
4.How to Get Rid of unnecessary Elements:
Now that you’ve identified the 200th of web site elements that will get you 80th of your required results, it’s time to get eliminate all inessential elements. In alternative words, the 80th of web site elements that will get you merely 200th of results. It might be social media sharing widgets, sidebar elements, blog post meta details (date, time, author, variety of comments, etc), or links within the footer (this is particularly a large offender plenty of the times, particularly once the visitor is searching for the same excuse to navigate off from the page).
5.Bring More Content Above The Fold.
Studies have shown that a majority of people spend most of their time above the fold on web pages (what shows up on the screen without scrolling down). So if you want to increase the effectiveness of your website, have the main content and call-to-action elements above the fold. You can do something as simple as shortening the header height if you have a logo and a navigation menu at the top of your website.
This involves nothing more than changing the header’s "height" value in your stylesheet (typically style.css or stylesheet.css). Also, see if a sign-up form or button is below the fold. Move that element higher up in the page so it’s the first thing a visitor sees. After all, that is your desired call-to-action of the visitor, so decrease the work needed to get to it (ie. scrolling).
Creativity: Making your design perfect doesn't just happen on a night. It takes knowledge and time. The basic Principles of web design are the pillars. Puting more effort and knowledge will make you websites more attractive and top quality. As the visitors of websites prefer design first so the first goal to achieve is "outstanding design". The thousand of websites out there, the race is tough enough and one of the important aspect that matters "Design". Every designer have to make sure his/her website offers one of the best in the market in order to stay on top of the race. whether you are making a website for yourself or you have clients and will pay you for your design, your goal must be unique and to create or design something extraordinary.
Why unique and creative design:
creating an attractive and creative design should be the first goal of a designer. The great news is that you can turn the most dull looking into great idea and design by simply putting some effort and experience then you can achieve you goal. A design is the key success of a website. A designer can compel the visitor to stay in. Even a designer can compel the visitor to interact with the pages etc.
There is alot of ways you can add anything to your website the thing is how you add different designs. A designer have to create something unique and attractive so do not be afraid of experiments and play with different thoughts . The only goal is to gain the attention of viewers. It takes time and patience to be able to learn the art of implementing the right amount of depth and the more time you take to learn this art, the easier it is going to be in the future. Just don't try and rush the process because that will only lead to bad designs and work that needs to be re-done.
Another important thing to try in adding depth to your designing is to play with translucency throughout your site. If you layer your elements correctly then change up the translucency throughout those elements, it will then add a 3-d type effects and make your website pop out. This significantly add a great feel of reality to your website. You want to make sure not to go overboard with this ideas though because too much can lower the overall quality and creativity of the site. The imporant thing for you to do is just to design around with it until you find the well amount of depth.
During 2012, the average site size crept over a megabyte, which designer/developer Mat Marquis describes as “pretty gross”, but he reckons there’s a trend towards “leaner, faster, more efficient websites” – and hopes it sticks. He adds: “Loosing a gigantic website onto the web isn’t much different from building a site that requires browser ‘X’: it’s putting the onus on users, for our own sakes.”
It’s a sentiment that chimes with many. Chris Mills of Opera/W3C hopes 2013 will see “more responsible usage of libraries”, and notes that there’s too much reliance on them for trivial functionality; he reckons “people will become sensitive to this as they work on more projects that require good support for TV and mobile”. Designer and writer Stephanie Rieger reckons that although people now know “web design isn’t print,” they’ve “forgotten it’s actually software, and performance is therefore a critical UX factor”.
2. Device and design resource-pooling
We’re familiar with people pooling code, but 2013 will see sharing widen, according to Meyer and designer Geri Coady. Meyer reckons that instead of studios each maintaining dozens of devices for testing, we’ll see community device labs, and Coady believes the year will bring more participation in open source design. “I love the idea of donating a little design talent to open-source projects that you use or community groups that you support,” she explains. “Open source developers often spend so much time working on the technical side of things that the visual side can end up being neglected. But this past year has seen great work from the W3C’s Responsive Images Community Group, which now has a well-designed home on the web that strengthens its image as well as its mission.”
