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| Webdesign Essentials | |
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| Topic Started: Jul 23 2005, 05:31 PM (209 Views) | |
| + Bird-E | Jul 23 2005, 05:31 PM Post #1 |
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Ive been thinking about starting a topic like this for a while, to see other people's thoughts. I'll start off with a little story- Has anyone ever heard, or been a part of a MSN Group? Basically, these groups are like small communities, that can have a set theme. They are a lot like websites, because you could create message boards, custom pages etc. Anyway, a long time ago, I joined the MSN Group crowd. Back then all the groups basically consisted of text and tables, with a few images thrown in for good measure. Then, a while into my MSN Group life, some people began introducing webdesign into the whole community. These people had basically set a standard of whats good and whats not. Eventually, almost every MSN group had their own 'webdesigner'. Now these webdesigners were just people who thought that just because they could make a layout and do some html work, they could brand themself a 'webdesigner'. All the sites now had a similar design. There was no creativity anymore. A good example is- http://groups.msn.com/animehighschoolrp. The design isnt actually that bad on this msn group, but ive seen it being used so many times, that I shudder whenever I see it. This fad died down and now all the groups that I knew about are dead. End of story. Now back to the topic. Many people that i know of (online), can make a website. These websites die VERY easily. What essential items and design approaches do you need to make a successful website? (feel free to add to the following list, or comment on it) -Design approach (bird-E style) I feel that you have to be in the right motivation to start a site, and have the commitment to make it last. Prepare yourself properly, dont start work too early. Be sure that you have a solid idea of what your aiming to achieve, and how this is going to be done. I often do preliminary sketches and a 'mock-up' of what will be on the site. Then we go from there. -Themes/style (bird-E style) Different themes give off different feelings. Try keeping one theme for a long time. Change is good, but if the site changes too often, people may be discouraged to visit. I'm seriously out of ideas right now. Everything isnt making sense, so I wont continue just yet. Like I said earlier, feel free to add your own beliefs, ideas, etc. |
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| + Bird-E | Jul 23 2005, 05:48 PM Post #2 |
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Sorry for the double post, but if any of you have read zeerus' blog, you might remember an entry from a long time ago. It mentioned ScionStatic somewhere in it, and when I checked the layout, it strongly reminded me of the ones I saw at MSN groups. The layout now isnt that bad though. |
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| Shadow12one | Jul 23 2005, 10:31 PM Post #3 |
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Like you said, for a site to be successful you need to be motivated and prepared to do everything yourself. In the beginning its just you, and the cold empty walls. From there your foundation expands and you get more members and staff. ALOT of design sites had a similar look. I got so sick of this design. Its like "grunge" sigs. Everyone does them. There is nothing professional or original. Heres an example of what I mean: http://www.opticlabs.net/pages/excelion_templates.htm The second one was the only one I liked. |
  Mankind fears the darkness and scrapes it away with fire to survive. | |
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| Hacker-X | Jul 24 2005, 08:23 AM Post #4 |
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something else that is important to me when i design a website... be sure to have a message board so you can build relationships with your customers, and ask what people think of you site, product, etc., use meta tags to ensure your on many search engines and let the search engine's crawlers go every were on your site none of the indexnofollow meta tags! easy navigation, dont have too many images or your site, if your building a layout put it in CSS so that it loads faster, and last but certainly not least, get a reliable server and uploading service |
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| Zeerus | Jul 25 2005, 06:50 AM Post #5 |
Spank My Monkey!
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Hacker-x, there are virtually no search engines that actua;lly follow META tags. Most bots just rank you based on content now, because many websites have spammed their META tags. I'll do a blog post about this sometime soon. I didn't know anybody actually read my blog. *must update soon* |
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| Hacker-X | Jul 25 2005, 07:47 AM Post #6 |
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lol, i read your blog, and i'm aware that almost no search engines dont use meta tags, but you still need them because if you want to have your site to have a description on Google... thats the only thing they're good for, lol |
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| Zeerus | Jul 25 2005, 08:24 AM Post #7 |
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Spank My Monkey!
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well, if you guys read my blog, at least post some comments so I know somebody likes the stuff I put up. I saw Fantastic 4 the other night, so I'll be reviewing that, and I'll write some web design articles sometime too |
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| + Bird-E | Jul 30 2005, 12:01 AM Post #8 |
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hmm, sounds good. Back to the topic, how much time do you normally put into the creation and set up of a site? design -Whenever im starting a site, I have a general idea of what the whole thing will look like. Getting all these ideas down into one layout can really help. Once you've got the basics of it mapped out, you can work on improving and refining it. A good way to improve your design is to search the web for other layouts. View the ones that you like, and see what elements are used to get the look and feel you want. |
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| Zeerus | Jul 30 2005, 10:33 AM Post #9 |
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Spank My Monkey!
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It all depends on what the project calls for. I can put out an entire, high quality website in a day or two if the demand is high enough. Usually the entire process will take me a week or two. Then again, I have to take time for meeting with clients, planning designs, and I also need to think about content management systems, usability, and formatting. A lot goes into the process. |
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11:27 PM Nov 26
