Web Design and Graphics

The market is good for new Web hosting companies. According to Forrester Research, there is now “positive — if modest —growth for Web hosting and managed IT services, at both the enterprise and SMB levels.” This is an especially good business to be in if you are a web designer or IT consultant. It fits naturally with the business model of such small consulting firms. Why refer out or miss out on selling a service that most small businesses need? Hosting is an excellent source of monthly recurring revenue.

The webhosting industry is one of the few profitable sectors of the Internet. As such, large corporations such Yahoo are offering Web hosting services. You, too, can join this highly profitable business and reap the financial awards — but only if you do it right. To build a successful Web hosting company,

I offer the following two time-tested and proven rules: Focus on offering high-quality services in a tiered pricing schedule.

In addition, it is essential an automated infrastructure to create self-sufficient customers. For marketing, it is crucial to maximize intelligent marketing opportunities. Automation will create a self-sufficient client-base and reduce your expenses down the road. In order to provide the best-possible service, you’ll want a minimum of the following processes automated: order forms (for new customer account set up or existing customer updates), billing system, administration system, end-user control panel, and technical support interface.

Internet years are like dog years; much, much shorter than calendar years. This directs to the somewhat sore entrance that no web project can function in terms of long timescales. A web -application that gets two years to enlarge will be obsolete long earlier than it is released. In fact, in our experience, the life of a web project is more frequently deliberate in weeks than in months. The pace with which web projects have to be finished clearly puts the association under substantial stress.

Very frequently the clients don’t know precisely what they want to attain through the web application. They might not even have a plain thought of the target users. They very over and over again perplex their own purposes with the user’s causes for using the application. They are concerned about hackers and viruses, but want to present highest entrance to their users. The difference between yesterdays internet projects and the web applications of today is the truth that the latter carry the user’s errands, in dissimilarity to just providing in order and advertising jive.

Web technology, while in a stable state of development, places some serious restraint on web – applications. mainly in judgment to stand -alone applications that run on a normal P C. Very little “cleverness” or program logic can be programmed in the web application, error handling is very poor and the border is made up of chronological conversation. These issue, and many more, can make scheming a usable boundary quite challenging though not unfeasible.

So the average web project is often faced with
- clients and users who frequently have very fuzzy ideas of what they really want to attain.
- a disparity between the client’s and the users’ objectives. – technological fetters that confront the idea of functional applications.
- high expectations the web developers should create something concrete within tremendously short time -spans.

These cost-effective, technological and managerial constraints often result in an approach that can look like the Wild West.

The mobile phone has hard to believe reach – users have their phones with them at home, in the car, at work, in the store. Mobile devices are used on the go, are geographically susceptible, and are chiefly used to regain context-sensitive information swiftly: looking up a phone number, examination an address, reading a restaurant assessment, or finding a map and directions. Because the mobile atmosphere is a overwhelmingly different experience, it does not make sense to basically point mobile users to a fixed website and miss out on the exclusive potential of the mobile environment. Designers must not think of the mobile location as a poor proxy for desktop sites and applications. in its place, we must consider what works best within the context of real-world mobile browsing, and transport happy and functionality customized to the platform. In some cases, this means offering a separation of satisfied and functionality. It might also mean contribution satisfied and functionality sole to the mobile platform. Benefits of the Mobile Web

• Portability
• Location awareness (GPS)
• Accelerometer (measures tilt and motion. It is also competent of detecting turning round and motion wave such as swinging or shaking)
• nearness sensors (The iPhone screen blacks out when you put it to your face)
• Electronic scope
• Picture & video ability
• Phone connection and the ability to move faultlessly from browser to phone
• Multi-touch gesticulation support & content whooshing
• World-wide market dispersion

Challenges of Designing for the Mobile Web

When designing for the mobile Web, broad usability and convenience principles for the desktop surroundings still apply:

• Deliver useful and forceful content
• Give functionality and design that fit the user’s context
• Write standards-compliant XHTML and CSS code
• Follow convenience rule
• Use clear and brief language
• Make the site easy to steer

Some of the confront we face with the mobile platform include:

• difference in machine usability
• lesser screen size
• diversity of screen sizes
• many browsers
• Connection speed and dependability
• Lack of peripherals
• Input dissimilarity
• One-handed organize of devices

The Number 1 rule that every web designer should follow is to create a fast loading web site. You might have a great design but very few people are going to see it if it takes a long time to load. While designing a web site always think about how long it will take to load. Try out our tips to build a great looking web site that also loads fast.

1. Minimize the use of images - The key to a fast loading web site is to minimize the use of images. Images do enhance a page but don’t make 80% of your web site only images. Instead break it down as much as possible to simple HTML. Notice the popular sites like Yahoo, Google, Ebay, Amazon etc., they have very few images because the load time is more important. Very often simple designs are the best.
2. Optimize images for the web - Once you have decided on the images that you need on your site, make sure that it is optimized for the web. They should be in the gif or jpeg format. You can also minimize the size of the image by choosing the number of colors you need, from the color palette. The less the colors you choose, the less the size of the image. You can also use online tools like Gif Wizard to optimize your images or to get a recommendation on how to cut down the size of an image.
3. Use Tables creatively - You can get some great looking designs by using tables creatively . Tables load very fast because it is just HTML code. Tables can be used in the homepage, menus or anywhere you like. Check out our homepage and our menus to see how we have used tables in our site.
4. Cut down the use of animated gifs - Don’t use animated gifs unless it is necessary. Animated gifs take a long time to load and can also be very irritating. But since they catch your attention you could use small animated gifs to draw a visitor’s attention to a particular section of your site.
5. Design simple icons - Instead of using big, bulky images use simple and small icons that add a little color and draw the attention of a visitor.

1. Use background images instead of big images whenever possible - Use background images whenever possible. This is usually a very useful tip for headers and footers. Instead of using an image of width 580 which is a uniform design you can use just a part of that as a background fill. This reduces the size of the web page as the image is small. The code will look like this : <tr background=”/images/header_backgroud.gif” width=”100%”>
2. Try out CSS Styles - Have fun with CSS styles to get some cool text effects. Again, a CSS Style is simple HTML code so it loads very fast. You can create cool rollovers using CSS Styles.
   Rollover the text on the right menu to see how we have used CSS Styles to get a simple but nice text effect.
3. Use Flash sparingly - There seems to be a lot of hype about Flash but I recommend that you minimize the use of Flash on a site. Don’t make entire sites using Flash. It may look great but it takes hours to load and can really put off visitors. If you do want to use Flash use it within an HTML site and make sure it loads fast.
4. Design most of your site in HTML - As much as possible try to design your site using HTML. You can create great designs by just using HTML code. Use tables, CSS Styles and simple fonts to design your site. Minimize the use of animated gifs, Flash, bulky images etc.
5. Keep checking your load time - Last but not least, before you decide on the final design of your web site, check its load time on NetMechanic. This site gives you a free analysis of your web site which is extremely useful. We kept using it to improve our site till we got a report that said good loading time!

We learnt these tips while building our web site. We’ve enjoyed sharing them with you and hope that you found them