Category: Design & Development

Before you even begin to contemplate monetizing a website, you have to determine what the website is for and how you would like it to be used. It is at this point that you will need to begin proper web design. You have to design the website to meet your demands because if you fail to do so, there will be no difference between your site and anyone else’s.

Website development and website creation is a crucial part of any top-quality website. All too often, someone gets it in their mind that they want a website and then throw together whatever they can to make it. Unfortunately only one of two things will happen when spontaneous choices like this are made. The first thing is that in your rush you choose to make use of an open source content managements system and then select any old template or skin which thousands of other websites make use of. The second is that you may take the time to develop a website from scratch but mimic someone else’s layout. In the end, while the website could have some potential as long as you put forth the effort to make it a great website. Sometimes it just makes better sense to take the time to plan out your website every step of the way and continue to pay attention to the details along the way.

Any online business should be developed just like any brick and mortar establishment. You have to take the time to properly plan out its design, development and set goals to achieve in this development. You have to plan ahead for when the site is finally launched and what your plans are to generate traffic and keep the visitors coming. Most of all though, you will need to find out what possible obstacles you may face and what will be necessary to overcome these obstacles. Just as in any other type of business, if you fail to properly plan it out you will end up creating a failure.

For many people, this planning stage plays a crucial role in the web development and website creation for any site whether it is a community, a simple HTML spread or anything else possible in today’s internet age. Plan ahead and make sure that you do everything that is necessary to ensure the success of your online business. Make sure that you put plenty of time and effort into the developmental stages of the website itself. When you pay attention to even the finest of details, you will find that your efforts will pay off in the end by allowing you to have a greater chance of developing a highly successful website and online business.

With the pace of change on the Web, it can be hard to remember that very few people actually keep up with the flood of new technologies, frameworks, and acronyms. Unless you are designing for web-related companies, it’s very likely that your clients will have no idea what “building a web site” actually entails, or what happens after you’re done designing. In this article, I hope to give you a very high-level overview of the Web that you can point a client to, so that they can understand what goes into a web site besides Photoshop or Flash.

Let’s start with a bit of history. Before any of this Web malarkey came about, you had computer networks. That is to say, people connected individual mainframes (because personal computers didn’t exist yet) with cables so they could talk to each other. PC’s came along, and offices started connecting a building’s PCs together so they could talk. Then something really revolutionary happened: people connected one office network with another. Lo and behold, the basis of the Internet as we know it was born.

At its heart, the Internet is a network of networks. In most cases, that smaller network is the 1-4 computers you have in your household, which connect to the larger “Internet” network through your router or cable modem or what have you. There is no “center” of the Internet, no overarching computer directing everything; it’s just millions of small networks like the one in your house or office connecting with one another. There are systems set up to make it so that if your computer says “Connect me with computer XYZ,” it can find a way to make that connection, but those systems (think TCP/IP, routing, etc.) are too complicated to talk about here.

So the Internet existed, but the Web as we know it did not. The Internet in those days was good for only a few things: email, bulletin boards, and Usenet, among others. Then along came Tim Berners-Lee with his description of a new acronym: HTML. HyperText Markup Language allowed the first web designers (geeky scientists) to create the first web pages. Think of HTML like formatting in Microsoft Word; the words you write are all there, but Word / HTML let you give them some extra meaning. HTML allowed page creators to define their text as paragraphs, bulleted lists, numbered lists, tables of data, and more. Most importantly, HTML allowed page creators to link one page to another – the “HyperText” part of the name – so that related documents could be found quickly and easily.

As I mentioned before, the first users of HTML were geeky scientists. HTML let them format their research papers, and link their papers to the papers they cited. That was about it; plain HTML doesn’t have any real ability to “style” a page outside of identifying what’s a paragraph and what is something more specialized. So the Web was a sea of text, without even a single image in sight.

A few years later, competing ideas about how to give pages some style were merged into a single system, CSS. “Cascading Style Sheets” let page creators make their pages prettier by defining how the “elements” of HTML (lists, paragraphs, etc.) should be displayed. The page creator could now say that all text in paragraphs should be red, that lists should be bulleted with little squares instead of circles, and to say how tall or wide a certain piece of content should be on the screen. Browser makers had added this functionality into their programs (like Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer) for a while by this point, but CSS did something radical: it separated the content to be displayed from the rules about how to display it. Using CSS, a designer could write two style sheets that made very different looks out of a single HTML page, without making any changes to the HTML.

