Category: Web Design


Essential Ingredients of a CMS

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August 19, 2010

Every content management system (CMS) is made up of three main elements, templates, content and meta data. The template is the graphic skin of a website, the content is the meat of it and the meta data helps with search engine optimization. They are all interlinked and co-dependent as the CMS won’t work properly without each of these elements being present.

The template is the eye-candy. It is a veneer of graphical prettiness to make the website look appealing and allows you to arrange the different page elements into a readable and attractive form. The template runs throughout the site which makes it feel consistent as it appears exactly the same on every page. It also makes modification easier, as any change to the template is automatically propagated to every page on the site.

Content is the reason for being for any site. A website needs something to do, a purpose for being and content is it. Be it informative, sales, opinion, review or whatever. In a CMS content is managed independently from all the other elements. There is usually a WYSIWYG editor that allows contributors to provide the content without having to get involved with the mechanics of the site. They can add text and media to pages and posts without having to know how the rest of the site works.

Meta data is an oft overlooked element of websites, but a key element in an SEO aware CMS. Meta data is a brief synopsis of a particular age or post that gives the search engines food for their SEO functions. It generally contains author information, category, title, date, a brief description and any relevant keywords. While meta data doesn’t contribute to the day-to-day workings of the website, it is essential if you want the site to appear anywhere in SERPs.

Meta data also makes linking to social networking sites much easier. The data can be pulled by the likes of Facebook and Twitter and used in social media marketing. It saves a lot of time not having to write it all again.

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London web design companies and content

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August 12, 2010

Whatever you want a website for, content is key to the impression you make on visitors and to your success. And we’re not just talking about Search Engine Optimisation.

A good web design London company will make the way content is presented an integral part of the design and building of your site.

How we read online – You’ve probably noticed that you tend to scan online rather than read every word. We also read roughly 25% more slowly than when we’re reading a book, magazine or newspaper.

So, content has to be presented clearly and simply on every single page. It also has to look consistent.

Content and website structure – 99% of websites follow the same structure – home, about etc – and there are very logical reasons for this that we don’t need to go into here.

If you want to experiment with structure, ask yourself why. Are you doing it to look cool or because you genuinely feel your alternative structure works better?

Don’t be fooled by some of the weird and wonderful structures used by some web design London companies. They’re often showing off to an audience that expects them to be challenging and provocative.

Page layouts – A page layout is the way content appears on your website page and how it works with the design.

Your London web designer will take care of this but here are some things to look for when you’re approving a design:

Do the page sub-heads tell your reader exactly what content is on the page?

What typeface is the designer suggesting? Arial and Verdana are used often because they’re very easy to read.

Does the design have a negative impact on the readability of content? For instance, are there too many colours and different type sizes?

Does the design use sub-heads to break up the page?

It’s also important to remember that most users don’t like to scroll so they’ll only look at the content visible on their screen without scrolling down.

What content? You love what you do and believe you’re better at it than anyone else. So it’s sometimes hard to know what to put into your website and what to leave out.

Even if you’re confident you can write the copy on your website yourself, it’s a good idea to talk to your web design company before you get stuck into writing.

They may well be completely new to you and your kind of business so they’re going to be a great sounding board. If they don’t get it, you’re definitely not explaining yourself very well.

Your web design company really does need to understand you.

Think about:

A short statement of exactly what you do and why you’re different – look at what your competition does for ideas.

What, in your experience, potential customers and users of your site really want to know right away.

Exactly what part of your business or activity each page should cover and why.

Put this down in writing and run it by your web design company. If they’re good, they’ll be happy to help you decide what should go in.

And they want your website to be a success as much as you do, for obvious reasons.

Look at yourself – The simple rules we’ve listed seem obvious but it’s amazing how many websites break them. If you already have a website, look at it now. Is the way your content is presented as good as it could be?

If not, now you know what to do.

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The Website Redesign Continued

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July 30, 2010

Often when website design owners ask for a redesign, their first requirement is that of navigation. They want better menus, slicker movement, more logical hierarchies and a hundred other things.

The most important aspect of any redesign is the content. the clich’ Content is King, still rings true today, and will do for the foreseeable future. A good design helps, great design helps more, but if the website design doesn’t offer anything to the visitor then it’s a failure.

