How to get your website designed by professionals

Companies are not only hiring the services of various SEO companies to set up their official website but they are also paying equal attention to the Website Design. The approach to Website Design has undergone a drastic change over the as the designing has gone from being strict and orthodox to being liberal and experimental. Well by liberal we don’t mean that a company’s website will have abstract graphic art to go with it. Liberal in this case means that the designers are given a fair dose of artistic liberty to try something new maintaining certain parameters.

Since the internet has become like a virtual family member in every house hold, people actually spend more time on the net than having conversations with real people. Well known companies are now starting their own websites to do business online. They employ the services of Web Design Sydney to design websites that are perfect for corporate houses and will create a good impression on the customers. However you should know that the whole process is not as simple as it sounds. A lot of patience and creativity goes into buying making websites that are very attractive and should grip the attention of the users.

The website should be designed in such a way that is of functional use to the users. The users should be able to navigate within the website very easily. You can always design a website on your own but it would be very wise to hire the services of a Web Design Sydney company.  When you hire a Sydney Web Design you can be rest assured that you will get proper services and proper guidance from these companies. The web designing companies employ a team of experts who exactly what to do to deliver brilliant results to the customers.

Use of Screen Readers for Websites

A website should not only be attractive, it should also be easily accessible and navigable. This is especially true for persons who suffer from disabilities like blindness or hearing problems. It should be kept in mind that approximately ten percent of the internet savvy population suffers from disabilities. Your company website must cater to these individuals as well.

People with vision problems use screen readers to access a web page. These aids make on- screen information available as a refreshable Braille display or as a synthesized speech. This software can only translate text information. Images can be translated only if an alternative text is present to describe the image. To use the alternative text or ALT attribute in image tags, just include the ALT attribute in the image tag. A period can also be added to the end of the ALT attribute text- this is done so that the individual hearing the page can understand where one image ends and the other begins. According to website design Sydney professionals, the image should be numbered or the image map links should have a number at the start of the “ALT” attribute text. This assists in orientating the person hearing the page. If text links are present adjacently, you must separate the links with a space and a period. A vertical bar can also be used to separate the links. Standard images must contain alternative text attributes. In case an image is inconsequential, empty alternative text attributes should be set.

According to Sydney web design professionals, in case of animated images, alternative text should be employed to describe each frame. This is evident when you use the Internet Explorer browser. Hover the mouse pointer over the button, and a small text box should appear. The text box contains the alternative text message.

Making Web Page Forms Accessible

For a web designer, making a website accessible to all is the hardest challenge. This is because constituents of the target audience may have visual and aural difficulties. A web page has different parts. Each part should individually be accessible. This is especially true for an e-commerce website. For this kind of website, commercial success is critical.

The most common element among web pages is the use of forms. The problem is that forms are almost inaccessible for users who have disabilities. It is possible to circumvent the problem by conducting a few activities. It is possible to increase the accessibility of forms. To do this, use the <LABEL> element to specify labels for each field in a form.

An experienced web designer improves the accessibility of the Tab Order by using the TABINDEX attribute in form fields. This will determine the order of the fields that a user is given as they move through a form when the TAB key is pressed.

To a sensible web designer, the use of frames should best be avoided. This thumb rule, however, can be violated if the usability of your website may increase hugely if the frames are used. For the section of the target audience, who is disabled, it is essential to provide meaningful frame titles. This is useful for disabled individuals who are compelled to use assistive technology. A meaningful frame title will enable the disabled user to easily identify the frame he or she wants to open. To do this, you must include meaningful titles on the source page for each frame by using the TITLE element. Alternatively, you could assign a meaningful TITLE and NAME attribute for each FRAME element on the FRAMESET web page. If you want to create an accessible frame source, the source of the FRAME element must be an HTML file.

Procedures of a Usability Test

Any web designing job needs to be completed with a usability test. This is necessary as the website must be easily usable by its target audience.  If it is not, then the reputation of the website design Sydney Company will be adversely affected.

To do a web designing usability test, a test supervisor is required. He or she must preside over a usability testing session. Virtually any person can supervise; the activity just needs someone who has patience, is a good listener and is also observant. There is no compulsion for the supervisor to be a usability expert, but he or she must be familiar with the aim of the exercise.

The usability test for the web designing process has no requirement for observers. They should be kept away from the testing session. This is because a majority of people, in this case, test subjects will be nervous if stared at during a testing session. Instead of human observers, a camcorder should be used to fulfill observation obligations. This also has a number of tangible benefits: as a website owner or administrator, you can examine a specific testing session repeatedly and the recording promotes fruitful discussions when the process is being reviewed.

A Sydney web design company must conduct as many tests as possible. More tests usually equal a more user friendly website. There should be at least three rounds of testing. The first round should be designed to uncover the needs of the user. This can be augmented by doing basic usability tests on competitors’ websites. In this way, it is possible to find out the likes and dislikes of a user in regard to a competitor website. 

A good web designing and usability strategy involves a design that meets the needs of the user. Some elements of the web design must be given prominence. The site must also be beta-tested before it is released into the virtual world.