And yet, despite the promise of CSS, it started out poorly implemented in many browsers, so that what looked fine in, say, Internet Explorer 3 was completely broken in Netscape Navigator 4. So, instead of CSS, many designers (since it was now actually possible to “design” a page!) opted to use HTML’s table ability to lay out all their content. The idea was to use a website like an Excel spreadsheet – make the columns and rows whatever width and height you need, and then fill in each “cell” of the table with an image, or some text, until you get what you want. This led to some nice-looking designs, but completely and totally broke the original ideas of HTML. In a table-based design, the HTML doesn’t have any meaning at all; everything is just a table cell. If the designer you are talking with keeps telling you that “table-based design” is a bad thing, that’s why. Using HTML together with CSS makes a site that loads faster and that actually has some meaning to machines (like Google!), instead of a giant spreadsheet. After all, would you ever try to make artwork or write an article in Excel?

So, we’ve got networks, HTML pages, and CSS stylesheets. How do they all fit together?

If someone wants a site, they first buy a domain name. Buying a domain name gives you the right to assign the name to a particular computer anywhere in the world, of your own choosing. A system called DNS (“Domain Name System”) informs all of the world’s connected networks of where you pointed that name, so that when someone’s computer says “Anyone know how to get to myfavoritesite.com?”, DNS can say “Sure, it’s at computer XYZ over there.”

Computer XYZ, meanwhile, is running a program called a Web server. “Server” is a fancy name that scares people, but all it really means is that computer XYZ is sitting around listening to its wire for anyone to say “Hey, I need the stuff for arborwebsolutions.com,” and once it hears that, it will throw that stuff over the wire. This is what people mean when they say you need to buy “Web hosting” – you need to pay a company to run a computer with server software listening for your domain name, and handing out those files when someone asks for them. You could run your own server right in your living room – plenty of geeks do – but that’s generally more responsibility than most people want to take on. Your monthly hosting charge also means that whoever owns the computer is going to fix things when they break, and generally keep an eye on things for you. If they’re a hosting company worth the money you pay them, at least.

(Side note: “Servers” aren’t just for Web sites. There are email servers that sit around listening for people to say “Hey! Get this letter to Jane Doe!”. There are file servers, usually in offices, that sit around waiting for someone to say “I need that presentation file from last week.” Server programs are everywhere, and every time you have a computer interaction with another computer, you’re probably talking to a server.)

Back to the technology. While CSS was taking shape, the Web also saw the rise of CGI, or “Common Gateway Interface,” abilities. (Note that this is not the same CGI as in movie special effects; that’s “Computer Generated Imagery.” There are only so many combinations of three letters out there.) CGI allowed a programmer to write a program that sat on a Web server and did things more complicated than just handing someone an HTML file or a CSS sheet. With CGI, you could fill out a “form” – those collections of text boxes that let you do things like buy a book on Amazon or log in to Facebook – and do something with that information on the server – like telling Joe in inventory to charge your card and mail you a book, or taking you to your home page on Facebook. CGI isn’t a “language” in itself, it’s just a system, and there are dozens of programming languages that can talk CGI.

Hand-in-hand with CGI is the use of databases. Databases let a server hold on to the information you put in those forms, and CGI can either store information into the database or get it back out as needed. So when you make an account at Amazon, they’re holding all of your account info in a database. When you log in, Amazon remembers all sorts of information about you by pulling it out of the database again. Databases let you do more than just accounts, though. If you’ve ever used blogging software like WordPress, Blogger, Joomla!, or any of the dozens of other blog types out there (that includes Facebook status updates or Twitter tweets), you’ve used a database to store your articles. All a blog is doing is storing your articles in the database, and then pulling out the most recent ones whenever someone comes to your website.

So you’ve heard of fancy new tools like PHP, or Ruby on Rails, or Django? They’re basically just variations on the CGI / database idea. Sure, they’re a lot more complicated than that, but it gives you an idea of what your designer / developer is babbling about.