If the site has good content, readability is the next consideration. How will a redesign make the site more readable? Are the colours right? Is the contrast between background and typography enough? Are we using the best font and font size? Are there other size, page width, info box or imagery options we can use to improve it?

Once these questions have been answered, we can move on with the planning.

I think the next most important thing is the back-end. What makes the website design tick? I create custom CMS for all the sites I design, so I have to plan in excruciating detail to make sure I have everything covered. Even using standard systems like Joomla or WordPress need planning to make them work properly.

In order to do this we need to assess the goal of the new site. What is it about the old site that isn’t working any more. What was it that worked well, and what can we improve on. There’s no point making changes for the sake of it, and we need to retain or improve the aspects of the original site that worked best. By retaining as much of the most successful parts of the original, we can ensure that the visitors won’t feel so out of place when the new site is launched.

There will be a healthy dose of familiarity within the new and shiny stuff to make existing clients or frequent visitors feel more comfortable. By doing that, we can grease the wheels of change and ease the transition to the new design.

After all, we aren’t designing the site for us, or our client, but for the users. We not only need to give them what they want, but what they need.

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Graphic Web Design London

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July 29, 2010

There is hundreds of computer and internet related fields which are becoming really popular and are providing great and reliable futures to the people. Among many web designing and development is a very renowned and vast field. We all use internet and we use different websites for different purposes. Web development and graphic web designing is the term used to construct a web design and to make a good look of the website. London is becoming very famous due to the web developers.

London web designing is the skill of creating the beautiful content and its presentations to the user of website. Now most of the websites are made with graphics thus the word graphic web designing is becoming famous. Hypermedia or hypertext is used to construct the graphic web designs for particular websites.

Well the main reason and the intentions to create a web design is actually to create a website in which you can collect electronic documents and applications which can be visited online on any server and it provides different features to the end user of the website. The icons on any websites which open when we click on them are a great example of a graphic London web design. London is becoming a hub for graphic web designs. Different courses are provided to the people and many firms are becoming really strong in London.

In London due to the advancement during the web designing of the webpage several elements can be added in the webpage to make it more presentable and unique. To accomplish the presentation web designers add bit-mapped images such as JPEGs and GIFs to the webpage using XML, HTML or XHTML. To add more complex media graphics such as videos, animations, vector graphics, sounds more plug-ins is required. Popular plug-ins for these purposes is QuickTime, Adobe Flash, Java run time environment etc.

Now with the development and with more knowledge further improvement is done on regular basis to stay up to date. More advance and complex features are now available to put and add on websites and for which graphic web designing is a must.

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When to Redesign a Website

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July 26, 2010

Everything ages, begins to look old, used, or out of date. It’s a fact of life. Progress continues its forward march without even a backward glance to those it leaves behind.

If you use your website for business, then you know it has to be up-to date, and offer the newest and most popular features available at the time. Not every website design should be or needs to be redesigned. Becoming bored with the current version isn’t a valid reason for changing it, unless it’s a personal or portfolio site.

The main reason a site should need redesigning is to improve usability, update the company brand or to use a new, more powerful platform. If there has been advances in the technology that would significantly improve the user experience, then it might be a good idea to use it.

Changing the company identity or brand is also going to need a new site. Moving from HTML or frames to WordPress or a custom CMS would also be a good idea, if only to add more interaction between the site and your visitors.

Thought has to be given to the impact the change will have on your customers. Most of us like consistency, we don’t always like it when things change. Changing a website design is much like changing a brand. You have to make sure that there is enough of the old identity in the new brand or design that your customers will still identify with it. It has to be recognisable to them otherwise they may not accept the change.

Redesigning a site takes much longer to plan and execute than a first build. Starting from scratch is a much easier as you have pretty much a clean slate. You may have to incorporate the corporate identity into it, but other than that there is a certain freedom to be enjoyed.

A redesign on the other hand has the legacy of the old site, and something to live up to. The design has to attract new visitors, and allow new interactions, while not alienating those who liked the old site. Most of us see progress as inevitable, but not everybody likes it.

In the end, it comes down to a choice. Is the redesign for aesthetics or a purpose? Do you just not like the look of the thing or do you want to improve the functionality of it?

The answer to that question will decide the future of the site, and the scope of any redesign you undertake.

