Top 3 Keys For a Great Web Design Every Time

With the huge amount of web browsing done these days, a web designer can’t afford to let their viewers leave their website due to bad design. A well built website should have 3 key elements that help viewers find what they are looking for. These keys are structure, usability, and content. Using these three keys will help web designers create a well designed website every time.

Structure

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The idea behind having a well structured website is to help the viewer quickly find what they are looking for. The information super highway does not afford badly designed websites to attract and maintain viewership. There are many properties contained within the structure of a website.

Spaces and Shapes

The foundation of good structure is utilizing spaces and shapes which contain the majority of content within a website, as well as mold the website into a logical form. Choosing one shape as a template to structure the entire website is good practice. In other words, if rounded borders are to be used on some of the tables, they should be used on all of the tables. In fact, they should be the same radius as well. The reason being, according to author Lilian Garret, “The more clearly the forms follow a regular and predictable pattern, the more we see them as single, unified groups” (Garrett). Spacing is also important in the structure of a website. Lilian Garret also says, “The nearer visual elements are to each other, the more we tend to group them together” (Garrett). In the example of a blog, each post should be adequately spaced apart from another post, while the body of each post, should be closer together.

Colors

Colors also help distinguish the content of a website. A good rule of thumb is to use two contrasting color palettes and one neutral color. The two contrasting colors are for the body background and the body text (keep in mind if viewers are going to be spending time on reading the content of the website: it is easier to read black text on a white background than it is to read white text on a black background). Neutral colors are great for navigational menus, or supporting a background color. Having a white background and using light blue tables to hold the content of a page would be an example of having a neutral color supporting a background color.

Paragraph Properties

Setting the proper paragraph properties of a website is another element to providing great structure. Paragraph properties include font face, font size, line spacing, and letter spacing. By default, internet web browsers have already done most of the work for us and will use the most reader friendly fonts. Stay away from using artistic, decorative fonts, unless they are large. According to fonts.com, “decorative type faces can detract from the communication process”.

Rhythm

The last element of having good website structure is rhythm. Every page on a website should look and feel the same. Every page should flow from left to right and from top to bottom with the most relevant information in the top left, drawing down to the least relevant at the bottom right. The most important information can be centered in the middle of a web page if there is adequate spacing around it. An extreme of example of this would be Google.com.

Usability

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Usability is defined as the ease of navigating and finding information on a website. There are three elements or ways of having good usability.

Site Map

The first is having a site map. Site maps are important navigational pages that display all of the important and relevant links on an entire website. It’s important to note that if a website has a lot of links, the site map should have categories with drop down menus. This way the site map will always look neat with little clutter of information which might be of no use to a viewer. It’s also important to remember that a site map doesn’t have to include every page on a website, in fact sometimes it is better to leave out some links. A good practice is to leave out links that would have no benefit to someone viewing the website.

Search Bar

A search bar is another element that would increase a website’s usability. If a viewer knew exactly what they wanted from a website, they would be able to type it in the search bar instead of having to navigate around the website or the site map.

Navigation Menu

The last, but most important element of a website’s usability is the navigation menu itself. Links in a navigation menu should be categorized by relevancy of other web pages. If a website has a lot of links, it might want to use drop down menus. Drop down menus are a great way of organizing and categorizing web pages. Drop down menus can be used with horizontal navigation menus as well as vertical menus. For lots of links, it is recommended to use a vertical navigation drop down menu. Amazon.com is a great example of a clean vertical navigation drop down menu.

Content

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With good structure and good usability, great content is on the way. Make use of paragraph and header tags. Place headers in logical order from h1, down to h6. The h1 tag is generally static and takes on the name or overall theme of the website. The h2 through h6 tags should be used for titles of paragraphs and sub titles of paragraphs respectively. If a website has a lot of fresh content appearing regularly, a good method to handle it is by having a header tag with a small abstraction of the fresh content. When designing the website, keep the content in mind. When a new viewer visits a website, they should know what the website is about without having to scroll. Clearly defined titles and short descriptions in the top two to three inches of a website will let new users know what the website is all about.

After using the three keys to create a great web design all that is need is email hosting,correct grammar, creative writing, and interesting graphics or pictures explaining your website.

Web design company : Mr Web Limited

Five Facebook Changes and What You Need to Know

#1: The News Feed Ticker

Probably the most controversial change is the addition of the News Feed Ticker. Some people hate it; others love it. But the one thing you can’t do is easily hide it. Although there are some workarounds.

The News Feed Ticker shows all the comments, posts, likes, friendships and events of all of your friends, pages and subscriptions.

