There are many web apps for designer and developers out there, but getting by free and good ones is not that easy. That is why we are sharing 7 Web Apps For Web Designers To Simplify Their Work Life. Previously, we have already covered 9 Tools To...

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There are many web apps for designer and developers out there, but getting by free and good ones is not that easy. Today, we are sharing some great tools by Google. Previously, we have already covered 9 Best Resources For Web Developers & Web Designers So, without...

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Undoubtedly clients come and go. Some, you’ll know it’s coming. Others may be a surprise. Regardless, you need to know how to deal with the situation.

The post What to Do When a Web Design Client Leaves appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

When the world seemingly changed overnight due to COVID-19, it was surreal. Maybe your surroundings looked exactly the same. Your to-do list contained the same projects. Even if things were...

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Wondering why you should hire a web design company? If so, click here for five reasons why you should hire a web design company now! More

Stories are everywhere. When they don’t exist we make up the narrative — we join the dots. We make cognitive leaps and fill in the bits of a story that are implied or missing. The same goes for websites. We make quick judgements based on a glimpse. Then we delve deeper. The narrative unfolds, or we create one as we browse.

Mark Bernstein penned Beyond Usability and Design: The Narrative Web for A List Apart in 2001. He wrote, ‘the reader’s journey through our site is a narrative experience’. I agreed wholeheartedly: Websites are narrative spaces where stories can be enacted, or emerge.

Henry Jenkins, Director of Comparative Media Studies, and Professor of Literature at MIT, wrote Game Design as Narrative Architecture. He suggested we think of game designers, ‘less as storytellers than as narrative architects’. I agree, and I think web designers are narrative architects, too. (Along with all the multitude of other roles we assume.) Much of what Henry Jenkins wrote applies to modern web design. In particular, he describes two kinds of narratives in game design that are relevant to us:

Enacted narratives are those where:

[…] the story itself may be structured around the character’s movement through space and the features of the environment may retard or accelerate that plot trajectory.

Sites like Amazon, New Adventures, or your portfolio are enacted narrative spaces: Shops or service brochures that want the audience to move through the site towards a specific set of actions like buying something or initiating contact.

Emergent narratives are those where:

[…] spaces are designed to be rich with narrative potential, enabling the story-constructing activity of players.

Sites like Flickr, Twitter, or Dribbble are emergent narrative spaces: Web applications that encourage their audience use the tools at their disposal to tell their own story. The audience defines how they want to use the narrative space, often with surprising results.

We often build both kinds of narrative spaces. Right now, my friends and I at Analog are working on Mapalong, a new maps-based app that’s just launched into private beta. At its heart Mapalong is about telling our stories. It’s one big map with a set of tools to view the world, add places, share them, and see the places others share. The aim is to help people tell their stories. We want to use three ideas to help you do that: Space (recording places, and annotating them), data (importing stuff we create elsewhere), and time (plotting our journeys, and recording all the places, people, and memories along the way). We know that people will find novel uses for the tools in Mapalong. In fact, we want them to because it will help us refine and build better tools. We work in an agile way because that’s the only way to design an emerging narrative space. Without realising it we’ve become architects of a narrative space, and you probably are, too.

Many projects like shops or brochure sites have fixed costs and objectives. They want to guide the audience to a specific set of actions. The site needs to be an enacted narrative space. Ideally, designers would observe behaviour and iterate. Failing that, a healthy dose of empathy can serve. Every site seeks to teach, educate, or inform. So, a bit of knowledge about people’s learning styles can be useful. I once did a course in one to one and small group training with the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. It introduced me to Peter Honey and Alan Mumford’s model which describes four different learning styles that are useful for us to know. I paraphrase:

1. Activists like learning as they go; getting stuck in and working it out. They enjoy the here and now, and are happy to be dominated by immediate experiences. They are open-minded, not sceptical, and this tends to make them enthusiastic about anything new.
2. Reflectors like being guided with time to take it all in and perhaps return later. They like to stand back to ponder experiences and observe them from many different perspectives. They collect data, both first hand and from others, and prefer to think about it thoroughly before coming to a conclusion.
3. Theorists to understand and make logical sense of things before they leap in. They think problems through in a vertical, step-by-step logical way. They assimilate disparate facts into coherent theories.
4. Pragmatists like practical applications of ideas, experiments, and results. They like trying out ideas, theories and techniques to see if they work in practice. They positively search out new ideas and take the first opportunity to experiment with applications.

