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9 Essential Principles for Good Web Design

9 Essential Principles for Good Web Design

Asymmetrical balance in web design When I first covered the idea of symmetrical design patterns here on Webdesigner Depot I had no intention of digging into the notion of asymmetrical design. However, the more I thought about it, the more I felt compelled to cover the topic to contrast some of the ideas revolving around symmetrical design patterns. In asymmetrical design we find designs that contain elements that do not create a mirror image. Most often, these asymmetrical designs are in fact balanced, but just not through perfectly similar halves. This sort of design is actually far easier to come by, considering most content doesn’t lend itself to perfect symmetry. Let’s consider a variety of sites that put this design approach to work and perhaps discover some ideas that can impact your own design work. Introduction to the use of asymmetry Bully Entertainment As an introduction to the notion of asymmetrical design this dramatic design provides a rather nice starting point. Jorge Rigabert Images to balance text Cake Sweet Cake

10 Principles Of Effective Web Design - Smashing UX Design Advertisement Usability and the utility, not the visual design, determine the success or failure of a web-site. Since the visitor of the page is the only person who clicks the mouse and therefore decides everything, user-centric design has become a standard approach for successful and profit-oriented web design. After all, if users can’t use a feature, it might as well not exist. We aren’t going to discuss the implementation details (e.g. where the search box should be placed) as it has already been done in a number of articles; instead we focus on the main principles, heuristics and approaches for effective web design — approaches which, used properly, can lead to more sophisticated design decisions and simplify the process of perceiving presented information. Please notice that you might be interested in the usability-related articles about 10 Usability Nightmares1 and 30 Usability Issues2 we’ve published before,we’ll cover more principles of effective design in our following posts. 1.

I Write Like H. G. Wells Become a better writer! Subscribe to our awesome free newsletter to learn how to become a better writer and receive monthly tips on writing. We respect your privacy: email addresses are never sold, and you can unsubscribe at any time. Below are the results of analysis of your text. Your Badge Code for your blog: <! Link for Twitter, Facebook, etc: I write like H. Link to share with your friends Analyze another text H. 7 new techniques every web developer should know CSS3 media queries With the rise of mobile devices, and on the other hand, of very wide displays, creating a website that looks great in both big and small devices is definitely a challenge for web designers and developers. Happily, the CSS3 specification have a new feature which allow web developers to define styles for a specific display size only. For example, the code below show how to apply a specific style only if the client display is smaller than 767px. More info: Create an adaptable website layout with CSS3 media queries Font resizing with REMs CSS3 introduces a few new units, including the rem unit, which stands for “root em”. The em unit is relative to the font-size of the parent, which causes the compounding issue. More info: Font resizing with REMs Cache pages for offline usage HTML5 introduces a great feature, offline caching. Caching pages is pretty easy. AddType text/cache-manifest .manifest CACHE MANIFEST CACHE index.html style.css image.jpg Server-side JavaScript CSS animations

The Principles of Design The web professional's online magazine of choice. In: Columns > Design in Theory and Practice By Joshua David McClurg-Genevese Published on June 13, 2005 Starting with the Basics This column is about Web design—really, it is—though it may at times seem a bit distant and distracted. We can group all of the basic tenets of design into two categories: principles and elements. Web design is a relatively new profession compared to other forms of design, due to the youth of our medium. How Does Web Design Fit In? I tend to define Web design as being one of many disciplines within the larger field of design (a peer to print design, industrial design, interior design, etc.). The first three articles of this column will be dedicated to unearthing these universal gems of insight so that we may better understand our profession. The Principles of Design There are many basic concepts that underly the field of design. Let’s begin by focusing on the principles of design, the axioms of our profession. Rhythm

Mastering HTML5 Prefetching What is prefetching, and why it is useful According to whatwg.org, rel=prefetch "indicates that preemptively fetching and caching the specified resource is likely to be beneficial, as it is highly likely that the user will require this resource." Search engines sometimes add <link rel=prefetch href="URL of top search result"> to the search results page if they feel that the top result is wildly more popular than any other. For example: using Firefox, search Google for CNN; view source; search for the keyword "prefetch". As loading time is a very important factor of a website quality, prefetching can definitely improve the user experience by loading pages before the user actually requested them. Prefetching pages with HTML5 Prefetching pages is super easy to implement. It is also possible to prefetch only an image: Browser support As prefetching (Or prerendering as Google Chrome name that feature) is a part of HTML5, it is currently not supported in all browsers: So, should you use it now? <?

Boxes and Arrows: The design behind the design Financial Best Practices for Web Design Freelancers A lot of web designers start their careers as employees for larger design firms. However, it seems inevitable that most designers will at least consider going out on their own as freelancers, either for side jobs or full time. One major key to any successful freelancing career, though, is to stay on top of your finances. Below are fifteen things you need to keep in mind when it comes to your freelance business financials. 1. Any time you're taking on a project for a client, you need to have a contract or agreement in place before you start any work. Your contract doesn't necessarily need to be filled with legalese and eighteen pages long. 2. There's nothing worse than spending two weeks working on a project only to have a client not pay (or take forever to do so). The amount of the deposit may vary based on the size and scope of the project. 3. The price you charge for your services can make or break your freelance web design business. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

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