If you have ever spent a long time working on a design, you have probably noticed that after a while you may feel there is something “not quite right” about what you are working on but you just can’t seem to put your thumb on it. In most cases, this is because you “intuitively” know that something is wrong. But the image of what you are working on is “burned” into your retina. The image that is before you has become more dominant than that of your mind’s creative eye. I have discovered a little trick from my days as a fine artist to solve this problem. [Read more →]

Tags: User Iterface Design, Web Design by admin
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Asynchronous Put the “A” in AJAX
The key word is asynchronous.
“1.  A process in a multitasking system whose execution can proceed independently, “in the background”. Other processes may be started before the asynchronous process has finished.”—Dictionary.com
Most web pages are rather “choppy” because they need to “refresh” themselves, which is a nice way of saying completely re-load the entire page. This must happen every single time they need to “refresh” their data from the server. You probably have figured out by now that this takes time. What AJAX does is allow a web page to asynchronously update only the portion of the web page that is actually in need of fresh data instead of the entire page. Not only is it much faster, but the effect is that it is much smoother. This is because your eye does not have to endure the “flicker” or “hang ups” of the complete page re-load. Sometime the transaction is so smooth that the user often has no idea that it has happened. Knowing that you have affect [Read more →]

Tags: AJAX, Web Design by admin
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Web 2.0 is a blend of new technologies that provide a much more rich and robust user experience. There are 3 main Components to Web 2.0 as described by Andy Gutmans, Co-Founder of ZEND.

RIA (Rich Internet Application) Andy Gutmans says RIA is “…how we bring the experience from the desktop into the browser.” What this means is this. You may have noticed [Read more →]

Tags: Usability, User Iterface Design, Web Design by admin
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I frequently peruse for tidbits of inspiration. There are so many more beautiful, competent site designs than there used to be.  Setting aside a nice design and well thought out code, there is a common thread to be found that ties all of them together. They are all new.

Along with site design that is lean and beautiful come a few frustrations, however. Many designers find that after publishing an elegant user interface, they return to their client’s site a few months later only to find it cluttered up with gaudy graphics and inappropriate colors.

One of the ways to keep this phenomenon under control is by providing good documentation. [Read more →]

Tags: User Iterface Design, Web Design by admin
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Once you have decided to create a website, it can be difficult to know where to start. How overwhelming it feels to consider all the aspects of site design! The User Interface, Usability, Accessibility, SEO, Social Marketing, who your web hosting company will be, blagh blagh—auuughgh!! Remember though that the best designs are the ones based on strong principles and simplicity. An “over-gagetized” approach that tries to offer everything to everyone will not only overwhelm you, it will overwhelm the people who arrive at your web site only to quickly exit. So take a deep breath and think – “reasonable”, “simple”, “principled”. Do not focus on the masses of people coming to your web site. Focus on the individual person, the visitor that you [Read more →]

Tags: Web Design by admin
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