1.    Flash pages
A Flash sequence can act as a delay, if not a total barrier, between customers and their intention (finding out information and/or making a purchase). Use Flash on a minimal scale for maximum impact.

2. Stock images
Stock images look cheap and tacky. Highlight the uniqueness of your company and business by using original images.

3. White background
Colours always attract attention and yet many websites have white backgrounds. While there is nothing wrong in having a white background in the web design, some use of creativity and colours can make a plain website look lively.

4. Wet floor/reflection/shadow effect
These should only be used if you really want your website to look as though it was designed in the early 1990s. Assuming that you want to appear more modern than that, avoid these so-called special effects at all costs.

5. Big fonts
While big fonts are eye-catching and bold, they should not be used too often and all over the website. Strategic use of big fonts can be effective in a website design.

6. ‘Click Here’
When you say ‘Click Here’ it creates ambiguity about the whole message. The visitor is unaware of the action that will be performed by clicking on the link. Instead of such a redundant and mysterious term, use phrases such as ‘Contact Us’ or ‘Read more about our services’.

Web designers beware!

The latest version of the popular browser, which is made by Mozilla, was posted to its FTP servers last week a few days ahead of its official release.
Firefox 8 is available for PC, Mac and Linux computers.

The most notable development to this latest version of Firefox is that it lets users search Twitter directly. Users can search the microblogging site by selecting it as an option in a drop-down search box or alternatively by highlighting some on-screen text, right-clicking and selecting ‘search Twitter’.

Firefox users can search Twitter for people, hashtags and topics.

The new version of Firefox also disables all third-party add-ons in a bid to offer extra security. Should users want to enable third-party add-ons, they can do this manually.

Tab loading is also different in Firefox 8. When a user selects ‘show my windows and tabs from last time’ as the default start page, instead of trying to open every tab at the same time when the browser starts, it simply loads the one currently selected by the user and then loads the others when the user switches to them.

Other improvements include changing the animation when tabs are re-ordered or detached.

Mozilla has released a new version of Firefox around every six weeks, earning them a reputation for rapid-fire web development.

The poll, conducted by community website SodaHead.com, also found that 91% of teenage users said that Facebook had worsened since the update.

If the figures were translated across Facebook’s user base, this would mean that the equivalent of 688million people preferred the social media site before it changed dramatically at the beginning of last month.

The changes included a Twitter-style news ticker at the top right-hand side of the page and a revamped news feed which many users have complained is more difficult to follow than its previous incarnation.

Nearly 80% of the site’s young users said that the website should get rid of the updates, with 89% of women and 78% of men in agreement with them.

The only group surveyed who approved of the changes were IT workers. Some 55% of those in the industry are pleased with the new-look Facebook. Beware web designers!  You may not automatically be on the same wavelength as the people you are designing for.

However, they were in the minority amongst the 1094 people who took part in the survey.

One respondent wrote on the website: “It sucks. Facebook needs to quit trying to ‘keep up with the Googles’ and just be the best version of Facebook.

“It worked because it was simple, uncluttered and didn’t require any thought process. Now, not so much.”

The organisation has bought Nitobi, which makes PhoneGap and TypeKit. It announced the acquisition at its recent Adobe Max developer and designer conference.

Experts say that the new tools will help Adobe to extend its services beyond its Flash Player technology into other areas of web design such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

PhoneGap allows designers to create web apps designed exclusively for use on mobile phones. It is an open source programming tool.

Danny Winokur, general manager at Adobe, said: “PhoneGap is a fantastic solution for developing a broad range of mobile apps using the latest web standards, and is already integrated with Dreamweaver CS5.5.

“It’s a perfect complement to Adobe’s broad family of developer solutions, including Adobe Air, and will allow us to continue to provide content publishers and developers with the best, cutting-edge solutions for creating innovative applications across platforms and devices.”

Meanwhile, TypeKit focuses on web-based typography. Subscribers to the service can use TypeKit fonts on their web pages.

Adobe already offers a font licensing service, which it can now extend to allow flexibility for display and digital fonts thanks to TypeKit’s capabilities.

Lea Hickman, vice president of product management at Adobe, said: “Typography is a fundamental design element and something that designers want to be more creative with on websites – especially as these websites now need to be viewed on mobile devices.”

According to a survey by OnApp, a cloud platform provider, 27% of respondents expect organisations from the enterprise sector to be their main clients over the same time period, whilst just 18% think that consumers will lead the way in the take-up of cloud computing services.

