CATEGORY: Web Design

One of the biggest changes to the Internet in recent times is on the verge of completion, leading to an exciting time for web designers and web developers. HTML5 has been in development since 2004, and web designers are increasingly adopting it as they see the advantages in using this new standard in programming for websites. In this blog we’ll take a look at what it is and what it means for web designers.

For the best part of a decade, most web pages have been encoded using HTML 4.01 or XHTML 1, the complex series of <tags> you see when you open up the source code for a website. These standards have long been the dominant language for writing a website, but are becoming increasingly more difficult to synchronise with new technologies. Take, for example, the picture slide shows many websites have. To add one of these to a website using HTML 4.01, a web designer must use a third party application, like Flash, to put it into the website. HTML5 will simplify all this by offering inbuilt support for such tasks.
If you think of each program as a different language, the implications for web designers are obvious. Rather than learning a bunch of languages – HTML, Flash, Silverlight etc, designers can do everything they need to in HTML5, cutting back on time and effort significantly.

Another good example is video – embedding a YouTube clip in a HTML 4.01 website is a messy affair, while HTML5 offers its own video (and audio) playback service.

HTML5 is designed to make it easier to add things into websites that have developed or advanced since HTML 4 came around, including chat, wikis, discussion boards and drag-and-drop (the act of clicking on something and dragging it somewhere else) tools.

We’ll examine some more features of HTML5 in our next post.

Posted by: Sukhbir Mehla

CATEGORY: Web Design

When it comes to getting a website for your business, unless you are a web designer there are two options – get a custom website from an experienced web design company or grab a website template off the Internet. In this blog post we’ll examine the pros and cons of each.

First up we’ll take a look at template websites, and what they offer. Templates are often free or at least significantly cheaper than a custom website, as they are pre-made and can be sold to multiple customers. For a business that needs an online presence but can’t afford to pay a web designer, templates are a good option.

However templates, while initially cheaper, can eventually prove to be more trouble than they are worth. When going with a template website it is up to you to maintain it, and if you don’t know how to encode websites, you’ll have to pay someone to install a content management system to help you run it. Also, template websites are fixed in their design, so, for example, if you have pictures that don’t fit the space allocated by the original designer, you will either have to resize your picture or change the website coding.

Custom websites, on the other hand, offer greater flexibility because you are working with a web designer to create a site that does exactly what you want it to do. A good web designer can help either include your logo and branding in the website or, if you have a new company, create those things for you. Custom websites usually come with a specialised content management system (CMS), meaning that you don’t need a degree in IT to make changes to your website once it is up and running.

Finally, another big difference between the two is Search Engine Customisation (SEO). This means using keywords and encoding the website correctly to maximise your search engine results – ever noticed how when you search for something in Google you almost never go to the second page of search results? A website with good SEO will aim to be in the top few results of a relevant search. Custom websites are designed with this in mind, however templates rarely take SEO into account.
 

Posted by: Sukhbir Mehla

CATEGORY: Smartphones & Tablets

This blog aims to give you a good grounding in the ways that you can use the device yourself on a daily basis as part of your business. It is also important to understand how it can affect the way your clients and customers view your own website and receive information from your company.

One of the first things that you need to keep in mind is that there is no right or wrong way to view a website or web design on an iPad. The user can choose to browse through your ecommerce website or email newsletter either in landscape or portrait orientation. This means that the web design needs to be created in such a way that it works and looks good in both portrait and landscape.

This essentially means more time might be needed in the development stage of the actual website to allow for the increased functionality. The more time and thought you put into the planning stage of your ecommerce website or online marketing strategy however will make you less likely to be disappointed with the result and will reduce the need for you to update or upgrade the website again in the near future.

Talk to us if you have any questions about how to approach web design for iPad.
 

Posted by: Sukhbir Mehla