As the web has developed so has the technology and range of platforms we can use to engage with it. As the range of screens increases, higher resolution displays are becoming the norm whilst at the same time both larger and smaller screens are becoming more widespread than ever before.
As designers we have a choice. Do we continue designing for the ’safe’ standard of 960px or do we expand our horizons and begin to think about flexible or even responsive web design. Sites that look different for different users depending upon their screen size are not a new thing, mobile sites have been around for years, but responsive design proposes something else entirely, designs which scale to anything from a iPhone right up to a 52″ high definition television screen.
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Validating HTML or CSS code is a controversial topic. Many are strict on assuring their code is validated while others do not care at all. There are plethoras of reasons why you should validate your code, or at least as much as possible instead of ignoring the errors. We discuss several benefits to validating your HTML and or CSS.
Decrease Cross-Browser and Cross-Platform Issues
There are many reasons why some browsers interpret your code differently from others. While it could be an intended implementation in the browser, it is mainly a bug in its interpreter that causes variant changes to your web page across many different browsers and platforms.
You can implement many quick fixes and “hacks” to your code to get it to ...
There are many techniques in CSS to achieve certain results in different ways, CSS sprites being one of them. CSS sprites is a technique used where you can have a large single image containing a set of images that can be broken down using CSS to separate the image into multiple.
To better understand this concept, let us look at the following example image:
As you see in the example image, there are three top bars of different colors all separated by some whitespace between them. Instead of having each of these bars as individual images, you can join them into one as shown above, and with CSS, you can separate them so they seem as separate images.
Moreover, let us say you just wanted the left and right corners ...
A major problem with many new websites today is that their content is geared toward a different topic from what their site initially started up as. For example, let us say a website starts up geared toward gadgets and technology reviews. For the first few months, you are getting exactly what you came for, technology and gadget reviews.
However, as time progresses the reviews begin to widen to internet technologies such as web development, emailing, and the likes immediately.
As a reader, you will not necessarily be interested in reading about web development or emailing as you visit the site for gadget and technology reviews, thus, you will probably begin searching for a new website to call home for your gadget and technology review source. Going back to being a webmaster, we ...
Sometimes, we all begin to deviate from a project we are working on due to finding something that we may find interesting or the cause of distractions from devices or services. However, such deviation or procrastination may cause delays and possibly lead to lies and angry clientele.
Furthermore, deviation or procrastination is a general symptom among designers and freelancers alike that hits us on occasion. Moreover, we discuss six methods or tips that can help you stay focused as a designer to avoid deviation and or procrastination.
Working on an Aspect You Don’t Care For
This happens to everyone, we are “pumped up” when we first begin working on a design and as we complete the parts we enjoy and transition to the aspects we sometimes hate ...
Web forms are used for all different types of data submission, video submitting, contacting, blogging, registering, or for ordering items online. All the forms come in different flavors, large or small, black or white, short or long. Therefore, forms are very important to you and your users, thus, making them just right is the key to increase usage.
Below we cover six tips to improve your forms for better exposure and usability.
Not Too Large, Not Too Small
A major issue with many forms out there is their sizes, many developers or designers try to fit long forms into small spaces, reducing the size of the input boxes greatly making it difficult for users to proofread what they enter. A good ideal size for each input box, which includes large text boxes and ...
As the web standards continue to increase, new technologies and techniques arise, which increases clientele expectations for what a designer can bring forth. Whether be it fancy gradient effects, attention to detail, or mesmerizing illustrations, there is always that expectation a client wants for what they envision for their design. Furthermore, we discuss eight things a client expects from today’s designers to have learned.
PHP
A lot of clients search for designers who can design and develop in PHP to eliminate the process of contracting two or more people. Let us dive right into why and how it is important. Clientele range from many different niches, from portfolios to corporate sites but they all have a few things in common in terms of needs. Most websites we look at ...
Now that mobile browsing is ever increasing in popularity, it is in your best interest to start optimizing your websites to better fit the mobile platform and its limitations. There are many easy ways to enhance you website for mobile browsing without hindering much of your website; we discuss eight popular ones that can make a huge impact on usability.
Fluid Width Layouts
Giving your site a fluid width layout is a major step towards making your website mobile friendly. It not only gets rid of the extra dead space surrounding your website, but it additionally enables viewing across many different resolutions or platforms. So what exactly does it mean to make your site have a fluid width?
Fluid width, as its name describes, makes the width of your website ...
There are many websites of the same genres, but we all choose one out of them all. Whether be it the design, the layout, or the service that hooked us onto it, we all know they all offer similar content. So if you are designing and developing a site in the same genre as many others, how should you design it and what key elements should you include?
Additionally, what really sets these content providers apart from each other? In order to demonstrate what really sets content providers apart, we dive right into news content providers and technology content providers such as ABC, CNN, BBC, Engadget, and others.
Design is a major aspect of running a successful service. Having a disorganized design can destroy your user base, thus, it is critical to ...
When we have one few too many clients, we panic and begin to cut corners to squeeze in as many clients as we can into our schedule, and we end up working nights and weekends with buggy results. What if there is a way to save time and still manage the same amount of clients if not more?
Creating modular components is a step closer to reaching that goal, you can have 10, 20, 30, or even 40% if not more complete already with just several minutes of piece work.
How Does Developing With Modularity in Mind Work?
Developing with modularity in mind means everything that you can develop that can work on its own without the requirement of being laced with its parent to function properly. For example, let ...