The study also demonstrated that the strongest uptake of cloud services by businesses is expected from web and application developers. A total of 67% of cloud providers say that this sector of industry will drive the biggest growth in business for them.

Meanwhile, 42% of those questioned expected to see the biggest growth from the IT sector in general, 39% from financial services and 30% from retail customers.

Those small businesses that were questioned said that they would adopt cloud computing services because they would allow them to scale their IT services on demand whilst not having to run their own IT infrastructure.

Ditlev Bredahl, OnApp’ss CEO, said: “Based on cloud adoption rates, our survey shows that cloud computing is most accessible to technical users right now. Adoption is being driven by small and medium sized businesses focused on application and web development. This makes sense, since sandboxed development, web development and testing are very well suited to a cloud environment.”

Muse allows graphic designers to create and publish websites without having to write code or work within restrictive templates.

The programme uses web standards including HTML 5, CSS3 and JavaScript. Its beta version is currently available as a free preview from the Adobe website and then a full version will go on sale in early 2012.

It is targeted primarily at designers and artists who are used to working with print, enabling them to work online without having to learn code. As such, Muse is built on a process that is very similar to InDesign, one of the most popular graphic design programmes on the market.

The programme provides a full set of pre-coded widgets for creating interactive site elements, allowing designers to create effects such as lightboxes and navigation menus. It automatically generates all HTML, CSS and scripting for the design and allows users to publish from within the programme.

In a further bid to make the programme as easy to use as possible, Muse also offers sitemaps, master pages and flexible tools. It also allows users to embed code from sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Google Maps: “Muse was built with the print designer in mind. It allows designers who are not coders to create unique, professional websites as easily as producing a layout in InDesign.

“This is an end-to-end solution with interactive elements like slideshows, tool tips, remote rollovers and lightboxes. It allows the designer to do things that only a hand-coder could do.”

Feng shui is an ancient Chinese system that helps people decorate and arrange their rooms and spaces in order to enhance the flow of energy and encourage health, happiness and prosperity.

Now, the system is being applied to websites in order to provide a better energy flow for the page.

Feng-GUI is a new Israeli company that aims to optimise the structure of websites by automatically analysing people’s attention when viewing a website for the first time.

It uses technology that simulates human vision during the first five seconds of a website opening up. The mechanism shows the main spots where the simulated vision goes to and stays. This enables web designers to adapt the website to maximise content where the simulated vision stays longest and overall to design a page that replicates the energy flow of this vision.

The mechanism uses an algorithm that could eliminate the need for focus groups and test viewings as it is as effective as mouse tracking and eye tracking. However, it would be hard for it to replicate other human responses, such as amusement or confusion.

Feng-GUI offers different types of analysis including heat maps, opacity maps, gaze plots and areas of interest.

According to wide-spread rumours in the blogosphere, Apple has filed a patent for its web design tool, iWeb, especially for the iPad.

This would make it the latest in a long line of well-loved Mac applications to feature on the iPad, with Garageband, iMovie and Photobooth already proving popular amongst owners of the iPad.

Website designers hoping to showcase their skills on the iPad may have a long wait ahead of them before the app is launched, however. Apple is still to announce exactly when iWeb for iPad will be ready for market, in the same way it chose not to give launch dates for other sought-after iPad versions of Mac apps at the iPad 2 US launch in New York on March 11th.

Whatever the release date, the move is good news for web designers wanting more flexibility. Working on the move is both easy and efficient thanks to the iPad and it’s great to think that web designers may soon be able to benefit from this as well.

Could this spell the start of a move towards iPads over laptops and desktops for web designers?

Come and say hello. You might win an iPhone!

A quick note before this week’s main article – today (Friday 18 March) and tomorrow (Saturday 19 March) the NS Design team are at Scotland’s biggest business exhibition New Start Scotland.

It’s at the Royal Highland Centre, Ingliston and we’re on stand D17.

If you come and talk to us about mobile websites you’ll be entered into a prize draw where you could win an iPhone!

You’ll be able to find out more about what we do, meet some of the team, and realise I’m even shorter in the flesh than I look on television.

A warm welcome awaits, so if you’re at New Start Scotland come to stand D17 and say hi.

Don’t Design By Committee!

(A horse designed by committee)

When they’re having a website built some businesses get their priorities all wrong.

And instead of approaching the project from the point of view of what their customers want, they get bogged down with their own internal politics and obsessing over what they themselves on the inside think it should look like.

This puts the web designers they’ve hired to do the work in an almost impossible position.