Yep, more or less that’s all there is to the Web. I’ve left out a metric ton of stuff, but I can always come back to that later. So, when you hire a designer to make a site from scratch, here’s what they’re basically doing:

1. Find an appropriate domain name and buy it (a challenge in its own right), and point it to the hosting server;
2. Take all of your content (you did give them your content, right?) and mark it up in HTML;
3. Write CSS stylesheets that turn that content into a nice-looking website;
4. Figure out any CGI / database things that need to be done, and set them up (usually called “back-end” work).

“That’s so simple!” some clients will say. “I could do that myself!” It’s true! You don’t need a license to be a web designer, and that’s the way it was always intended. But when most people with this mindset start trying to learn HTML and CSS, they end up creating nightmarish pages that put MySpace to shame. Knowing the tools isn’t enough – you also have to know how best to apply them. Owning a hammer isn’t enough to make you a craftsman, and hitting a few nails with it once or twice doesn’t make you a master carpenter.

One final note about Adobe Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver is just a program that helps people write HTML and CSS. That’s it – the Web does not require Dreamweaver to operate; you can make an entire website in Notepad if you want, as long as you save the HTML file as “.html” and the CSS file as “.css”. Dreamweaver does make things a bit easier by letting you “preview” your site as you code and type things wherever you want in that preview, but remember the foundations of HTML and CSS – text content on one side, presentation on the other. Dreamweaver has a hard time doing that; the sites it creates using those “visual tools” end up like the spreadsheets I mentioned earlier. Any good designer should be able to make a beautiful site without ever touching Dreamweaver or its ilk. That’s why the design industry generally views Dreamweaver as a crutch for people who don’t yet know what they’re doing.

The companies or individuals just entering online business have budget constrains for web development. These companies or individuals search for cheap web developers; in a bid to do so they come across freelancers ready to render services for very low price. If you are one of them, placing a project on freelance site will give rise to 50-100 bids. You will feel that you can’t have a better start than this. But the trouble begins from here.

Large number of bids will make the process of selection a bit more difficult. Every freelancer tells that he is the best and not all are telling the truth. You have to make out which of them is correct. It is very difficult to find a freelancer who is expert in executing the complete work as per your requirement, after all web development is a very vast field.

After you select a freelancer for your website development work, the troubles do not stop here. Most of the freelancers have regular jobs somewhere else and are not available all the time. This gives rise to slow communication; they are not able to reply you back promptly. Also web development involves various types of skills like HTML conversion, PHP programming, design of website, testing and delivery which an individual cannot do efficiently alone.

Your selected freelancer will search for others to do the part of project that he is not comfortable with. This exercise will consume time and in the process delay your project. As many of the freelancers have full time jobs which demand lots of energy and time, at times freelance web designers do not get sufficient time to work on your projects. The web development requires lots of involvement of developer to build a quality website.

When you select a freelancer for your web development work, you have to solely depend on an individual. Any health or social problems of an individual will hamper progress of your project since there is no other person to carry on the job. Sometimes in order to cover their shortage of time, freelancers give excuses of being not feeling well or someone in the family in the hospital.

Most of the freelancers are loaded with excess of work as they render services at cheaper rates. This causes delay in your project and hence frustration in you. In some cases freelance web developer stops responding to your calls once you pay him initial part of money for the project. This leads to money loss over and above loss in time.

Now here are the benefits of hiring a web development company instead of a freelance. A web development company works professionally. It has ample resources to design, develop, test and host your website. Company is bounded legally so you can sign a contract for your web development work with the company. The backup resources with the company are sufficient so if there is a problem with one of the developers company is prompt to assign the work to another so chances of you work getting suffered is the least.

Finally a web development company charges money as the project completes various stages so you can track the progress of your project and your money is safe.

Website design and development firms are finally taking a more serious look at website copy than ever before. With the growing realization that content is the key, more firms are beginning to put a greater emphasis on website content.

Website owners and operators are beginning to take a more critical look at the content of their websites. Gone are the days of content that is solely geared towards search engine rankings. It is now important that website content be both optimized for search engines and compelling for the website’s visitors, requiring a more sophisticated approach towards content writing.

Many website design and development companies try to cut corners and use content mills and foreign based writers for their web content. Though many of these design firms are able to get a plethora of content for websites, it is often at the expense of quality.

Savvy website owners and operators know, however, that when potential clients or customers come across website content that is poorly written that they may quickly leave the site and look for a site that contains better content.

