Website Design Practices Archives • Page 9 of 13 • TotalWeb Partners

November 21, 2018

9 Web development trends you simply cannot ignore in 2018

Website Content, Website Design Practices Web Development

Grabbing your target audience’s attention is not going to cut it anymore. With competition becoming stiffer with each passing day, you have got to keep them interested for long enough as all those websites hit to turn into conversions. Web developers have also got a crucial role to play when it comes to catching and keeping the user’s attention, and they can do the same using some smart tactics.

In keeping with the times, here are 9 trends in web development that every developer should watch out for, and ensure the implementation of the same for better conversion rates. Exceed your customers’ expectations by dishing out something extra, and these 9 web development trends can tell you the ways to do it!

9 Next-Level Web Development Trends to Watch Out for

1. Revamped landing pages
Landing pages have gone through an unending process of transformation. Moving past the text-heavy landing page formats, we have come to light landing pages that focus more on the information being readily accessible to the user. Since Internet users do not care to read even a third of what you write as content, it is best to keep the text to a bare minimum when it comes to designing your landing pages. Use riveting web design templates and features (and tonnes of CTAs) on your landing page to cater to the streamlined queries and problems of your users.

November 18, 2018

by TWP Publisher

The Art of Web Design

Website Content, Website Design Practices Web Design, Web Development

Websites have grown bland in the contemporary digital age. Template-driven and generic, homogenised by the frameworks of big-name content management systems. The internet is a place of dry technicality; portals seeking to convey information or to market a product to a specific audience, often afraid to break out of the norm.

Mammoth marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay are utilitarian in their layout and design, and countless smaller brands follow suit. Perhaps blinded by the success of those giants, maybe fearful of confusing potential customers. However, we must also keep in mind that computing technology and processing power has still been in relative infancy—something that has forced designers to adopt a ‘bare bones’ approach, simply so that the pages would not an age to load.

The advent of 4G wireless connectivity, processors associated with light-speed calculations, and network providers dishing out generous data packages has to some extent served to lift these previous constraints. Slowly, but surely, we are beginning to witness websites which mirror works of art.

A breed of disobedient designers are redefining the art of web design by bucking the visual conformity that has oversaturated our digital age—whether it is harnessing the avant garde approach of web design brutalism, the tongue-in-cheek throwbacks to the disagreeable design of the mid-1990s, or using the latest technologies to bring the progressive aesthetics of high-end fashion magazines to life, there are pioneers ready to bring a new visual language to the world wide web.

Be it culturally-engaged design brands or experimental musicians, simply creating a free web store or the birth of another personal blog, designers are taking notions of creativity to a whole new level. It is vital to create a sense of bespoke branding that will be memorable long after the visitor has left the page, to consider a human audience as opposed to a search engine. Sure, we want to provide a website that is easy to navigate, but too there should be an emotional, human connection that extends beyond homogenisation.

Nine Web Development Trends to Comprehend

Website Content, Website Design Practices Web Development Trends

Nowadays if you want to grab and maintain your customers’ attention, it is imperative that your website and social media pages boast dazzling design and fantastic functionality. You can spend hours crafting the most informative blog post, but when your website does not offer a first-class user experience, it will go unread.

So, to make sure that you meet and exceed your potential customers’ expectations you have to find a way to integrate these nine trends into your web development and marketing campaigns.

Being Accessible to All

For way too long websites have many times failed to include users with disabilities such as vision or hearing impairments. So, as part of your SEO marketing campaign it is strongly recommended that your web development crew ensures that your website is in compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

SEO Landing Pages Using State-of-the-art Design Elements

Gone are the days where the landing page of your website must have big chunks of text. As Google’s search algorithms are starting to pay more attention to user experience, there is no longer a need for your landing page to be weighed down by so much text. After all, Internet users do not even read a third of what is written on your web page. Instead, be sure to use different web design elements that will guide your potential customers to improve the user experience.

Google Fonts

What is not to like about something free, right? Well, apart from being free, Google fonts let you add unique typography to your website. On top of that, there are more than 130 languages to choose from! Though, what makes Google fonts such as great resource is that it will boost the loading time of your website as well as its performance.

September 19, 2018

by TWP Publisher

Why Retailers Need to Care About Web Development Platforms

Website Content, Website Design Practices Web Development Platforms

Brands are struggling to build and grow customer loyalty in an increasingly complex omnichannel environment. According to Wanda Cadigan, VP commerce, Sitecore, many are struggling with mobile enablement, in addition to the ultimate vision of delivering a uniform experience over every customer channel imaginable.

For example, in the UK, there might be a really cool and exciting mobile app that allows customers to shop with one click, personalises their recommendations, and allows them to organise returns easily, possibly built on a proprietary platform. But in the U.S., perhaps this same platform either doesn’t exist or a similar experience is built on a completely different platform. And when you deal with that in two markets, imagine what complexity emerges when you’re active in 30-40, or 130-140 markets around the world?

What if a brand worked differently in every market? The customer experience wouldn’t be universal and would cause many frustrations for both the brand and its customers. The more platforms that are used, the more difficult it is to provide your customers with the consistent, high-quality experience they demand across all your markets.