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About Web Development

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July 22, 2010

With the advent of internet, hundreds of earning opportunities were exposed. We all use internet many times a day and we all use it for internet surfing and to visit different websites. Web development is the term which is used when work is done to develop a website for internet. Web development London is a broad term in which all work is included which in needed to construct a successful web site. In this term web content development, web design, client liaison, web server, network security, and e-commerce development is included.

Well for most of the professional web designer and developers the term web development only refers to the main construction of the website which is coding and markup. But the range of web development is very vast as it includes a web page with plain text and it also includes the most complex web pages used for electronic businesses, internet applications and social network services.

The field of web development London is very famous from the very beginning. The main reason of the popularity of this field is that now most of the work is done online and to market the product or any service you have to have your own web site. Most multinational companies and large organizations have hundreds of web development teams which develop websites for the company. Small business and organizations require a single web developer for this purpose as the intensity of the work is quite low.

Now the web development has moved to an all new phase which is the phase of communication through internet. Now computers and internet is mostly used for communications between the people by using different social networks. Well it is true that web development is a great field in which you can easily earn a lot of money. The best thing is that you can do this job even from your home and can earn the same amount of money.

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Choosing a London web design company

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July 21, 2010

London is full of web design London companies and most of them are pretty good at what they do. So, with all these great companies to choose from, where do you start?

Here are a few simple steps to helping make sure you end up with a website that really works for you.

What do you need? – First of all, you need to be clear what you need your website for. What do you want to achieve? Want do you want people who visit the site to experience?

Having a look at your competitors websites will help. Would what they do work for you? Make a list of maybe five sites you like with reasons why.

Finding a London web design company – Ask around. Can anyone you know, whose opinion you respect, recommend a good design company?

Have a look at the listings and online directories. It’s great if they have an understanding of your kind of business already. Make sure their websites don’t all look the same and that there are at least five examples in their portfolio.

Start by keying ‘London web design’ into Google.

What services do you need? – A good web design London company will work with you to make sure you only have what you really need. But, think about whether you need extras like flash, copywriting, online marketing, content management and so on.

Shortlisting – Make a short list of three London web design companies, with a couple more as back-up. It gets confusing if you try to decide between more than three companies.

Size is not important.

Meeting – Your website is you online so you need to be sure the company you go with can really do what they claim. You’ve also got to know you can work with them.

Do they listen? Do I understand them? Do they really get what I want to do? Do I like them? These are all important questions to ask.

Ask for references – All you really care about is that your website is completed how you want it, on time and on budget. The only people who can tell you this are clients of the web design company.

Long-term security – You’ll probably want to build a long-term relationship with a web design company. Unfortunately, in today’s tough business climate, firms go under or merge all the time.

Even though you can’t know for sure if a company’s going to survive, you can get an idea by their size, who their clients are and what their offices are like – not too flashy for a start.

Costs and payment – With web design, it’s usually best for both of you to pay in stages. This way, you get to make sure the company consistently delivers and the web design company is happy.

What next? – You could start by talking to us.

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Tailor Made Content Management

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July 19, 2010

The design of a navigation system is one of the most difficult aspects of designing your own CMS. Not only do you have to make it easy to use, intuitive and attractive, it also has to be scalable.

There aren’t many websites we design that stay static for very long. Sooner or later they are going to expand, and the navigation needs to accommodate that without too much hassle.

As London web designers we are responsible for designing something that looks good now, but will also look as good when it’s twice the size, carrying twice the links than when we started.

We have to plan where we are on the site, where can we go, where we have been, what is at the next level and what’s new, or featured that we need to link to. Of course they aren’t the only considerations, there are many more, but let’s stick to the basics.

The structure of the site will determine what kind of navigation is most suitable. Top navi bar, body copy navigation, historical, numbered page, or feature navigation. These and others all lend themselves to different types of website and structures.

Top navigation bars would be most suitable for single level sites like blogs. Body copy is more suited to a Wiki type site, or ones for affiliate marketers where the links in the body text tell you where to go next.

Historical navigation is less intuitive, mainly telling you where you have been and where you can go next rather than offering complete freedom. A site that has things like “Recently viewed Items” are good examples of historical navigation.

Numbered pages are used a lot on template sites, or most popularly at Google. The search result pages are numbered at the bottom. Feature navigation is where the page choices are highlighted for the visitor. News sites use this kind of structure for breaking news, or features. These are dynamically updated so the links change, sometimes on an hourly basis.

