Some New Starting Points In Website Design

By Author: Krish Garison
Total Articles: 22
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For the last few years, the buzz has been with responsive website design. What is important here is to understand that Responsive website design is more than just a layout, it’s actually about designing for the web. This means that designing for people with browsers. This is something that we are all aware of, that all the visitors who come to see our websites are probably using a browser. We had always based on our design assumptions on the screen size and input type. With the increased growth of devices with different screen sizes and alternative ways to interact, these assumptions have become tad unreliable. This is the reason that we need to upgrade our design styles. People keep saying that the web has changed and this article would discuss all the things that have changed in the recent times.

The 20th century saw the web in 640 pixels wide. In the early 2000s, the pixel grew to 800 and within few years, it became 1024 pixels. Then there was an abrupt change when a device with small screen entered the market. The ideas about the size of the web did not work anymore. Then tablets conquered the market and we became ...
... unsure of how the visitors viewed the website. The professional website design needed to undergo some alterations. If the web designers just assumed the pixels arbitrarily, it led to certain visitors being ignored.

It was always assumed that everyone who visited the website used a mouse. This was disregard of the fact that this was hardly true, and yet designs ignored to put forth any kind of alternative methods of interaction. The people who used the keyboard to interact had a tough time communicating with the website. The result was websites that was unusable. The mouse-over interactions were rendered dysfunctional in a touch device. With the popularity of these devices, it became hard to ignore and therefore most websites came forth with alternative interaction methods. The next thing that the website developers assumed was that everyone viewing the website had similar broadband speed. However, there are places that still lack proper Internet connectivity. It is important to integrate solutions that would address these problems and not dissuade the user from using the website. Other than this, people usually assumed that computers were super fast and the screens were calibrated.

The first new default is the touch screens. Touch has different renditions for different users. There are people for whom touch denotes tap, and for others gestures and swiping movement. These devices would enable the user to activate things. With keyboard, it is Enter, with mouse, it is a click and then there things that can be activated with voice and arms. The devices have grown to be complex, providing alternate ways to interact. It is only recently that people have started using alternative methods to harness the user input. The professional website design should be optimized to be able to address the needs of the user and be able to activate solutions.
The next default thing is small screens. Shrinking things is difficult especially compressing a desktop website for the mobile. To be able to develop a responsive website that would operate on different screen sizes, it is important to establish the right order of components and thereby think about hierarchy. The new approach to website design is to begin with elements that we know that the target audience would first see. The content is most important. Like, a Kindle does not support the latest CSS especially with old browsers, it has become important to design the layout first especially plan the text as it should be logically displayed.

The first step in designing the adept solution is to begin by designing the relationship between the customer and web page. To begin designing the professional website design for the mobile devices, we need to begin with the font sizes for the content. After the different layouts have been approved, the color gradient, borders and other elements can be added.

The next thing that should be kept in mind when designing the websites is the content. Till date, most of the website’s header came with a logo and navigation at the top. It may have sub navigation at the left, widgets on the right and footer on the bottom. The content would be crammed in between. Today, the website design is not about polluting the web page but about making it work, making it look good, appealing and readable. Once the content has been determined, it is time to move on to the navigation, widgets and the other factors. Interesting solutions can be configured if the content has been decided first.

In this age of responsive website design, we need clever solutions that would employ new techniques and new approach. Old default options would not work anymore. All the above suggested ideas can be concluded into a basic concept, i.e. to begin with the content, designing it, and then optimizing the same for different screen sizes. After this has been accomplished, the solution can be optimized further for mouse usage and fat fingers. The designers, who have a good sense of design and attention to details, would be able to design solutions that address the different layers of the web.

The web has always been a flexible medium and it has grown to be fundamentally different each year. With fluid dimensions blurring the modes of interaction, it is important that web designers provide solutions that address the needs of this unique medium.

Author bio:
To create professional website design, it is important that web designers keep finding new approaches. Since the web is a fluid medium, krish Garison thinks that adapting to its changes is conducive for the success of the website.