It is not a secret to website owners, operators and designers that web surfers are very fickle. They often equate the quality of a company to the quality of their website. Design is one key element while content is the second key element.

Website design and development firms are finally beginning to take content more seriously and are moving away from computer generated content and poorly written content.

Though there will always remain website owners and operators who believe more is better and will fill website pages with poorly written content, the most successful websites in the long run will be those that invest equally in content and design.

As more website design and website development firms begin to equate the importance of content and design they will follow the model of successful website design and development firms that create a team approach to projects that always include a designer, developer and copywriter for each project.

The Internet is the greatest resource of information the world has ever known. The key to the success and improvement of the Internet is and always will be a stronger emphasis on quality content. The key is now for website designers, developers and owners to take a more active role in improving the overall content of the Internet.

I don’t firmly believe that the Arabic library contains sufficient books dealing analytically with Graphic Design that could support the Arabic universities, with specialized art academies, and could be utilized as special curriculum within the teaching plans of these academies. The Arabic library is condensed with other artistic methodological books in addition to some translated books which discuss the basics of design, advertisement, and other topics that fall within the framework of advertisement.

The fact is that there is a short understanding of the comprehensive concept of Graphic Design. This concept is not sufficiently represented by advertisement and publicity or printing design because such specialization per se received little attention before the advent of computer to the Arab World and the return of unspecialized cadres living in the European countries and USA, who brought with them the sophisticated technology and transferred it to us without defining its actual identity, academically and vocationally.

With the start of teaching this specialization, dependence in determining the study plan was basically on the academic staff entrusted to teach such specialization. Some were distant from the roots of this specialization and others considered that any person with a specialization in art or architecture can play the role of planner. But, after a careful review of the total study plans in most Arabic universities, we realized how unbalanced and, sometimes, insufficient such attempts were; they have no identified identity; half of them were fine arts and the others tackled one part of Graphic Design but of no grass root.

Any method for teaching Graphic Design has to bear in its priorities the promotion of creativity factor and concentrate on the techniques and demonstration methods and their correlation with skill to enable the student of this specialization to benefit from this study- this should also include, but not limited to, studying related knowledge such as Graphic Design history and its theories to allow the students to apply what they learn to develop their own means of creativity and invention.

It is necessary to take into consideration the needs of new students in Graphic Design and students who are expected to graduate by defining a systematic plan capable of gradually refining design students to enable them to acquire expertise and techniques.

First levels students need to be introduced to Graphic Design history, manual skills, and design principles and techniques through the computer in order to develop their capabilities in designing and creating advertisement campaigns or integrated projects that include logos, posters, Internet homepages and other materials, any graphic designer will need.

High level students need to be introduced to the approaches that can develop their technical and intellectual skills as well as develop the innovation status through carrying out series of integral projects in presenting their works entirely and collectively. These approaches should be able to grant student enough space of positions sets they can apply for through a group of specialties that fall under the umbrella of Graphic Design. All of this will not be materialized without provision of studios and labs qualified to perform the role required in addition to cadres qualified technically and knowledgeably to realize the goals of Graphic Design. Graphic Design syllabus relies, in its execution, on the practical principle as well as on the theoretical one. Further, it mentally qualifies and trains the student to face the changes and the techniques of time as well as empowers him to deal with what is to come as the extract of developed fields of knowledge related to Graphic Design taking into consideration the necessity of linking it with the classical approach that is linked with cadres that need to be qualified in order to be able to keep pace with the latest techniques of information and knowledge.

As a fact, when we talk about Graphic Design, we should pay considerable attention to widening the base of Graphic Design that exceeds the limits of typing which is the result of its development and to reach various resources of visual communication, as television, computers and internet which enable us to get better view of the resources made by other people in different parts of the world. This will definitely help us to be more creative, innovative, and more able analyze and assess, and, that of course, requires a good deal of curiosity which can be enhanced and triggered by the size of acquired information in form and substance.

Methods of teaching can rely on multiple factors, such as increasing the need and curiosity of the student to learn, expand his knowledge, self- confidence and be more self-motivated in order to overcome what is new through applying intellectual practices, keeping pace with science and utilizing it to trigger his imagination and increase his meditation and search for new mechanisms and methods of work. Therefore, triggering the challenges in a student is inevitable; this can be supported with mechanisms that enable him to find solutions to problems he may encounter through the use of special techniques and knowledge pertaining to his specialization. However, this will not be enough to enable the student to use his manual skills, design programs and its techniques, if he is not qualified to know when and how to handle an idea and when it is able to realize to target.

