Report has it that by 2011 almost half of the cell phone users will get a bit smarter by switching to smart phones. Since the price of smart phones has taken a nosedive due to cutthroat competition, more and more people are now opting for sophisticated and trendy cell phones as they are no longer coming with high price tags. As modern people are leading a hectic life, they have little time to spare to surf Internet from their PCs. People are taking a shortcut route and this is the reason why the number of mobile web browsers is spiraling up steadily. But there are some issues that are closely related to mobile website design which you need to give utmost attention if you wish to capitalize on this changing trend:

Demystifying Myths: – As smart phones are getting smarter day by day, you would not have do something dramatically different for making your website look great in different mobile platforms. Currently some of the most popular smart phone devices are iPhone, BlackBerry and Droid and they are quite compatible with latest technologies such as JavaScript, Silverlight, Action Script etc. Therefore, you would not have to develop a complete different version of your website for this purpose.

Video In Mobile Website: – Cell phones that offer support to Silverlight and Flash are virtually non-existence. But that does not mean that you can not feature video or something of that kind in your website. It would be better for you if you opt for YouTube or Vimeo hosting service for this purpose. However, it has been observed that YouTube is slightly better than Vimeo in this respect.

Text Resizing: – To give your website a smart new look, you should use relative positioning with floats rather than using absolute positioning. Now if you have already used relative positioning in your website, just open your website in any Android phone and discover how it looks like.

Think About Screen Contrast: Though smart phone comes with brilliant features, its screen size is tiny. Therefore, you need squeeze up some elements to make your website look compact and elegant in smart phones. However, you need to make sure that your website is readable otherwise, you are sure to lose some potential customers.

Navigation Dropdowns: – You should try to avoid drop-down navigation in your website as smart phone users usually find it extremely difficult to maneuver them. Try to make your navigation as simple as possible if you wish to avid any kind of unwanted complexities.

Hover Attributes and States: – Smart phones usually do not offer any kind of support to JavaScript and CSS hovers but they are supposed to offer support. Therefore, if you do not want to make your visitors frustrated or irritated, just forget about using hover attributes in the mobile version of your website.

The term “Hierarchy” simple means arranging things in a series of order according to importance within a system. It enables people to find out things easily and also helps to maintain a certain level of order in a given structure. Now, you might wonder what purpose this concept serves in the field of website design. Maintaining a hierarchy in the structure of a website  can help you a lot to garb the attention of the visitors without making any strenuous effort. In fact, hierarchy has a profound impact on website design since it has the power to persuade your visitors and can have positive impacts on visitor retention. However, a designer needs to have a fair understanding of the importance of hierarchy based web design before foraying into this domain:

Form a Basic Idea: – Hierarchy means arranging things in order. Now, the question is how you can apply the concept of hierarchy in the field of website design. In our social life, this concept is mainly applied to grade, social, religion etc, but in the case of website design, it applies to the experience of the users. As a designer, you need to know what the most important part of a design is if you wish to give your website a hierarchical structure. By doing so, you can position important elements at the fore of the structure.

Create A Master Plan for User Experience: – Before you start designing your website, you need to sketch out a master plan that should give adequate attention to user experience. You can make a giant leap towards it by setting up a wireframes. Wireframe is nothing but a basic visual guide that is widely used in the domain of interface design to set up the probable structure of the final design. It compromises a number of issues that includes navigation and of course visual hierarchy.

User Flow: – In Hierarchy Based Web Design, you need to determine which element in your design should be given the most importance and which should be given the least. Unless you have this knowledge, you are bound to face a barrage of problems that can have disastrous impacts on the entire structure.

Prepare Your Goal: Every website has a unique role to play and it can have decisive impacts on the overall structure of a website. For example if you are designing ecommerce website, you need to give utmost importance to its products because they are only source of earning revenues. Products need to be featured properly and judiciously.