The Ticker contains posts and “activity stories” (such as friends commenting on other posts, liking pages, RSVPing to events, etc.) but now the “recent stories” area contains only posts (which can include status updates, pictures, links and videos) by friends, pages, subscriptions and stories posted by apps (such as YouTube or Networked Blogs).

The Ticker is very real-time and shows who is doing what on Facebook right now. By clicking on the down arrow in the upper-right corner of a post, you can have more control over what you see from that person or the app that posted the story.

Click the down arrow in the upper-right corner to adjust the settings for posts.

The “activity stories” are what appear in the Ticker, so if you don’t want to see every move made by a person, you can unsubscribe to their activity stories. You’ll still get updates when that person posts something in their status bar. You can also decide if you don’t want to see updates from a certain type of application as shown in the picture above.

Something interesting about the Ticker is that previous posts by pages and friends may have a longer life than they did before. When someone comments or replies to a previous post, the story of that comment shows up in the Ticker and you can then click on the story to see the whole post again as shown in the figure below.

Posts have a longer life due to follow-up comments.

One benefit of the Ticker is if you have friends who are also connected to your fan page, and you see that they’ve replied to your fan page post in the Ticker, you can reply as your page right from the Ticker. But only if you have your Posting Preferences set to “Always Comment as your Page.” Find this setting in the Edit Page area of your Facebook page, and then select “Your Settings.”

Reply as your page right from the Ticker.

#2: Smart Lists

Smart Lists were also introduced. Mari Smith taught us how to make a Friends List in the Facebook 101 for Business Guide, but many people still haven’t made one. These lists help us keep track of posts by certain groups of people. And many of us have found that they were sometimes difficult to maintain when we made new friends.

Your New Lists are on the left sidebar of your Home page.

Facebook automatically creates several lists:

• Close Friends: Facebook does not actually pick your close friends (thankfully), but they do have a list of suggestions based on whom you interact with the most. When you put people on this list, you’ll see all of their updates.
• Acquaintances: Again, this list is not automatically populated, but if you add people to this list, you’ll see fewer of their updates in your News Feed.
• Work (based on your employment listing): If you add someone to this list, he/she will get a notification to confirm employment at this location. Facebook will add that employer to their profile. So only add people to this list if you actually work at the same place.
• School (both high school and college): These lists are self-populating, meaning that any Facebook friends of yours who list your high school or college in their profile will be put on this list. It is also self-updating for new Facebook friends you make or Facebook friends who later add this information to their profile.
• Family: If you have people who previously indicated they were related to you, they’ll be on this list. It’ll be self-updating for people who indicate they are family of yours; otherwise, you’ll have to manually add people to this list.
• Your city (set to a 10-mile radius around your city): This is another self-updating list for any Facebook friends who list your city in their profiles. You can set the radius of this list to include more people by clicking on the list on the left sidebar and selecting the “10 miles” hyperlink at the top of the page. You’ll then see a box where you can edit the radius as shown in this picture.

Change the radius of your area to include more people on this list.

If you’ve already created Friends lists, they are all still available. And maybe you’ve already created a list for local friends or family. You can merge these lists together by clicking on your list and clicking Manage List in the upper-right corner.

It's easy to merge your lists.

You can also easily send a post just to this list by clicking on the list, and then updating your status within the list.

Update your status just to people in your lists from within the list.

You can also send an update to certain lists at any time by clicking on the dropdown menu to the left of the Post button.

Control which list can see your posts.

One frustrating thing about Smart Lists is that you can’t delete them, you can only hide them. Click the pencil next to the list to hide it or add it to your favorites. If you have a list that you want easy access to, click More next to the lists, find that list and click the pencil next to it to add it to your favorites and now it’ll appear on your left sidebar.

Add a list to favorites.

#3: The News Feed

The News Feed has changed. There is no longer the Top News and Most Recent to toggle between, now there are Top Stories and Recent Stories. The Top Stories are things Facebook thinks you might be interested in based on your interaction in the past. The Recent Stories are in chronological order.

Top Stories appear at the top and Recent Stories are below.

If you check Facebook more frequently, you won’t have as many Top Stories because everything will be in the Recent Stories area.

As mentioned earlier, only posts such as status updates, photos, videos, check-ins and posts from applications like Networked Blogs appear in the News Feed. The “Activity Stories” will be posted in the Ticker.

The other change to the News Feed is the larger photo size.

#4: The Subscribe Button

The Subscribe Button allows you to make your personal profile more public. You can allow subscribers to see your public updates. You may not have wanted to friend people and weren’t sure about making a fan page. The Subscribe button is perfect for a more public person who wants to allow more connection with people.

