This article talks about the importance of a home page, which plays a big importance in keeping visitors returns. A homepage has to let the visitor know immediately what the site does, and has to be user friendly. Besides that, it has to keep things fresh for the usual visitors by introducing them to the new things available, but maintaining the website navigation consistent is important to not get the visitor confused.
I agree with the article’s goals for a homepage because for first impression is the key to keeping the visitor’s stay. Every point mentioned is a great guide to look upon while making a homepage.
In this article, the major ten mistakes in web design are discussed. It is all mainly related to website navigation and giving what the user looking for at the webpage.
The points mentioned are a good reminder in making a website, however, issues such as pdf reading can be problematic sometimes but it has been upgraded and become much easier to use.
This article talks about the definition of usability and the importance of it. Usability of a website also relates to its user friendliness to enable users to easily get hold of how to get around the website and make good use of its features.
It is agreeable that to test out the usability of a website is to run some user testing to gain a different perspective and get reviews. Besides that, making the design of the website creative and different is good but the usability of the website always comes first.
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A minimum of of width of a web page should be at least 800 pixels. I do agree with this as this minimum width can at least fit in a short paragraph and perhaps a sidebar.
Looking at websites, the outlook does affect the impression of the website. The aesthetic of the website should enhance the content. It also affects the target audience it attracts.
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The article points out the pros and cons of using flash for websites. It only takes a few seconds or clicks to hold a user's attention - therefore taking a long time to load a flash page is definitely a frustration. Besides that, some computers may not have the latest flash upgrade, and therefore the website is not viewable. I do agree that only using flash in certain features such as galleries, or things taht needed a boost in feature will indeed enhance user experience.
This article explains a lot about text formats, this allows me to take a deeper understanding into type styles for web. Designing for web and print are totally different – what it seems on firefox may not turn out the same as in Internet Explorer. While designing for web, we have to think about user increasing font sizes to aid readability, and sizes will affect the whole of design.
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This article talks about the different text problems faced when developing for web due to the different types of browsers available. I do agree that ems are tricky to work with, but in order to achieve a more consistent text size across all browsers more measures have to be taken.
The article talks about the cons of using tables for creating a website and css should be used instead. Also it discusses a few points that have to be taken into consideration while creating a website – anything that takes long to load and eats up a lot of bandwidth. I do agree that css has made everything much easier and tables for the web feels very complicated.
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This article discusses about the web trend of aesthetic being prioritized over usability. The author expresses concern for the new designers forgetting the user’s experience, focusing too much on the style they want to create instead of giving what the users what they want. However, in my opinion, it is undeniable that this trend will continue as it is part of designers job to beautify and give styles to a website; but this article reminds us of our duty as a problem solver as well.
Typetester is a very useful application for a web designer as they look could preview text design in a much quicker way. Text is a much more challenging issue to deal with when designing for the web. Perhaps an application that displays of how the website will look like across all platforms/browsers, including mobile could be useful.