Web Design

Common UI patterns in web design

Article Written by : How Merchant Accounts Work

Design patterns have matured greatly in the last few years. There are probably two reasons behind this. First is the proliferation of responsive design. The second is the sheer popularity of WordPress and its theme market. In a way, there is very little left in the way innovation to be found in design for a multi-screen world. It would take a shift to a medium like VR for these fundamentals to change. Here are the most common UI patterns in use today:

The hamburger menu

There is a lot of criticism of the hamburger menu. Regardless, its use has spread from mobile view pages and Android apps to any collapsed menu. It was popularized by Google’s material design guidelines.

New account creation

This is another common pattern that will have a basic information form or buttons to sign up using one of the primary social networks. Some sites break chunk the required fields into multiple pages to make it easier.

Long scroll

Thanks to the smartphones, everyone is now used to continuously scrolling down. The requirement that all important content is above the fold no longer holds true. Part of what makes this effective on the web is when the long scroll is sectioned into clear parts.

The card layout

The credit for this goes to Pinterest. Since then many interfaces have changed their layout to mimic the card layout that was used so effectively. It makes for perfect cross page scanning and the rectangular shape allows for easy arrangement of different sizes.

Web Design

Three important web design principles

The design of the basic elements of your website is more important than you might believe. Website design is more than just making an good looking website. There are element level design principles that i followed will make the website more pleasant and easier to use. Here are three of those principles:

Visual hierarchy

This is one of the most important principles in good web page design. It decides the order in which the human eye perceives what it is seeing. A good example would be the “add to cart” or “buy it now” buttons on online shopping sites which use size and/or color to indicate hierarchy.

Choices

Another important principle to follow is Hick’s law. It states that each additional choice increases the time required to make a decision. This is the same problem many faced with ordering at a restaurant and having too many options to choose from. Reduce the amount of elements on a webpage along with as many filtering options as possible.

Size

Just like the above, there is another called Fitt’s law which stipulates that the time required to move to a target is a function of the distance to and the size of the target. Which means that he larger and closer the object, the sooner it can be clicked. A good example of this is in some music players, the play button is larger than the rest to make it easier and faster to play.

 

Web Design

A History of Web Design

Article Written by : Lo Cost Marketing
Tim-Berners Lee, a British engineer and computer programmer, is credited with doing something really special that most of us tech-savvy folks can really appreciate. Yes, with the help of a bunch of computer scientists who wanted to explore communication through computer networks in the early 80s at a European high energy physics research facility, he not only invented the World Wide Web but the first website as well.

The objective of the setup designed by Tim-Berners Lee was two-fold: to create the ability to link academic papers electronically as well as create a platform where these scientists at CERN could communicate with ease and quickly with other experts at other labs around the world.

Tim worked on the standard hypertext language protocol (HTML) and the first web browser that converted the information into screen-based text. And only two decades later, it has literally exploded and revolutionized how we view technology as well as how we live our lives, in a world where the Internet is no longer considered a ‘want’ but, a need.

When it comes to web design aspects, the earliest web sites were developed with basic HTML (classified as a markup language later with versions such as XHTML and XML) but has evolved rapidly while also incorporating Style Sheet languages, Client-side and server-side scripting, database and multimedia technologies in today’s world.

With the growing awareness of the power that the Internet offers its users, web design has changed to a profession that requires not just an understanding of programming but as a complete skill set that is involved in presenting content deftly through the medium of the World Wide Web.

Web Design

Aspects of Web Design

Article Written by : Visible Theory

When it comes to building a website, there are some aspects that are universal no matter whether you use text or multimedia to convey your message.

1. Presentability
After all, success (in terms of everything else in life) is determined by how well you combine style and substance, and in the case of a website, its overall appearance makes a big difference over websites that are either too dull or way too flashy. One way by which one can find this balance is by understanding the psychology of colors that has been used to great effect so far.

2. Purpose and Objectives of the Site
One must be very clear about the message that the site should convey along with clearly providing the information that the website intends to convey. Substance, in this case, goes hand in hand with the aforementioned style, and a degree of brevity and clarity is imperative to the success of its design.

3. Ease of use
What is the point if one cannot navigate through the site even if the above two points are well taken care of. Just ensure that a visitor does not have to click more than four times to get to a page as they will most likely look for another website that contains the same information, and just move on. Life is complicated as it is, so simplify and simplify!

Remember that the final objective of any website is to generate traffic, so these three aspect will either determine whether you achieve that or not.