Website Designing and Development

Redesigning as per latest trends

Net Soft Solutions is a professional Web design and SEO company that not only design websites from scratch, but also offer website redesign to those who want to give their websites a make-over. We take the time to understand your business goals and objectives and then recommend a website design solution that would best suit your needs. For instance, if you are losing traffic because your website is loading too slowly, perhaps you need a new design in java script instead of Flash that would look trendy yet be more practical.

Experience in Redesigning

We have many years of experience in redesigning websites as per the latest trends, and numerous clients, both from government as we ll as private sectors, have benefitted from our services. Web designing can be a complicated process, even for seasoned veterans. There are several things you need to keep in mind, and several bases that have to be touched before the design is called final. A website designer could be dealing simultaneously with several ends, from interacting with the client, to designing, coding, and testing. There are always a hundred little details to consider and keep track of, so it’s only natural if a few fall through the cracks.

Planning

The first step to a successful design is planning. The website must meet the needs of the client, and be acceptable to the target demographic. Your web design checklist, of course starts with planning the website which, of course, includes acquiring data and information on the subject. The more data you have, the better you can plan. For an existing website, you can check metrics using tools like StatCounter or Google Analytics. Should it happen that these tools are not available, you can get metrics and demographic information from websites and tools like Alexa, Compete, and Quantcast Ranking. Several of these websites will also allow you to do competitor research so you can see the current trends, and set an appropriate plan for your design.

Design / Layout

Your website layout forms the backbone of the website. It is easy to see how the appearance can have an immense effect on the performance of the website. Use the research and demographic information you obtained earlier to have a layout that best suits your needs. A good layout should well exploit negative/white space. These do form important visual elements and need to be expressly dealt with.

Usability / Accessibility

Any website design should have a focus on the user, and the ease of use of the website, with easy access to important information. While the smaller details, like a search box or instance, can be optional, you might want one to make it easier for the visitor to find the desired information.

A website should have a reasonable load time. You can check the load time of the website by using tools like Google Page Insights, YSlow, and GTMetrix. A lower page-load time is desirable especially since so much of our browsing is done on mobile devices, much of this can be achieved by leveraging browser caching, minifying HTML & CSS, optimizing images, and avoiding render blocking javascript.

For a good user experience, the website must have an acceptable text to background contrast. If your website is using a background color, make sure the text is easily readable. In the same vein, use an appropriate font size and style. If the readers have to strain their eyes to read text, they most likely aren’t going to read it at all.

Having a custom 404 page looks way better than the generic warning used by browsers. Besides, a custom page will help your visitor navigate to a different part of your website, and might even help find what they were looking for.

Navigation is an important aspect of the design. Make sure navigation controls are easily accessible and users can move to desired pages. An HTML sitemap will help your visitors find the right page on the website, while an xml sitemap will help search engines index your website right.

Content

Content as they say, is king. Your website design should present content in a way that is engaging to the visitor, and has information the visitor is looking for, and believe it or not, the typography plays an important part. Use the right font, keep the kerning right, and use spacing to your advantage.

And while you’re at it, check for consistency. For example, the website logo should appear at a consistent location throughout the website. An action on page should not change the alignment or presence of different elements on the page. Check your content for grammar and consistency of language, especially with regards to tense and usage. Additionally, stay mindful of the variations in language and styles; for example the differences between UK English vs US English can be quite glaring at certain points..

Also, make sure there is no test content on the website. If you’ve used hard coded links, remove them or change them to suitable hyperlinks. Any hyperlinks you use should be user friendly, or easily understood by the user.

Web Optimization / Standards

Get the quality of your code right. Good coding must follow, and be up to the mark with industry standards and best practices. Make sure your code is clean, readable, and understandable. As good practice goes, this applies not just only to the person writing the code, but also someone else who wants to look at the code. Add comments to make your code easily understood, and keep it clean and well-formatted.

Another thing you might want to check is the placement of CSS, Javascript, and other elements like Flash in your code. Often, certain elements and changes will creep in while you write and debug the code. It’ll be worth your while to check if all elements are at their desired places. Good practice calls for your HTML, CSS, and javascript code to be placed in separate files, though this might sometimes depend on the needs of the code and webpage it is placed on.

While modern browsers are often forgiving, you have to go the foolproof way and make sure the code you used is right and validates without an issue. Check if you have used the correct DOCTYPE, because an incorrect doctype will interfere with the validation of your code. Validate your XHTML and CSS, to ensure your code is up to standards, and your webpage will be functional even if the style document or stylesheet fails to load.

A well maintained DOM tree will make your visits to the code easier, and make your page perform better. Useless div elements will often result in a bloated CSS which results in negative effects on page performance. A well maintained Document Object Module will help make the code simpler, and the website more streamlined.