To allow subscribers, go to www.facebook.com/about/subscribe. Edit your Subscriber settings and make sure you’re using the dropdown menu next to the Post button when you update your status to control who can see your posts.

Edit your Subscriber settings.

You can subscribe to others if they have a Subscribe button on their profile.

Subscribe to others.

Now a question you may have is, “Should I create a Facebook page or should I just allow subscribers?” Here are differences as shown on the Facebook+Public Figures page:

Differences between the Subscribe button and a Facebook page.

#5: Timeline

Now to get to the Facebook Timeline and other F8 announcements. The personal profile page is now called the Timeline. Facebook describes it as “All your stories, all your Apps, a new way to express who you are.” It’s also been described as your personal scrapbook.

The new Timeline.

You can update your status from here and your friends can still write something directly on your Timeline.

You now have one large picture at the top that you can change and update but it doesn’t change unless you change it (unlike the photostrip that was updated with your most recent photos). You can choose something recent that you were doing as your photo or have an artistic picture to express yourself.

Make your photo artistic.

One thing that I like about the new Timeline is the ability to go back in time. Click on View Activity or click on a date on the right side to a date in your Facebook history.

Rediscover what you were doing on a certain date.

You have options on your Timeline to hide stories, feature a story or change the privacy settings.

Use the editing features on your Timeline.

Other changes that came out of the F8 conference include Facebook partnerships with apps such as Spotify (music), Netflix, Hulu and the Guardian among many others. These apps will help Facebook differentiate itself from Google+.

So far there are no immediate changes seen for Facebook Pages. Facebook Pages will still continue to have the same look and feel for the time being, but most likely they will be updated to reflect the look of the personal Timelines. As all the changes are to the personal profiles, there are no actions to take for page administrators. We’ll continue to monitor the effect of the new Ticker and News Feed on engagement for Pages and keep you posted on the results!

Google Analytics Adds Real-Time Traffic Data

Google for the first time is providing a window into real-time web traffic with Google Analytics Real-Time.

Real-Time reports are available in the new version of Google Analytics, and administrators with Analytics accounts will get Real-Time reports. Google turned the new feature on Thursday for “a number of you,” John Jersin, product manager at Google Analytics wrote on the Google Analytics blog.

For users trying to gauge how a campaign or post is performing, Real-Time will track the immediate impact to site traffic. If a user posts something and then tweets about it, for instance, Real-Time will track when traffic from the tweet stops driving visits.

Google isn’t the first company to offer such data. Woopra, Chartbeat and a number of other tools also provide data in real time. But unlike some of those, Google’s will be free.

Speaking of which, Google also rolled out Google Analytics Premium, the first paid Google Analytics product. Perks for the service include extra processing power, advanced analysis and 24/7 support for $150,000 a year.

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Google Analytics Finally Goes Real Time (Plus New Premium Accounts)

We asked Alistair Croll, co-author of the O'Reilly book Complete Web Monitoring and the co-chair of O'Reilly's Strata conference on data, what he thinks Real Time Google Analytics means and this is what he told us:

Google Analytics has introduced an entire generation of entrepreneurs to Business Intelligence. But it's big and heavy, and until now, reports didn't show you what was happening right now, giving rise to a horde of real-time tools like Getclicky and Mixpanel. Realtime analytics might seem like a "vanity" metric--after all, we care about the number of sales that a campaign generated, which is an aggregate measurement.

But these days, marketing is flat, fast, and adaptive. A mention on Twitter can lead to a flurry of activity, and marketers want to engage with those visitors as the traffic spike is happening. Because Google Analytics is already doing the heavy lifting--visitor segmentation, ad campaign effectiveness, keyword search--it can tie the twitchy right-now realtime stuff to the long-term metrics that businesses care about.

Right Now reports will also make it easier for people to test and tweak their Google Analytics configurations in real time, which has long been a complaint with the system.

This is likely the first of a number of very big changes coming down the pipeline for Google's wildly popular analytics service - but it was also a prerequisite for many of the other things we'll see next.

For example, minutes after we posted this - Google also announced Premium accounts for Enterprise customers. Video below. Whoa. The short version: SLA, increased processing power, customer service, fixed (but undisclosed) fee for customers in United States, Canada, and the UK (ouch, sorry world).

My prediction: Google Analytics is going to become a much bigger part of the company and a much broader offering in the future than it is today. With the recent purchase of startup Postrank, Google will be able to offer real-time social media analytics soon. As the definition of the web expands into and beyond mobile, into and beyond other newly connected devices, the Google Analytics offering will expand allong with the world's understanding of information. It will organize all that information and now it has laid the groundwork do it in real time and for a fee.