Make Things Noticeable: – There are a number of things that can have profound impacts on the final structure of a website. Color, dimension, size, placement, images and contrasts play decisive roles in determining the final look of a website. Now, as a designer you need to know how you can make things noticeable by using these aforementioned elements astutely in the entire designing process.

It is Monday morning and you are at your desk. You turn on your PC, open Photoshop and start designing a layout for your ongoing website design project but somehow, you realize that there is something wrong. You try your best to concentrate, to create a nice layout for the project but eventually find your brain as empty as a drum. You are not getting anything simply or you unable to sketch anything with those faithful Photoshop brushes. What went wrong this time? Well, nothing. Most designers are getting habituated with this kind of scenarios when they find themselves completely freak out. Want to know how can you tackle this? Just follow us:

Ignite Your Passion for Website Design: – Website design is a subtle fusion of art and science. Therefore, like any other artists, a website designer might have to face regular ups and downs in his career. But if you have a strong passion for your profession, your will be able to overcome these trifle issues. Try to enjoy your profession and if you are incapable of enjoying your profession for a certain period of time, just take a long drive and forget all about your profession and you will definitely be able to make your mark felt in this domain sooner or later.

Do It Take It The Wrong Way: – You have a passion for adding something new in every design but your clients do not like it. They need the same structure and therefore, a clash is almost inevitable. Now, if you are tried of all these, you need to learn how to fit into the shoes of your clients. You can try out different techniques without making any changes in the structure of the design. Try to take it as a challenge and we sure that you will start loving this job and ultimately, you will be able to win the trust of your clients.

Do not take things as granted – As a designer, you need to be proactive and should be teeming with confidence. Unless you have required level of confidence, you will never be able to design something great.

Do Not Alienate Yourself: – Working with two or three designers is certainly a critical task. As you are all working on the same project, all of you might have to share responsibility and work load. Now if you find that someone is passing the buck intentionally, you should not lock your horns with him. Try to find a way to solve this impasse and if things do not improve just tell your project leader.

Do Not Get Exasperated: – Do not take impulsive decision, even if your design is blatantly rejected by the clients. Try to learn what went wrong with the design and make all the corrections and send it over again. We hope this will work.

So far, what we have mentioned are nothing but some common motivational tips to keep your creative juice flowing but it is up to you how you are going to face it.

Setting goals is certainly the most important part of planning a strategy since all your efforts will eventually revolve around it. However, before setting goals, you need to make sure that the goals are rationale and they are achievable otherwise, you are sure to find yourself dejected and demoralized at the end of the day. The same holds true for website designers. As website designers have to compromise with a number of issues while designing a website, they need to set a goal before themselves to keep themselves motivated. Here are some unique goals that you need to set before yourself to keep yourself motivated in the field of website design:

Make Website User-friendly and Beautiful: – Do not sacrifice user-friendly features of a website for giving it an attractive look. You need to find a way to strike a perfect balance between user-friendliness of a website and its look. Do not play havoc with the navigation systems just for the sake of giving it a different look. Try to maintain a standard as far as the navigation structure of your website is concerned.

Give Visitors Reasons To View Your Website: – Do not make an half-heart attempt while designing a website. Give 100% to a project to ensure a fabulous outcome at the end. You can add some interactive elements to make your visitors engaged to your website. You can use gif images as opposed to flash or Java Script for this particular reason.

Target Appropriate Audience: – Design of a website has to be relevant to that of its theme. Make sure that the design of your website is such that people can relate themselves with it easily. Use of glossy colors, fancy images or funky fonts can make a website look attractive but they might not go well with a corporate website.

Use Additional Code: – By integrating some codes, a simple website can be transformed into an elegant one. However, you need to have a fair level of authority on JavaScript or on PHP before anything else. If you were not comfortable with any of these scripting or programming languages, you would not have to press the panic button. There are a number of website designers who are now stretching their design legs by learning the basics of JavaScript, PHP etc.