Navigation will make or break a site. It doesn’t matter how good the content or the design, if visitors can’t get around then the site is a failure. Making it work in the present while having an eye on the future, is what separates a good London web designer from a great one.

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Creativity vs. Usability

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July 18, 2010

One of the best things about being in a London web design team is that we can use our imagination and creativity as much as we like. It’s important not to be afraid to try new things, to explore all our ideas, and not to be afraid of producing something a little different. It’s all too easy to build the same old sites, with different colours and graphics, but that’s not what Fat Cow Media is about.

We are successful because we don’t follow the crowd, or design the same old thing day after day. We let our imagination get the better of us sometimes, and try out new concepts or theories.

There is a balance to be struck between a design concept and usability. It’s all very well having a brilliant looking website, but if nobody can use it, or find their way around, it’s a failure. Whatever the design may be, the function has to prevail over the form. It’s a juggling act, and one it takes practice to be able to perform effectively.

It takes a while to get used to the idea that your latest brainchild won’t work in a given circumstance because it breaks usability rules. To go from thinking about yourself as a designer and your creation, to considering the user and how they will use the finished site. Ask any artist who has had to compromise on their initial concept in order to make it work. It isn’t easy, but it is something that is necessary in order to make it viable.

“The design has to fit the function, not the other way round.”

That sounds simple, but is one of the hardest lessons to learn when designing for a living. However wonderful our art might be, it has to fit the brief, the clients brand and the target audience. The visitor must be able to see everything clearly, and get where they want to go in a click or two. Anything different to that and the design fails.

So while the artwork on a website is important, and something we are very good at, it is secondary to function. The most important thing about designing any site is that it is easy to use and gives the visitor what they need, when they need it. All other considerations are secondary.

If you would like to find out more about our London web design services, get in touch for free and speak directly to our London web design team.

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Getting your First Web Design Clients

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April 8, 2010

Starting out as a web designer, especially in a market as congested as London web design can be a daunting prospect. Unless you’re willing to work as an intern or unpaid trainee, you’re going to need to start as you mean to go on, with a bang.

The first thing you should do once you have the skills is do some personal projects to demonstrate your skills to potential clients or employers. These could be a couple of example sites you host for this specific purpose, college projects, freelance projects or freebies you did for someone in return for using them in your portfolio. Not only will it give you something to show off, it will also give you confidence in your abilities and highlight any shortfalls in your skills.

Put a good site together to promote yourself, and have a good portfolio section to show off those examples. This site can be one big showcase and will form an opinion of you in the eyes of visitors, so make it good. It doesn’t matter if you only have a couple of entries in the portfolio, just make sure they are good. To begin with, these are the only evidence of your worth a potential client will see.

In London, web design is a key skill as it’s a hub for creativity throughout the country. Make sure you highlight your specific skills. You can create beautiful seascapes in Photoshop? List it. Hand-code CMS from scratch? Shout about it. If you can, find a niche and stick with it. This might go against the grain for someone just starting out but bear with me.

When anyone first gets started, they naturally want to increase their market appeal as much as possible, while spreading their net wide. The secret to most successful entrepreneurs and businesspeople is finding something they are really good at and sticking with it. This might limit your wider appeal to begin with, but it’s the best way of making a name, and a reputation for yourself. It’s also the best way to be able to charge decent money for your work too.

When you have your portfolio site, and a few examples to use, start reaching out to people. Use family, friends, clubs or organisations, anything that gets the word out about you. Just be careful not to be annoying about it. Mention it to people, design a cool e-card, flyer or website and tell people about it, then leave it, don’t become a bore.

Use the internet, social networking and forums to spread the word and find work. Mention what you do on every network you have, but again, don’t get tiresome. Go to designers forums and websites and talk about stuff, if you have a specific expertise, word will get around. There are plenty of online freelance job communities to get you started so use those. Just make sure not to bite off more than you can chew. There’s one thing than no reputation and that’s a bad one. Never, ever fall short, not deliver, mess up, lie, deceive or otherwise mess around a client. Nothing spreads as quickly as bad news.

Anything worthwhile takes patience. You should already know that after gaining the skills in the first place. Think about what you’re doing before you do it, consider how clients will view what you do and what you say, and proceed with caution. Then get out there and enjoy it.

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