How does this problem emerge? Well, often siloed systems are deployed in a market to meet specific needs. You want to do something specific in France? You buy and deploy a service locally, which unfortunately may or may not talk to the system that runs the rest of the business’ operations, and may not be available in the UK, Germany, the U.S., or other markets. In many cases, the systems deployed may only support specific countries, due to limitations in currency support, language support, local tax frameworks, and more. This makes scaling a consistent brand experience difficult.

Even more challenging is the fact that often brand experiences that are tailored and owned in-market (only sometimes abiding with global brand guidelines) can be impacted by being delivered on different systems or platforms.

September 12, 2018

by TWP Publisher

5 Best Online Front-End Web Development Playgrounds

Website Content, Website Design Practices Web Development Playgrounds

As much as I love offline web development editors and IDEs, I hate the inconveniences which come with having to edit code, then open a browser to test changes. Even when a browser tab with the test file is open, you constantly have to jump from editor to browser and refresh the tab before any changes will show in the output. I have the preference of working on sites where the output is shown in real-time.

As soon as the code is written, the test-ready output is delivered within seconds. Conveniently, editable code and testable output are shown side-by-side. Another joy of these online playgrounds is the huge community of web designers and developers publishing code snippets for the world to take a look at.

1. Codepen

CodePen is one of the largest communities for web designers and developers where users can test and showcase user-created HTML, CSS and JavaScript code snippets. It functions as an online code editor and open-source learning environment, where developers can create code snippets, named “pens”, and test them. Codepen’s editors come with some common functionality like normal ones, with respect to code indentation and colorful syntax highlighting. It also supports a huge array of preprocessors for HTML, CSS, and JS, including but not limited to, Pug, Slim, SCSS, TypeScript. The collaboration mode is also very helpful. You never have to lose your work, because it is automatically saved, and you can resume whenever you please. With similarities close to Github, feel free to fork and edit other user’s code as you wish.

2. JSfiddle

JSFiddle is a vibrant online community for testing and showcasing user-created and collaboration HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code snippets, most appropriately known as ‘fiddles’. It allows for simulated AJAX calls. Just like with Codepen, the clean interface puts the code and the result side by side, and results are applied immediately after clicking the run button. It features support for SCSS, as well as JavaScript libraries such as TypeScript, CoffeeScript, Vue and React. It keeps on improving, and recently rolled out a code hinting feature which will suggest some common CSS property and value names, same for JavaScript. Collaboration with other developers supported too.

September 10, 2018

by TWP Publisher

Enjoy web development success with the best UI/UX design

Website Content, Website Design Practices Web Development

Without an excellent UI or user interface, a website fails to deliver a better user experience that is crucial for the impending success of any business. However, keeping up with the latest and best UI and UX design trends as well as implementing them in web development, custom website development services face various challenges. They have to adapt according to changing realities and demands of the users. Now they have to visualize the importance and scope of UI and UX design in business websites. To obtain better results, web designers have to make significant efforts to create an entirely new and appealing website.

They have to look for best UI/UX design trends as well as layouts in mind to meet the needs of the customers. Here we present the best tops for web development with best UI/UX design.

1. Mobile friendliness

Well, you have certainly heard about responsiveness concept. It is the most significant part of offering a better user experience. As a UI and UX designer, you need to follow certain UI design principles and also consider the preferences and choices of the users. However, it isn’t necessary that all of the users can only access your site from their own desktops. They might access them on their mobile devices like tablets and smartphones. In this mobile age, the users like to access almost anything on their smartphones. Hence, when you are deciding to design a business website, you need to create mobile-friendly features. With this important addition to your own website, you can certainly see significant changes in the business results.

2. Using appealing images to attract user’s attention

We are quite aware that attractive layout, as well as content, significantly improve the user interactivity with the website. Images are another aspect which plays a vital role in achieving the user’s attention at first look. Hence, having unique images is among the best ways to get users attracted to your website. It also enhances the visual hierarchy as well as increases the users. You can easily manage it by inserting relevant text on the images that clearly mention the actual purpose and meaning of your business service.

Enjoy web development success with the best UI/UX design

August 22, 2018

by TWP Publisher

Top 5 Easy Web Design Tricks for Marketers To Boost Conversion Rates

Website Design Practices Web Design

Maximizing website conversion rates remains one of the single biggest challenges for marketers today. Effective SEO and PPC can significantly increase website traffic. But raking high on search engines and driving website traffic is just the first step. Your site needs to keep visitors’ attention, convey the value of your offer and compel them to take a desired action — complete a form, download a document, or call your business.

If your website conversion rates are lacking, your landing page design may require an overhaul. The question you have to ask yourself is: how many leads or sales are you losing due to sub-par landing page design?

The good news is website conversion rates are something you can directly impact and improve. Even small landing page design changes can dramatically impact visitor engagement and conversion rates.

In the second version, a simple change produced big positive results.

By choosing a photo of a baby “looking” at the ad’s headline, users’ eyes were drawn to the text. Our eyes are naturally drawn to look where others are looking. Even if it’s a picture of a baby in an ad.