Make it Different: – Creating a unique website is easier said than done. If you have to churn out two or three website design templates each single day, you will run out of creative juice sooner or later. You can take a break from your daily task to replenish your creative juice and then you should start your quest for unique design.

Content management system has evolved a lot from the past. It is no longer treated as a platform for publishing content instead; it is now being treated a platform that allows users to add flexibility in their workflow and to customize the looks and functionality of their website. Now there are a number of CMS available online and therefore, sorting out the best CMS for your website design can be a nerve-wracking task. You need to take a strategic approach while choosing the best CMS for your website. Here are some of the areas that you should give utmost attention:

Flexibility and Customization Option: – Do not choose any CMS that does not allow you to make major changes in the structure of the design. Wordpress, Joomla, Express Engine etc are some of the popular content management systems that offer customization option to its users.

Easy to Understand: – Do not use any CMS that is highly complex in its structure. Administrative interface has to be simple. A CMS that has overtly complicated options should be avoided since it can have negative impacts on the entire process. The purpose of using CMS is to accelerate the process of editing and managing content and therefore, your chosen CMS needs to be simple and easy to understand. It will help you to increase productivity and save crucial time.

Speed and Performance: – As Google is giving more importance to page speed, you need to choose a CMS that does not make a website heavy. How fast your website is getting connected to the server can have direct impacts on the performance of your website and therefore, you need to be a little particular about choosing a CMS for your website that offers speed and performance simultaneously. A bulky CMS is certainly not your option.

Modules and Plugins: – One of the main characteristics of a good CMS is its flexibility expand its default configuration with plugins. A good CMS allows its users to enhance the look and performance of a website by adding a number of extensions or modules. By adding some extensions, you can surely add interactivity in your website. Choose a CMS that comes with a number of plugins. We would suggest you to choose a CMS where you can use Application Programming Interface to create your own extension in accordance to your exact requirements.

Community Support: Community support can help you a lot in the web development process. Sometimes, you may have to face a barrage of problems that you might find it extremely hard to overcome. But you can get rid of these types of problem by posting that problem in the community page. Therefore, you need to choose a CMS that has a strong community.

Designing an ecommerce website is distinctly different since it is a different platform altogether. As a designer, you need to take a different approach while designing an ecommerce website if you wish to make your presence felt in this industry. As people tend to visit ecommerce websites for buying products, the design has to be engaging, innovative and should have a professional look. However, there are some rules that you need to follow to give a winning edge to your ecommerce website:

Make It Load Faster: – Do not make an ecommerce website too heavy because it will have direct impact on the loading speed of your website. If your website takes long time to get loaded, you might lose a sizable section of your visitors that you simply cannot afford in this fierce competitive market. Visitors like to get information about a product or service quickly and therefore, you need to make your eCommerce website as light as possible.

Usability: – Do not use any graphical elements in your website that can distract the attention of the visitors. Try to keep your design as simple and as straightforward as possible. Do not use large images or do not make it heavy with unnecessary applications. Try to keep things simple and if you manage to do it, you will definitely be able to make a difference in this domain.

Showcase Your Products: – The structure and the format in which products are supposed to be displayed in an ecommerce website can have massive impacts on the entire website design project. An ecommerce website should feature its products properly so that visitors can sort them whenever they want or wherever they want. Make sure that, the images of products are not overlapping one another because in that case, it can have disastrous impacts.

Add Search Button: – An ecommerce website needs to have a search button. You should not expect that visitors would go through all your products for finding out information. Therefore, you need to integrate a search option in the design.

Check Out Time: – The check out process has to be simple and easy to follow. It has been observed that almost 30% of the shoppers leave an ecommerce website during the checkout process. The reason is quite obvious: complex check out process. In order to get more revenues from your eCommerce website, you need make your checkout process as simple as possible.

These are some of the rules that you need to follow to spice up your ecommerce website.