These highly skilled people instinctively know what visitors to websites want and how to get good results on-line. They’ve built dozens, if not hundreds of sites in the past (more than likely for other businesses in your sector) and are right on top of the latest techniques and software. These men and women are experts and you’d be mad not to take their advice!

Some companies end up in an embarrassing, endless loop of to-ing and fro-ing back and forward with tweaks and changes and meetings and embarrassing “I’m sorry, but the Managing Director’s not really sure he likes that” type phone calls.

Pleasing the client will always be a good web designer’s priority but they also want to create a site that does a good job and works for you so although you’ll never sense their frustration when you call with ANOTHER set of changes I do wonder how many sit squashing stress relief balls in their hands while they’re on the phone!

The good news is, these problems can be eliminated with a little bit of planning in advance.

Here’s how…

All this reminds me of a radio station I heard about once where the presenter got a call from the furious station owner while doing his show one night.

“I don’t want to hear that Dire Straits song EVER again!” he yelled. “Why did you play it?”

“Er, because it was on the playlist the Programme Controller gave me” the presenter explained.

“Well it’ll be coming off the playlist straight away…my mother hates it”.

Fair enough…but this radio station was aimed at men in their 40s!

This kind of thinking holds businesses back and plays havoc with web design projects.

I think it comes about because bosses (just like the rest of us!) are extremely busy.

So when the idea for a new website is mooted they’re happy to delegate and take a backseat.

But as the project moves along they find some time and become interested and CAN’T RESIST a bit of tinkering here and there! Then after having their say they get caught up in something else and, well, you can see that stress ball getting squashed a bit harder in the web design office!

Here’s another way some of these problems can be avoided…

Something else that can often go wrong and it brings down the whole quality of a website is when the client tries to make it do too much.

You end up with massive clutter and it’s a horrible experience for the end user.

A good example is in the media where you have half the business focussed on content, and the other half dedicated to selling advertising space. Increasingly, there’s a third area they all want and that’s interaction with users.

Some businesses and some web designers manage to integrate everything really well.

Others struggle.

Here’s two websites from organisations with big fan bases. They want to increase their number of Twitter followers. Which of the two makes it easiest?

http://www.wtks.com or http://www.glasgowrocks.co.uk

I’m sure you’ll agree the Scottish Rocks site is far easier to navigate and an all round better experience. That Twitter link is easy to find. Real Radio 104.1’s site (despite almost certainly costing much more money) is full of clutter and the Twitter link is buried deep in a sub menu. I’m sure everything’s there for a reason and is important to the station but the content gets suffocated and trying to find anything of value is a horrible experience.

Inside the company, everyone at Real Radio 104.1 will be happy because THEIR BIT is on the website. But what do the listeners think? “This radio station isn’t sure what it’s about, and I haven’t got a clue where to start”.

At the Glasgow Rocks site, decisions were made about what to put in and what to leave out; people compromised and considered what the user wanted from the site. And the end result is a smart site, where it’s easy to buy tickets, get the latest results and find out more about the team. And because it’s not swamped with adverts, you actually notice the couple that are there.

Whatever you want your website to do, better to pick a few things and do them really well, than try to force it to do absolutely everything.

Get your internal politics straight, get the big boss in the briefing and then let the experts get on with creating the on-line equivalent of a beautiful, sleek horse, instead of a camel that just gives everyone the hump.

Have you experienced a case of “design by committee”?  Share your comments below!

SEO is often an after-thought to web design, and many business owners tend to think in terms of building the site first, and then thinking about how to optimise it. This is not a successful strategy and could lead to you being ranked lower down the all-important Google search rankings than you otherwise could be.

SEO and web design should go hand in hand. Effective SEO can drive traffic to your site. What’s the point of having a smashing website with no visitors to experience it?

With your joint SEO and web design hats on, you can consider a range of structural and usability issues that can make all the difference between a successful website and a flop – both from an end user and an employee/organisational point of view.

One of these issues is a really basic one: which content management system (CMS) to use. Your choice of CMS is paramount and can make the difference between smooth processes and happy employees and customers – or not! We’ve seen a range of CMS’s in use during our time and the ones that factor in SEO are usually the best. Get advice from an SEO specialist before you choose your CMS.

SEO can also help you to arrange how to link pages together in the best way, making navigation work effectively for both Google and your end users. Site structure is one of the most important things to get right and one of the most difficult things to change once it as been put in place, so it’s fundamental to get this right from the start.