Usually people share two or more of these qualities. The weight of each can vary depending on the context. So how might learning styles manifest themselves in web browsing behaviour?

• Activists like to explore, learn as they go, and wander the site working it out. They need good in-context navigation to keep exploring. For example, signposts to related information are optimal for activists. They can just keep going, and going, and exploring until sated.
• Reflectors are patient and thoughtful. They like to ponder, read, reflect, then decide. Guided tours to orientate them in emergent sites can be a great help. Saving shopping baskets for later, and remembering sessions in enacted sites can also help them.
• Theorists want logic. Documentation. An understanding of what the site is, and what they might get from it. Clear, detailed information helps a theorist, whatever the space they’re in.
• Pragmatists get stuck in like activists, but evaluate quickly, and test their assumptions. They are quick, and can be helped by uncluttered concise information, and contextual, logical tools.

An understanding of interactive narrative types and a bit of knowledge about learning styles can be useful concepts for us to bear in mind. I also think they warrant inclusion as part of an articulate designer’s language of web design. If Henry Jenkins is right about games designers, I think he could also be right about web designers: we are narrative architects, designing spaces where stories are told.

—∞—

In 2003, my wife Lowri and I went to a christening party. We were friends of the hosts but we knew almost no-one else there. Sitting next to me was a thirty-something woman and her husband, both dressed in the corporate ‘smart casual’ uniform: Jersey, knitwear, and ready-faded jeans for her, formal shoes and tucked-in formal shirt for him (plus the jeans of course; that’s the casual bit). Both appeared polite, neutral, and neat in every respect.

I smiled and said hello, and asked how they knew our hosts. The conversation stalled pretty quickly the way all conversations will when only one participant is engaged. I persevered, asked about their children who they mentioned, trying to be a good friend to our hosts by being friendly to other guests. It must have prompted her to reciprocate. With reluctant interest she asked the default question: ‘What do you do?’ I paused, uncertain for a second. ‘I’m a web designer’ I managed after a bit of nervous confusion at what exactly it was that I did. Her face managed to drop even as she smiled condescendingly. ‘Oh. White backgrounds!’ she replied with a mixture of scorn and delight. I paused. ‘Much of the time’, I nodded with an attempt at a self-deprecating smile, trying to maintain the camaraderie of the occasion. ‘What do you do?’ I asked, curious to see where her dismissal was coming from. ‘I’m the creative director for … agency’ she said smugly, overbearingly confident in the knowledge that she had a trump card, and had played it. The conversation was over.

I’d like to say her reaction didn’t matter to me, but it did. It stung to be regarded so disdainfully by someone who I would naturally have considered a colleague. I thought to try and explain. To mention how I started in print, too. To find out why she had such little respect for web design, but that was me wanting to be understood. I already knew why. Anything I said would sound defensive. She may have been rude, but at least she was honest.

I am a web designer. I neither concentrate on the party venue, food, music, guest list, or entertainment, but on it all. On the feeling people enter with and walk away remembering. That’s my job. It’s probably yours too.

I’m self-actualised, without the stamp of approval from any guild, curriculum authority, or academic institution. I’m web taught. Colleague taught. Empirically taught. Tempered by over fifteen years of failed experiments on late nights with misbehaving browsers. I learnt how to create venues because none existed. I learnt what music to play for the people I wanted at the event, and how to keep them entertained when they arrived. I empathised, failed, re-empathised, and did it again. I make sites that work. That’s my certificate. That’s my validation.

