published: October 23rd, 2008

User Interface Design Key to Achieve Best Web Development

From early days of www, the Internet sites that are added day by day are increasing tremendously. When you will consider this pool of web, may be they are about computers, industry, entertainment, search engines, fashion, organizational or even individual, all of these sites are concerned about one major part of web development apart from the logic or programming efforts behind it is ‘User Interface Design’.

Any web site will gain your interest by its appearance in front of you as well as ease of using and understanding the contents in that particular page. Therefore many of the web developers out there are always trying to go for the best user interface design which must also be affordable, can be either done by the developer firm or by web developer individual himself or he have to outsource the site for user interface creation.

The main stages in the creation of the user interface can be roughly listed as follows:

1. Note down all the aspects of your web site,

2. Try to list items as per their priority on the web page as well as consider their categorization.

3. From this list highlight points that are required to be catchy (e.g. in most of the general web site the Chat / Mail / News are considered to be the most catchy points whereas on the online shopping site the special offers and hot selling items may be the most catchy points).

4. Then decide the color combination of your interface (As per my point of view this is the most crucial part which many of them out there do not take into consideration which results in to a web site which is nothing but a site full of color in fact site looking like a circus! (You can understand what I want to say). So if you are rally very careful about the richness of the user interface then you should not fail to consider this point.

5. Once you have decided the color combination you have already won half the battle. Now you have to draw a picture of how your web page will look like finally, where on the web page I will place the catchy points I have listed previously, what will be common between the web pages (A date and time may be there from home page to the last page of your web site).

6. Finalize placing of all the remaining points in the list prepared by you.

7. If required repeat the steps for all the succeeding pages in your web site.

8. Then and only then go for designing of the web pages using various tools.

You may take help of various image-editing softwares like Adobe Photoshop, Paintshop Pro, even normal paintbrush for giving effect to the various images, backgrounds used in the page design. You can also embody various animations in your web page to give it a nice touch. You can try Macromedia Flash, GIF Animator or Animationshop for the same.

Some important tips-n-tricks of making your web page look catchier than ever will be discussed in my next articles.

Remember more effective and easier user interface - more the number of visitor (or even customer) who will specially halt at your site to check it out.

Nikhil R. Salvi
B.E.Computer Engg.
India

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published: September 5th, 2008

The 10 Most Common Web Design Mistakes To Avoid

1. Don’t use fancy web programming. Keep your website plain, simple and use basic technologies - Do not use Flash on your website,if a user doesn’t have flash, they will not see that content, so if your navbar is flash, the visitor will not be able to navigate and you will be dead in the water. Don’t use aggressive javascript. If you use aggressive javascript, security warnings will popup and scare the visitors, also many people set their browsers to ignore and warn when there is aggressive javascript. Don’t use poorly written DHTML, it will look misaligned and not consistent on all browsers and operating systems. Poor written DHTML is also known to confuse the browsers sometimes and will keep the page from loading at all.

2. Don’t use unnecessary words. On your website, make sure to use words and phrases that are only 100% necessary. Be direct, say what you want to say and that is it, especially if it is a professional, business website. Don’t start writing and go off on tangents or bring up unrelated content. Most website visitors leave a site after 30 seconds, you better make sure your website content and text says what you want them to read while they are there on their short stay, if not, you will lose sales, customers and leads. Be direct and stay simple with you website content.

3. Don’t assume your visitors will know what you are talking about. Just because you know what you are talking about, doesn’t mean your website visitor will. Make sure you use simple words, terminology and ideas to translate the purpose of your website to your visitors. By using descriptive words, stories, examples, testimonials, etc, you will easily be able to translate the important message and ideas your website is trying to translate. Remember, your goal isn’t to be clever in your writing, it is to get your purpose across to everyone who visits your site.

4. Don’t forget that repetition works. Repetition is key when explaining your strongest point and benefit of your website. Make sure to repeat your main point at least 3 times, some people will miss it. Remember websites read in a linear way, up and down, so if someone visits your site, quickly looks at your important headline, but doesn’t really read it, you will have problems, make sure to repeat the important message of your site multiple times farther down your page. Repetition is key.

5. Don’t use big paragraphs of content, people like to skim on the internet. Think about when you are waiting somewhere, like a dentist office or something, and you know you will only be there a few minutes, you skim, you don’t really read, just look through quick and read main headlines, sub headlines and look at pictures. It is the same type of feeling for your website visitors, they don’t think they will be there long, so they skim, big time skimming. That is why it is important to make your content as legible and powerful as possible. Cut your big chucks of ideas into smaller ideas with strong headlines and sub headlines, this will insure more of your ad copy gets read.

6. Don’t use content that is unrelevant. Make sure to use relevant content your target market visitors are looking for. If they type in ‘make money at home’ and you tell them about how to cook a good grilled cheese, this isn’t going to sell your product or service. Make sure your site has relevant content and keywords that pertain to whatever you are selling. Not only will your visitors thank you, but they will keep coming back for up-to-date information about what your site is offering.

7. Don’t give your visitors a headache. Keep your web design consistent and use style sheets. To keep your website easy to read and not give your visitors a headache, keep the font style consistent over your entire site, use caution when making text bigger, bolding or italic. Yes, you want to use these options for highlighting key points, but do not make the whole page a bunch of bolded, underlined, italicized text. It will give your visitors a headache and all your hard work getting them there will be lost.

8. Don’t use big words that might confuse your visitors. Not everyone is as smart as you! Make sure every single person from every single area of the world who understands English will be able to understand, internalize and interpret your website. If they don’t know a word and have to look it up, it will confuse them, make them feel stupid and hit the back button. Don’t get fancy with the language

9. Don’t forget to highlight main selling points. As I said earlier, don’t use many variations of text all over your website, keep it clean and consistent, but in cases of selling words and phrases, make them bigger, change the color, and by all means, use bolding, italics, underlining, etc. Highlighting your important selling words and phrases is why variations exist, they make the user focus in and ask themselves, “Why is this text different?” As soon as they ask themselves this question it makes them read the text slower and internalize it more than the other parts. By combining these highlights with your key selling phrases, you will exponentially grow the power of your key phrases!

10. Don’t forget that what really captivates people is emotion. Use words and phrases that create emotion. People will magically become more interested in your product or service if they are emotionally attached. If you have emotion in your web ad copy, some people will buy strictly because of the emotions and excitement they get while reading. Use stories and personal experience to induce emotion in your ad copy. At first this may hard, but keep thinking about it and trying to add more and more emotion to your website and I guarantee you will see the results!

Eric Stein is a successful young internet business owner and marketing expert. He started building websites and marketing online at 19, and by 21 had a successful web design business. Now at 25, he owns and operates multiple websites and internet businesses that generate over $50,000 per month in sales.

Eric’s goal now is to find people that want to attain financial freedom through networking marketing using the power of the internet. His specialties include Internet Marketing, Internet Network Marketing, Work at Home, Home Based Business, he knows what it takes to make money and succeed on the internet. He makes a full time living off the internet.

Check out his NEW “Learn & Earn” marketing system that is guaranteed to work for you… he is completely waiving your enrollment fee and even giving you $1,749.00 in FREE Products! Visit: http://SchoolToSuccess.com

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