What subtle improvements could you make to your company’s landing pages to increase conversion rates? Here are our top five examples:

1. Choose an image that supports the call-to-action.

It’s easy to simply slap a header image from a stock photo site on your landing page and call it a day. But it can pay off to use an image that works in tandem with your headline and call to action. The right image isn’t just eye candy. It’s there to convey an important message to the user, and to provide important context.

Here’s an exercise to try: look at your header image without the headline, or the text to explain it. Does it still “say” anything about your product or service? If not, consider looking for something that compliments the text. Netflix does a great job of this on their signup page:

July 12, 2018

by TWP Publisher

4 Reasons Why Effective Writing Must Figure in Your Web Design Strategy

Website Design Practices Web Design, Web Design Strategy

Digitization has caught up with us and is taking root in all parts of our lives. From businesses to individuals, all strive to carve their niche in our digital world. Both newbie web designers and some of the experienced hands who have been in the industry for decades still believe that a successful website is all about the visuals. To some degree that is true; designing aesthetics and visuals are of great importance, but another aspect that should be recognized is compelling writing.

The textual content that you write is just as significant as the images that you will use and below are the reasons why.

Writing Grabs Attention

Forget the website for a minute, what do you do when you want to grab someone’s attention? You will probably shout or even scream to achieve this.

The same concept applies in the online space. So how exactly can you grab attention online through your website? Images can work magic, but they are not enough as attention-grabbing tools by themselves. It’s the content that helps your visuals attract and hold the attention of web visitors.

By using engaging content, you will be able to make a point in a precise manner effectively. You can create an element of surprise with your content, use it to shock your audience or use it to engage and pique the interest of your audience. But even as you are about to put down your words into writing, you should know that the content that you come up with must be written impeccably to grab attention.

2. Writing Helps You Demonstrate Credibility

Different kinds of sites have different expectations, but they all have a common requirement. They all have to look credible. It’s a logical requirement if you are using your website as a tool to help you sell something, promote a cause or indulge people in doing specific activities. The bottom line is, you need them to trust you and to achieve that, your website must look reliable.

The good news is it’s not rocket science to create a robust website that looks serious. Just like mentioned above, having the right visual elements and arranging them nicely is not enough to cut it. Your site still won’t appear complete and will require a cherry on top which is the added text. With good writing, not only will your website engage audiences, but it will also make your site weblink appear credible.

You can also subtly achieve this. It is unnecessary to write about the high quality of your products or brag about your high level of honesty. On the contrary, such statements could potentially have the opposite effect on your audience. When it comes to reputations of companies, it’s best when it speaks for itself.

July 9, 2018

by TWP Publisher

8 RULING WEB DESIGN TRENDS FOR 2018

Website Design Practices Web Design

Web design trends have undergone an apparent change as one of the most dynamic industries in web technologies. It is 2018, the eighteenth year of the millennia, a year for exploration of the web technologies in a dynamic perspective. Web technology is unbeatable and with the ever-rising technical challenges as more products get into the market, the only choice of web designers is be innovative and put up with the changing trends. They have to ensure that their designs fit any internet device be it a desktop or a smartphone. Here is a list of 8 ruling web design trends that will shape the web industry in 2018.

Prioritizing mobile web designs

Smartphones have surpassed desktop and notebook computers in browsing. According to Statista, a renowned scientific research organization, projections hold that by 2020 over 40 percent of the population of the world will own a smartphone. Interesting facts by the same organization project an annual smartphone shipping capacity of 1.7 billion by 2021. The implication is that most people will surf the net using smartphones. 2018 resolution is to give priority to mobile web designs. This year, 2018, is a year of transformative web design as designers embrace the reality of battling with technical challenges to give their users a satisfying experience in their web products with a top priority on mobile designs. Have a look on 7 essential principles of mobile web design to get designed a good mobile site.

November 20, 2017

by TotalWeb Partners

Creating User Experiences for Short Attention Spans

Website Design Practices

Today, website users are bombarded with all sorts of content and information, from cat videos to the latest news scandal. With all of this competition, it can be difficult to cut through the clutter and get your marketing messages across to your target audience. Indeed, generating and holding user attention online is one of the biggest challenges marketers face. Learning how to focus user attention on the right information is therefore critical to the success of your marketing initiatives. In this article, I’ll share six of the most effective tactics for capturing and holding your users’ attention.

Show Users Valuable Information

Users have limited attention, and they won’t use it on just anything. You need to show them information they’ll find valuable. This will increase their willingness to spend time and attention on your content. Use these tactics to highlight important points:

Use human faces to draw attention. This is especially effective when that face is looking at them.
Add bright colors and vivid photos will naturally attract the user’s focus. To determine whether important elements will stand out, squint your eyes while looking at a page and see what you notice.
Whenever possible, call out the user by name in relevant content.
Include animations, especially in the user’s peripheral vision, to draw attention to high-value content.

Your users will naturally scan any page they visit to search for the information they’re interested in. Highlighting the most important points will make your user experience more enjoyable since users will be able to find what they need quickly.

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