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Web Design
Website
Development
Web design has changed a lot since I built my first site
back in 1996. You can make your site interactive, personalize it for the
specific visitor and so much more. Still, the basics haven't changed and
it never hurts to know about the basics. That's what this section is all
about. Want the whole story? Try reading our web
design overview!
Finding
Your Website's Audience
 It's
very helpful and important to figure out who a site's audience is. This
may seem like marketing 101 but you'd be surprised at how many companies
forget to define their audience. Copy is important as is design but equally
important, if not more so, is defining a site's audience before it's created.
If your audience is in the corporate world, then...read
more
Common
Site Mistakes
As
you may notice from some of the other topics on this site, I feel that
content is extremely important in the development
and maintenance of
a website. Taking that philosophy one step further, here's a few all too
common mistakes made by business websites....read
more
What's
It All About? Content!
An
important step in developing a website is to define what it is your company
is trying to accomplish. "Content is king" as the saying goes.
I know it may seem strange to hear a designer say that but it's quite
true. When I get a project and my client can only give me a rough idea
of what they're trying to accomplish, I know...read
more
Some
Organization & Design Guidelines
Once
you know what sort of content
you want and who your intended audience
is, you'll need to figure out how the site should be organized. You could
let your web-designer do this but I wouldn't suggest it. You know your
audience much better than a designer does. What makes sense to the designer
may not make sense to your intended visitors. A designer's input on navigation
methods would be helpful but shouldn't be the basis for the site's structure.
A good way to start is to...read
more
How
Big Should My Webpages Be?
How
big (how many kilobytes)
should a single webpage be? Well that's both an easy and difficult question
to answer. The easy answer is "as small as it can be." The difficult
answer is more subjective and requires an explanation. The biggest issue
on the Web is...read more
Playing
Audio on the Superhighway
 One
of the great things about the Web is our ability to exchange information
freely and to all those who wish to use it. In my mind, the Internet took
a giant leap forward once someone figured out how to exchange audio and
video as well as still pictures and text. It's like the leap that was
taken from newspaper to radio and then television. Amazing. As you probably
well know, it's very possible to use audio effectively on the web. I'm
not talking about ...read
more
CGI:
Keeping to the Script
If
you've ever stood around talking to some real "webheads," you've
probably heard them talk about CGI scripts. What are they and how does
they fit into the grand scheme of a website? Well, if you're like most,
you probably won't be dealing with them directly but it can be helpful
to know what the heck they are. CGI stands for Common Gateway Interface
which is basically...read
more
Extra
Website Goodies to Consider
Once
you've decided on the audience,
content, structure
and design of your site, you might want to add what I'm calling some
extra goodies. These are things that aren't the founding parts of your
site but will generally enhance a visitor's experience when visiting.
As with everything on your site, there should be a good reason for adding
them. Just to have them is not a reason unto itself. Here's a list of
goodies you might want to explore:...read
more
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