Something we at Webflo have learned early on in the endeavor to forever advance our craft of web design is the key use of subtlety in our design. You might wonder what subtlety is, or at least question its application when it comes to Arizona web design.

Subtlety is you looking at a website and it striking you as being an excellent website, but you can’t quite put your finger on why it is.

Subtlety is a website having many animated buttons but only allowing them to activate when the user hovers on them so as to avoid making a site too busy and loud.

A lot of web designers and developers ponder what direction the web is heading in the next few years.  I always thought that the web was always behind in time when I made my first web site back in 2000.   Which was basically a cool looking image with all these hotspots in them for links.  I think I might of had some javascript actions like show/hide and toggle (yea I was pretty cool). 

 I started getting into a lot the flash stuff, because it looked flashy and cool.  It seemed when flash mx 2004 and flash 8 came out, there was nothing but really crazy looking(mostly non-dynamic) flash sites all over the place.  I appreciated such a free platform where anyone could put whatever they wanted to on the page, but it seems as though AJAX turned out to do a lot of things flash could do.  So why even use flash?  With SEO being very popular, and developers building better techniques in javascript (i.e mootools, scriptaculous, etc), why even use flash when web 2.0 is here.  For me, it didnt seem like web 2.0 didnt get popular till late 2006.   I could be wrong but that is my perspective. 

So my question is where is future heading for web designers and developers.  When are we going to be heading into web 3.0?  Maybe web 3.0 will have a 3D like feel.  I would whole heartily agree that web is going to get much better in functionality, that will be able to match superior designs.  I see a lot of flash CMS sites now, and I dont know how hard is is to incorporate  a backend language into flash, but it seemed like it would be quite difficult a few years ago.  However, being a 3d guy (maya), I honestly like what the new flash cs4 has to offer.  It seems as though a lot of software engineers are starting to understand complex 3D programs and are now incorporating them into web type programs such as the new flash, giving more dimesions to the program itself. Check out a tutorial on the new flash CS4 at Lee Brimelow's website.

If you own a business and do not have a website, you are missing out on a huge group of potential customers. Even if your business is currently doing well, imagine how much better it would do if you could reach a completely new segment of the population, one that solely uses businesses that can be easily found online. In this age of technology, there is an expectation for every successful business to have a website, and there are many reasons for this.                                                                                         

When you see a business with a professional-looking website, what do you think? Do you think they are just a bunch of kids playing around online, or do you think it is a serious business that knows what it is doing? You likely think the latter, and this is because a website can be instrumental in building an image for a company.

I came across a great blog post by colorlovers.com

Some of the best color palettes can be found in nature. A great example of this can be seen in butterflies: they have vivid colors either to trick their prey into thinking they are poisonous or to camouflage into their surroundings.

Sites designed with poor color choice can instantly ward off visitors faster than a can of raid on an ant hill. However, in just a few minutes and some inspiration, such as these gorgeous butterflies, we can quickly find some amazing color schemes. Now you are on the road to effective web design. Effective web design is truly about subtlety; the color palettes we see here are flawless.

There are a lot of websites that I visit while looking for inspiration or just when casually perusing the web that are like nails on a chalkboard for my visual cortex. So I decided to compile a list of things to consider when developing your own design or when thinking about how an effective web designer could create your website.

• What does that say?
  • Make sure you choose correct contrasting colors; green and red, despite being great Christmas colors, are poor friends when it comes to font relationships. Throw the gray background with red text out the window unless you want to give your Uncle Ben a stroke (he has been through enough already).
  • Make sure you spread out those fonts; line-heights are just like people…they do not like it when you are in their bubble. It will make it so much easier to read since spreading out the spacing between lines will put less strain on the client’s eyes.
  • Size does matter! No one likes small font so make sure your font is legible by even the oldest of individuals.

• Splash Page
  • If your website has a page before the actual content of your website is presented, and this page contains nothing but a logo and an enter sign, there are a couple things you need to think about. For starters, get ride of the full flash website and/or update your site because it was most likely designed in the late 90’s or early 2000’s.

• A.D.D. Distractions – Too Many..
  • Fonts – If you have more than three fonts on a page, you have commitment issues.
  • Animations (especially .gif) – Mid 90’s gif animations are pitiful as well as overly flamboyant flash animations.
  • Images/Photos – No need to take up so much real estate with dozens of pictures; spread them out…this isn’t a “See Spot Run” book.
  • Colors – Stick to a color theme, no more than three colors (slight variations in hue is acceptable, but do not overdo it)

 

• Overused Layouts
  • Déjà vu should never be going through your viewer’s mind upon first entering your website. If you are not trying to sell a product (forums, fansites, causal blogging, etc.) then a template design is fine. However, when you are trying to create brand identity and awareness, having the same layout as your neighboring competitor is the wrong path to take (here and here).

• Favicon
  • If you have no knowledge of a favicon, it is usually the sleek-looking icon that can be found in your bookmarks or next to the address bar for your favorite websites. This is something that everyone should have on their site. If you do not have one or do not know how to make one, you need to learn. It is a great way for users to be able to easily distinguish between other websites on their favorites list as well as free promotional real estate for your site, so take advantage.

 

The last topic in this ongoing discussion of effective web design will discuss how much patience the typical user has on your website, and why to have an effective web design you must make sure that you optimize your website with speed in mind.

Speed

One of the top complaints of internet users deals with the speed at which a website is being displayed. The faster your website displays, the faster your users will be able to get to the content they need. Even with today’s affordable high speed internet connection there are still a large number of users who rely on dial up connections or low bandwidth dsl connections (in many cases are only 2x-4x the speed of 56k). One of the goals of being an effective web designer is compatibility and optimizing a website to be viewable to the largest audience possible. If a user cannot connect to your website within a matter of seconds or content is loading too slowly for their taste, rest assured that they will venture elsewhere for that information or goods.

Before I begin, let me introduce myself. My name is Travis Simpson, co-owner and lead designer here at Arizona-based Webflo Studios. I graduated from Arizona State University with a degree in Digital Art. While I was going to school I learned a lot about design, but outside of school in the “real world” I learned a lot about marketing.

Unique web designers and web designs may not be as common as your typical layout, but there are a good number of them present on the web today. However, the issue with many of these websites is the inability to mix functionality with an attention-grabbing design.

Attention-grabbing design is basically when the web designers reach equilibrium between functionality and powerful design/art ideas. It allows the user to have an experience or remembrance when entering your site for the first time, but also allows for the least amount of frustration for the most amount of content.