3. Modular design
2013 will see more people taking advantage of design process building blocks. Muller thinks that through RWD, grid-based, modular GUI design is “now stronger than ever,” and that we’ll see more very structured page layouts over the coming year. Mo Morgan, head of technology at Kitcatt Nohr Digitas, notes that “Amazon Web Services and others prove infrastructure and platforms can be commoditised”, and “the plethora of available frameworks show it’s no longer necessary for developers to keep reinventing the wheel”. Such building blocks remove pain and expense, he explains, “allowing the masses to make things that would have previously been too arduous or expensive”. Designer/developer Paul Mist hopes such changes will “speed up workflows, so we can spend more time making the web beautiful”, but Morgan worries there’s a possibility 2013 will see people start to “lose touch with core technologies that underpin all of these things, to the point where if the commoditised offering can’t meet a specific requirement, it effectively can’t be done”.
4. Standards involvement
For Marquis, 2013’s key trend will be more developers taking an active role in the web standards process. “It feels like there have been separate silos in play – developers doing client work, and browser representatives working full-time within the standards bodies,” he says. The hope is more crossover: “Today, you see ‘developer preference” cited in a mailing list thread, but rarely do full-time web developers chime in with opinions. There’s a disconnect, and that impacts both groups negatively – standards bodies get blamed for standardising features developers dislike or don’t understand intuitively, and developers get blamed for ignoring features or using them incorrectly. I hope people look at the work being done by members of the Responsive Images Community Group and others, and see it as a call to join the discussion. The only way we’re going to be fully represented is by showing up and working together.”
5. Industry education
2012 was a good year for web education, and Sharp thinks this trend will continue: “I’m talking about educating kids, the ‘yoof’ of today.” He admits the government may not be pushing as hard as the industry would like, but says organisations are filling the gap: “Efforts like Code Club are starting to really land, and I’m seeing an increase in events aimed at teens and youngsters, in web programming and hacking.”
6. New tools for web design and management
With the explosion in RWD, developer Sally Jenkinson believes 2013 will be the year processes and tools evolve. “We’ve seen a move towards designing in the browser, but vendors like Adobe aiming to introduce offerings such as Edge Reflow will impact on existing wireframe and design methodologies.” She thinks lines between mockups and prototypes will blur, and static representations will no longer “accurately reflect the variety of permutations in terms of device renderings”. Redweb head of development Wayne Rowley adds that improved mobile tools are also likely: “CMS vendors are already seeing the need to provide mobile support when creating and managing content, and the next step is to optimise CMS software interfaces, empowering content editors with true flexibility and location-independent content management capabilities”.
7. More video
According to designer Ayesha Garrett, barriers to entry regarding video continue to fall, and 2013 will find a lot more of it online: “Internet speeds, including for mobile devices, are rising. Also, people with subscriptions to Adobe Creative Suite have suddenly found themselves with extra ‘free’ software, and are playing around with video packages and experimenting with After Effects.” She adds that some video trends will perhaps be less welcome: “We’ll see ongoing heavy use of the DSLR look – narrow depth of field and shake – and slow motion, because more cameras are incorporating that.”
8. Storytelling and personality
Bluegg studio manager Rob Mills reckons 2013 will see a “further step in the direction of storytelling and personality on the web, achieved through a greater focus on content and an increase in the use of illustration”. He says content strategy has always been important, but we’ve nonetheless of late seen a renewed focus on content. “Agencies and individuals are therefore going to have to work better with clients on content-creation and management, which can only be a positive thing for user experiences.”
9. Making a profit
We’re used to seeing venture capitalists fling money at half-baked ideas, and major players open bulging wallets to pay absurd money for existing services (witness Facebook’s $1billion purchase of Instagram). Developer, speaker and writer Rachel Andrew hopes the coming year will see this change. “From a business perspective, I’m hoping 2013 will see more celebration of profitable businesses," she says, "rather than glorifying successful funding rounds.”
10. Tablet thinking goes beyond the iPad
Publication designer Roger Black says publishers will in 2013 “continue to push out native iOS apps” as they realise “the iPad is not the magic pony they’d been looking for”. Android and Microsoft tablet sales, combined with apps not being linkable outside of each platform, will result in more “impressive, hand-built responsive HTML apps that play everywhere”. However, Black adds iOS wrappers for responsive publication templates will “allow publishers to have their app and eat it too, enabling developers to stick to new OS revisions and publishers to stick to content.”
Mobile platform strategist Peter-Paul Koch also thinks we should watch out for Tizen: “It’s an HTML5-based mobile OS created by Samsung and Intel, and initial devices are expected in Q2 2013. If Samsung pushes Tizen devices, you’ll know it’s going to be a big deal.” On Firefox OS, Koch is less optimistic: “It will fail, because they can’t produce cheap enough phones that compete with cheap Androids and run a decent browser.”