Democratic Websites Means Accessible Websites

Accessibility is one of the key factors in the web designing process. A website that is not accessible to all segments of the population is not a successful one. Many Sydney web design companies know this- and try to make websites that can be accessed by everyone.

A web designer engaged in web designing must address people with disabilities. To do that, he or she needs to take a few simple but progressive steps. Alternative or ALT text should be a part of every image on your company website. Image map links should be supplemented with text links. There should be alternatives to multimedia content. Ensure that colors do not damage content accessibility. This is valid as it is estimated that approximately ten percent of the population suffer from color blindness. Alternatives to web pages should be there by using frames. As the owner of the site, ensure that all text present in the website is readable. Furthermore, the content must be accessible to assistive technology like screen readers. 

Since visually impaired persons have difficulty reading PDF documents, and screen readers are unable to read text in that file due to large graphics and complex layouts, adobe offers users a collection of free tools that enable them to access PDFs. In web based PDF conversion tool, a PDF document is converted to HTML and then returned to the web browser that the user is employing. The document is then read by a screen reader.

In web designing, an e-mail PDF conversion tool may play a vital role. PDF files that are stored on a CD-ROM, local hard-disk or the Local Area Network or LAN can be converted by attaching the PDF file to an email message. The converted PDF file is then sent back in the body of a new mail message as plain ASCII text. The whole process simply takes a matter of minutes.

Designing a Website to its Potential

A web designer must verify whether the site designed by him or her is usable or not. This can be measured by usability tests.  These kind of tests can be applied to any kind of website- be it a simple informative one or an e-commerce website.

Market research data is of vital importance to website design Sydney companies. The data is used to understand users’ needs. A lot of market research data is available on the subjects of web user demographics, habits and preferences. A web designer should use this information to design a website. 

Opinion polls are also an important source of data when it comes to find the usability of a website. The activity can be conducted via phone, mail or website. Personal interaction is also a popular method of conducting opinion polls. The advantage of such polls is that they are very economical to conduct and can also collate opinions from a large cluster of individuals in a very short time period.

The method of performance measurement is also used as a usability test by a professional web designer to determine quantitative data. Examples of this kind of usability test include facets of web design like selecting the position of the “Buy” button so that the potential customer will be influenced the most. Another pertinent example is the time taken by a new user to sign up for a service. As a website owner, you can set up performance goals like user sign up within a certain time range. Potential customers can be enticed to purchase by giving a performance commitment. This can be elaborated by an example where a financial site promises to waive off transaction fees if the buying or selling process is not over within ten minutes. This kind of Unique Selling Proposition or USP is very useful in concertizing monetary transactions.

Website Usability and User Expectations

It is imperative to do a usability testing before launching a website. Professionals working at website design Sydney companies do a usability heuristic evaluation. This is compared against a list of guidelines and widely accepted principles. Ideally, this should be done by professional usability experts. If this is not possible, then you should conduct your company’s site heuristic evaluation yourself. This is not an ideal solution- but it is better than not doing anything at all.

According to Sydney web design professionals, heuristic evaluation should not offer more than is required for the user to complete a task. The more the task, the greater the user must filter the noise. A feature that is peripheral or unrelated to the main content can confuse users who are new to the website. If there is a compulsory requirement for advanced features, it is recommended to place them in a separate web page. Furthermore, the website must also look good. Removal of extra features does not mean decreasing the beauty quotient of the site. Visual cues can be present to make the site attractive. It must be mentioned that great design is an ideal combination of looks and functionality.

High standards and consistency are the two pillars of great website design. Industry standards state that the local navigation bar should be displayed on the left side of the web page. Users find it annoying if it is located on the right side. Another common standard is that a hyperlink is represented by a blue underlined text. If you change the color, or remove the underline, users will be confused.

A website design Sydney Company lays stress on the display of error, its prevention and subsequent recovery. An accurate description of the error should be provided-along with the possible solutions that can be implemented to recover from the error.

Attracting More Visitors by Increasing Usability

The biggest problem of web design Sydney professionals is to maintain the usability of the site. This is a serious issue as if a visitor does not feel comfortable when browsing through the site, or searching for a specific product or service, he or she may not click the next time.

One of the more prominent mistakes in website design that relates to usability is the issue of too much noise. Some web pages are so cluttered that it can be very hard for users to miss the feature or link they are searching for.  Web design professionals advocates two possible solutions to reduce web page noise. The first solution is obvious: simply lessen the page noise level. It can be done by removing or toning down the images that lie in the background. Fewer colors should be used. The thumb rule is to use a maximum of two main colors per web page. The content on the page should be trimmed down. The “white space” that exists between images and text can be increased.  The amount of movement on the page, like animated buttons and banners should be lessened. Only two or three main fonts on a page should be used. One font should be for the headings, one for the main text and another one should be employed to attract viewer attention if required.

Creative logo design experts recommend that important elements in a web page should be given increased prominence. The important item should be moved to a more visible location on the page; usually on the top. Images should be employed to attract the attention of the user. The font size of the title or headline should be increased or added. The text size should be increased. The color of the text can be changed and the item’s background color should also be changed.