From the above mentioned, any academic approach we think of as a base to be used to teach graphic design should take the following into consideration:

1- Implementing Graphic Design education in professional practice.
2- Development of different Graphic Design media due to their direct correlation with technology.
3- Design and critic theories.
4- Importance of designer’s material cognition.
5- Designer’s language and its theory as well as his ability to talk.
6- Designer’s decent visual eloquence.
7- Designer’s education in art, design sciences, society, literature, technology, sciences and industry.
8- Knowledge of the theories of communication and transfer of information.
9- Management of programming, computer science and the science of management and marketing.

The focus should be directed towards the personal design of each student and toward the various methods that boost his design abilities beyond the single design problem as well as toward successful and appropriate self motivating and development. Further, critical thinking practices and search and development of concepts and contents of analysis, editing and technical execution need to be developed through going over the special skills expected in designing all Graphic Design media as they are considered unique communication media.

– How can we contribute to Graphic Design development?

Before answering this question, it is necessary to emphasize the important role of the teaching curriculum or the teaching plan, the size of information presented through it, the methods and means approved to apply it, its resources, its relationship with information revolution that shorten time and distance as well as the positive and negative role of this revolution through emphasizing the methods of teaching the curriculum that depend on integral expertise, the purpose of which is knowledge and refining it.

We should emphasize the necessity of matching Graphic Design teaching plan and its coherence with time and its development, its relationship with the latest audio-visual technologies in addition to the information management, which forms the basis of the designer role through the ability of graphic design teaching curriculum and its philosophy to comprehend the challenges of time (the time of information and technology) so as to enable the student to comprehend time product with its information in an effective way and to be active in developing his portrayal impression of information in order to direct it in a form harmonious with the language of time.
This needs a set of books that focus on the following topics:

– History of Graphic Design:

This book should present a survey of the main events and accomplishments that led to the evolution and development of Graphic Design so as the student can track the ceaseless search to clarify the ideas beginning with (pictograph), the symbolic picture drawn on the walls of caves, and ending with the latest of graphic designs. Suck knowledge will help the students to be acquainted with cases of innovation and innovators in addition to knowing the depth of technology that formed communication media revolution in Graphic Design.

– Graphic Design fundamentals and factors.

These books should present the definition and analysis and comparison of all design fundamentals and factors. They should emphasize design fundamentals and factors with regard to forming and their manual skills through the use of technical tools and methods, the ways, procedures and presenting the work of Graphic Design in a professional way so as to identify the ways of creating high quality works that persist through Graphic Design programs for each later specialized course.

– Programs of publishing and design

Such books should present the definition and analysis of all programs specialized in design and editing which the designer will has to use to acquire the required skills to be used in other courses that would assist him when entering the world of contemporary markets. An indication should be made not only to its tools and uses but also to its software infrastructure. Among these programs:

Adobe PHOTOSHOP
Adobe ILLUSTRATOR
Corel DRAW
Desktop of PUBLISHER
Quark Xpress
Front PAGE
Macromedia Flash

– Printing: Techniques, origin and development

Such books should present define and analyze the development stages of printing, its approaches and technologies as well as defining the designer with the post-stages of printing and pre-printing and special design characteristics for each printing style such as the offset, silk, rotogravure and others. Further, these books should tackle the history of printing letters, their technical and aesthetic uses as well as solving presentation and text style problems.

– Graphic Design concept:

Such books should present innovative strategies for design-related problems and issues. They should focus on: Establishing firmly effective design, boosting and reinforcing knowledge and skills of Graphic Designin order to present projects’ management. Such books should also provide methods to master the skills of analyzing researches and design processes which lead to innovative structuring and design final solutions with developed decisions that reflect a high level of expertise, study and accomplishment too.

– Electronic multi media

These books should define and analyze all specialized programs used in training graphic designers in developing interface inputs related to electronic Graphic Designfor electronic communication means. The target of this course is to focus on interaction packages of the laser discs in order to find solutions to design styles special for books, electronic magazines, interactive information, education sequence, presentation, interactive television and the increasing goodwill of services special for the internet and interface inputs of desktops. Furthermore, the books should provide students with new software and technical information that qualify them to work on linking chains in the Internet, critical locations and how to manage sites on the internet as well as how to design their pages.

