Five Tips for Better Sites
Articles, Documentation, Online Services, Books, Software, and more
Draw the Line Between Design & Implementation
- Coding Your Web Site with Quality
When you're ready to turn your beautiful design into a live, functioning web site, you need to tread carefully. While many different paths will lead to a site that looks more or less the same, the maintainability may vary dramatically, as may the browser compatibility and accessibility. In this article, we explore coding issues.
- Designing for the Web: The Web Design Vocabulary
Readers of books expect to find a table of contents and page numbers to help them navigate. Viewers of web sites expect to find headers, footers, and persistent navigation. If you don't provide it, you significantly increase the chances visitors will get lost, or frustrated, and give up.
Think in Terms of Information Architecture
- Designing Your Site's Information Architecture
Information architecture is a big topic. However you are building sites, it's essential to think deeply and clearly about how best to organize a site's content. If the site is a simple brochure site, then there may not be much to think about, but the more content a site has, the more important it is to invest effort in this area.
- Boxes and Arrows: The design behind the design
“Boxes and Arrows is devoted to the practice, innovation, and discussion of design; including graphic design, interaction design, information architecture and the design of business. Since 2001, it’s been a peer-written journal promoting contributors who want to provoke thinking, push limits, and teach a few things along the way.” - Build Your Web Site Around Information, Not Pages
When building a small web site, it is natural to think of it as a set of pages. As the site grows, however, this approach becomes problematic. Information that you want to show on several pages needs to be entered on each of those pages, so updates require making the same change multiple times, increasing the effort required and the chances for errors. Since the content and the HTML markup are intertwined, it is difficult for anyone to edit the content unless they have HTML skills.There is a better way: store the site’s information in a database. Each page then is created from a template that provides the page structure, with content drawn from the database. This approach puts the information at the center of the site, rather than its presentation (the pages). It brings many powerful advantages over the static HTML approach:
Choose the Best CMS
jQuery
- A Closer Look at Choosing Between Flash and jQuery
A balanced discussion about where to use Flash and where to use jQuery, with tons of examples. - jQuery.sg.video an HTML5 video player | jQuery Plugins
A jQuery plugin that simplifies use of HTML5 video and Flash to provide video that will play anywhere. - jQuery Project
- jQuery UI
- FullCalendar: An Excellent jQuery Calendar Plug-in
One of our goals with Webvanta is to provide designers with the best in open-source technology, without exposing them to all of its hassles. For our calendar feature, we've chosen Adam Shaw's FullCalendar.
Drive Traffic with SEO and Social Media
- SEO: The Low-Hanging Fruit
Search engine optimization (SEO) is perhaps the most confusing, ill-defined, and controversial part of web design today. The good news is that there are some simple things that will provide a huge boost to most of these sites. Follow the easy steps in this article, and you'll be way ahead of the average site.
- Understanding Your Ranking Position in Google
- Top 10 search engine optimization tips for online news start-ups
- Free SEO Tools & Search Engine Optimization Software
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