12. The app backlash
Apps remain big business, but some publishers continue to edge to HTML5. Redweb head of innovation David Burton reckons a larger backlash is brewing: “The gold rush is over, and there’s unrest in that apps aren’t all they promised to be. We now live in a just-in-time culture, where Google can answer anything at the drop of a hat, and we no longer need to know the answers. The app model works the old way. Do we need apps for every brand we interact with? Will we even have iPhones in five years’ time? Who knows? But one thing is certain – the internet will remain, and the clever money is on making web apps that work across all platforms, present and future.”
13. A mobile design explosion
Designer/developer Dan Eden says that with “more companies focussing web efforts on mobile,” designers will feel the pressure to brush up on the subject, to the point that in 2013, “designing for desktop might be considered legacy support”. Rowley agrees projects will increasingly “focus on mobile-first regarding design, form, usability and functionality”, andChris Lake, Econsultancy director of product development, explains this will impact on interaction, with web designers exploring natural user interface design (fingers, not cursors) and utilising gestures.
HTML5 introduces a great feature, offline caching. Basically, this feature allows you to tell the client browser to cache some pages so your visitor will be able to view it again, even if he’s not connected to the Internet.
Caching pages is pretty easy. The first thing to do is to add the following to your site .htaccess file:
AddType text/cache-manifest .manifest
Once done, you can create a file named, for example, offline.manifest, with the following directives:
And finally, link your .manifest file to your html document:
That’s all, and your page will now be cached if the client browser supports this technology.
Server-side JavaScript
Since the mid-90′s, JavaScript has been a very popular client-side language for web developers. But nowadays, JavaScript is becoming more and more used on the server side. Why? Because now we have powerful server-side JavaScript environments such as Jaxer, Node.js and Narwhal.
The code belows demonstrate how to create a simple Hello World using Node.js.
var sys = require("sys");
sys.puts("Hello World!");
CSS animations
Most modern browsers are now supporting CSS animations. Yes, CSS are now allowing you to create some simple animations, without the help of a client-side programming language such as JavaScript.
The following example shows how to make a background color change. As you can see, we have (for now) to use some proprietary properties such as -moz-keyframes.
CSS3 introduces a few new units, including the rem unit, which stands for “root em”. If this hasn’t put you to sleep yet, then let’s look at how rem works.
The em unit is relative to the font-size of the parent, which causes the compounding issue. The rem unit is relative to the root—or the html—element. That means that we can define a single font size on the html element and define all rem units to be a percentage of that.
With the rise of mobile devices, and on the other hand, of very wide displays, creating a website that looks great in both big and small devices is definitely a challenge for web designers and developers. Happily, the CSS3 specification have a new feature which allow web developers to define styles for a specific display size only.
For example, the code below show how to apply a specific style only if the client display is smaller than 767px.
HTML is used to structure content. CSS is used for formatting structured content.
Okay, it sounds a bit technical and confusing. But please continue reading. It will all make sense to you soon.
Back in the good old days when Madonna was a virgin and a guy called Tim Berners Lee invented the World Wide Web, the language HTML was only used to add structure to text. An author could mark his text by stating "this is a headline" or "this is a paragraph" using HTML tags such as
Mark Penfold examines the tools of note that came out in July
This month, developers seem to be focused on stripping away unwarranted code and returning to essentials. Whether in the form of a 'strict' interpretation of JavaScript (GorillaScript) or the simple body movements that provide Move.js with input, the spirit is for streamlining.
This is good. It's far too easy to keep adding libraries and functions to a project, which eventually falls over thanks to the morass of interlocking objects vying for control. Frequently, it's when this happens that you realise things could have been done much better if you'd just had a bit of discipline and planned ahead.
So, do your playing around in a sandbox (Kodiak JavaScript on the iPad would be good for that). Then apply the lessons once learned. And don't for get to document the process, not just for others but for yourself too. Daux.io makes this easy enough, and strange as it may seem, explaining yourself is a great way to spark new ideas and insights. And these are what we're all looking for.
There's not many who would want to do really serious development on the iPad, but there is a case to be made for those relaxed moments where you don't want to power up a laptop, let alone get out of your hammock, but you do want to hash out some JavaScript-related idea you've had. For those moments, Kodiak JavaScript hits the spot.
There's a few shortcomings, such as a missing console for debugging and documentation for finding things like the console. However, the app is pleasant to use and provides a whole rash of libraries ready to include in a setup that actively encourages experimentation.
Web design encompasses many different skills and disciplines in the production and maintenance of websites. The different areas of web design include web graphic design...Click Here To Read More