– Defining types and tasks of Graphic Design means

These books should define and analyze Graphic Designmedia, their promotional and the commercial tasks in particular. They should emphasize the research and study of the extent of response and invitation of media which all come under new letters, brochures, guides, catalogs, flyers, newspapers, magazines, posters, signs, ads., calendar and other media. All of these come together through the form of solution and determining the identity of the targeted audience to fulfill the goal and the use of the piece of information in order to determine the form of the printed material or the medium.

– Photography

Such book(s) should define what photography, normal and digital, means, its history, stages of development and tools in addition to its importance in related to Graphic Design. It should tackle the methods of photography serving Graphic Designand how to apply them inside or outside the studios. Moreover, the book should demonstrate the theoretical and practical concepts of the methods of commercial and industrial photography.

– Marketing

This book(s) should define and analyze marketing tools related to Graphic Design which will help the student to develop his ability to distinguish between long term and a short term designs, and the different forms of communication means. In Addition, such book(s) should train the student in the principles of team work and group effort in tailoring campaigns, and introducing innovative marketing ideas in cooperation with the text writers, executive manager and other main players. Identifying the requirements of the market in terms of promotion and marketing a product will include all stages of planning, marketing research and final implementation. All these require the student to identify the goals, purposes, problems, chances, the targeted audience, the innovative strategy, competition, mass media strategy and the communication means to be used.
It is not surprising that the sources of books are international 100% due to the absence of Arabic books specialized in Graphic Design.The fact is that the roots of this specialty are European and the technology and techniques utilized are also international.

The goals of innovative work combined with designer’s competency and qualification are the basis on which planning strategy depend to prepare study plans that motivate and activate creative thinking and relate it to information technology relying on the different levels of human knowledge and scientific programs supporting the principle of how to understand and apply comprehensively a Graphic Design program in order to protect it from short term programming relying, in this respect, on the designer’s cognitive theory, the language, his ability to deal with time changes, technologies, and his training.

In this world of growing competition, it becomes every difficult for a jeweler manufacturer or wholesaler to sell their products and make profits. This is where website design development services come into the picture. You don’t have to worry if you do not have any knowledge about designing websites. There are many companies who are experts in this field.

Basics for Jewelry Website Development:

For anything to work well, you have to be familiar with the basic things. The same rule applies for designing your jewelry website.

Budget:

Budget plays a very important when it comes to designing your website for your jewelry. You may come across many jewelry website design companies that will offer to design your website at affordable costs. You might even want to ensure that these companies do not charge extra for maintenance or construction that is required on a monthly basis.

Domain Name Registration:

Once you have decided on a jewelry website development company, the next step involves registering your domain name. There are some companies that offer tools that allow you to search for availability of the various domain names and their extensions. You might want to select a domain name that is closely related to your line of business.

Finalizing the Details for Your Website:

You’ll need to further discuss with your web developer about the important information and details that you wish to add to your website. The important things to include are the price catalogue, specifications, and shopping cart and other information related to your jewelry business.

The other information or things that you might want to include are:

Optimization of your website with SEO, to increase your search rankings

Assigning of space for receiving testimonials and reviews

Contact information for getting feedback and receiving queries

Tips on How You Can Attract More Traffic:

There is a lot of demand for online jewelry since it is very convenient to purchase online without having to personally visit the stores. Most of the jewelers create and design websites in order to promote their products online and reap profits on a huge scale.

Not all of them prove to attract a lot of customers. If you too face with such issues, then the following tips might prove helpful in attracting more customers for your website.

Your website should offer precise and correct information as well as be well designed and sophisticated

No customer will want to visit your website, if it does not have pictures of the latest designs of jewelry you have to offer

A good website design development company will always add a shopping cart option, in order to make online shopping much easier

Ensure that your website has products listed in the appropriate categories so that customers can purchase items easily

Website Design Services:

If you already have a website and are planning on upgrading it and making some changes, you can easily do so with the help of web development companies.

These jewelry website development companies not only give your website a new look, they also help you to get equipped with tools and technologies, which assist you in making changes to the description or prices in an ongoing basis.