Contrary to popular believe, negative space is not a tool, rather it is basically a designing principle that emphasizes the use of minimalist website design by debunking the fruitlessness of using gorgeous graphics and other visual elements. As people tend to skim through webpages as oppose to scanning, you should try to keep the interface of your website as clutter free as possible. By using negative space, often known as white space, you can add a certain level of simplicity in your design.

What Is It?
Well negative space is nothing but a blank space in a design or to be precise or to be a little bit elaborate, a negative space is a space that is not occupied by any graphics or content or any other designing elements whatsoever. Negative space does not have to be a white space as a majority of people supposes it to be. Rather, it can contain patterns, background objects, gradient or anything else.

Is It Good For your Website?
Yes it is. However, do not count it as a synonym of minimalism because it has nothing to do with it. We have seen that some of the most decorated and heavily designed sites have astutely employed negative spaces. Cleaving positioning, astute planning and magnificent skills have made it possible for them to achieve success in this domain.

Why It is Important For Your Website
Now, you have learnt that there is no hard and fast rule to success in website design industry. You need to absorb inspirations from different sources before churning out a masterpiece. A number of elements are there and all you need to do is give them a proper shape. Now unless you have a fair level of authority on website design process or unless you know how to keep negative space in a design, the entire effort might take a different turn. You need to know how to keep proper alignment and how to make things look good even if you have to design something creative. Here the concept of negative website design can come into play.

How To Locate Negative Space
In order to use negative space efficaciously, you need to train yourself in a different way. You have probably seen pictures that can be elucidated in two different ways. Now fusing these two different concepts into one unique form is certainly a tough nut to crack. But if you can manage to achieve that you will be able to make your presence felt in the website design industry.

Where to Use Negative Space
Some designers usually put complex artwork, text, random elements or swirls in the vacant space. But this is bad practice. You need to learn the art of keeping things simple. By adding negative space, you can keep your visitors glued to your website. What’s more, do you want from your site?

So, finally you have learnt the importance of negative space. So, start implementing it in your design and you will definitely experience something different.

A simple interface, elegant style and logical approach can yield a fabulous outcome in the field of website design. Being a successful designer does not necessarily mean that you have to showoff your creative skills all the time and even when it is not required at all. Use of superfluous graphical elements can have detrimental impacts on the entire website design process and therefore, you need to debar yourself from using unwanted textures, glossy color combination and wacky layouts. Try to follow the standards of the ongoing website design trend if you want to make your website look good and highly impressive. However, if you wish to do something different this time around, you should follow the below mentioned tips to have a minimalist website design:

Less is More: – The basic objective of designing a minimalist website is to impress the readers and create an indelible impact on their minds. To achieve this objective, you need to bring important elements of website design to the forefront, which will definitely minimize the changes of visitors’ distraction. You need to emphasize on the content and not on the images. Try to use gradients as oppose to flashy color combination because they create unnecessary confusion and the readers might find themselves in a fix.

Use of White Space: – Use of white space in website design has become synonymous with minimalism. Therefore, it has to be used judiciously as they serve a vital purpose in the website design process. It adds simplicity in design and gives the readers a chance to put their focus on other important parts of your website.

Alignment and Contrast: – These two are the pillars of good website design. You should not run amok with the alignment of website design. You can try something new and innovative with the contrast but that should not be done haphazardly. Try to stick to the basic designing principles to ensure better outcome at the end of the day.

Make A Priority List: – Before designing a minimalist website, you need to create a priority list. Try to describe what you would like to feature in your website before starting the project. This might come in handy during the project.

Add Topography: – Over the past few years, typography-based web design has become the talk of the town. It helps designers to add simplicity without making any kind of compromise with the overall appearance of a website. Featuring just a typography in the entire design might be a daring attempt but if you succeed in implementing them properly, you can mark a difference in this domain.

Adding Flash: – Another emerging trend is the use of flash. An increasing number of minimalist website designers are opting for flash as it can make a website highly interactive and engaging.

Just go through these above-mentioned tips to create a minimalist website design.