I try, just like you, to imbue my practice with an abiding sense of responsibility for the universality of the Web as Tim Berners-Lee described it. After all, it’s that very universality that’s allowed our profession and the Web to thrive. From the founding of the W3C in 1994, to Mosaic shipping with <img> tag support in 1993, to the Web Standards Project in 1998, and the CSS Zen Garden in 2003, those who care have been instrumental in shaping the Web. Web designers included. In more recent times I look to the web type revolution, driven and curated by both web designers, developers, and the typography community. Again, we’re teaching ourselves. The venues are open to all, and getting more amazing by the day.

Apart from the sites we’ve built, all the best peripheral resources that support our work are made by us. We’ve contributed vast amounts of code to our collective toolkit. We’ve created inspirational conferences like Brooklyn Beta, New Adventures, Web Directions, Build, An Event Apart, dConstruct, and Webstock. As a group, we’ve produced, written-for, and supported forward-thinking magazines like A List Apart, 8 Faces, Smashing Mag, and The Manual. We’ve written the books that distill our knowledge either independently or with publishers from our own community like Five Simple Steps and A Book Apart. We’ve created services and tools like jQuery, Fontdeck, Typekit, Hashgrid, Teuxdeux, and Firebug. That’s just a sample. There’s so many I haven’t mentioned. We did these things. What an extraordinary industry.

I know I flushed with anger and embarrassment that day at the christening party. Afterwards, I started to look a little deeper into what I do. I started to ask what exactly it means to be a web designer. I started to realise how extraordinary our community is. How extraordinary this profession is that we’ve created. How good the work is that we do. How delightful it is when it does work; for audiences, clients, and us. How fantastic it is that I help build the Web. Long may that feeling last. May it never go away. There’s so much still to learn, create, and make. This is my our party. Hi, I’m Jon; my friends and I are making Mapalong, and I’m a web designer.

The news is true, we completely redesigned the best blog in the world, Web Design Ledger! Okay, maybe we’re a little bit biased, but there’s no denying that the new web design layout is amazing. We are so excited to show you guys the finished product. Let me just hit you with the most satisfying […]

Read More at We Redesigned Web Design Ledger – Here’s It Is!

Whether you’re skipping Black Friday to concentrate on Cyber Monday or planning for a shopping spree during both days doesn’t matter. The subject here is Cyber Monday Deals, and there are some great ones indeed. Some Cyber Monday deals expire at midnight on Monday December 2nd, others are valid a day or two longer, and […]

The post 10 Top Cyber Monday Deals for Web Designers appeared first on WebAppers.

Designing is often as much as a science as it is an art. Using specific knowledge of human psychology & online behaviour, the science of creating effective websites that are optimized for business...

Accounting applications help web design businesses in many ways. As a web design service provider, you should use them to boost your business. Start by browsing some resources online that provide...

There are a number of different ways to make money as a web designer aside from simply creating websites for clients. Many freelancers choose to supplement their income from client work by doing some...

Click through to read the rest of the story on the Vandelay Design Blog.

If you’re not already thinking about 2020 web design, the time is now. Already, web design trends for 2020 have started to emerge, and if you want to stay on-trend and engage site visitors, it’s crucial to pay attention. But what is the future of web design in 2020? Will everything change? Well — not […]

The post Pay Attention to These Web Design Trends for 2020 [7+ Trends] appeared first on WebFX Blog.

Web design is responsible for nearly 95% of a visitor’s first impression of your business. That’s why it’s more important than ever to incorporate modern web design into your marketing strategy. But what modern web design trends are on the horizon for 2020 — and how can you use them to freshen up your site? […]

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Did you know that 75% of opinions on website credibility comes from design? If you want people to look at your services and find you credible, you must invest in web design for services pages to provide your audience with a positive experience. By looking at some web design examples for service pages, you’ll get […]

The post 6 Service Page Web Design Examples to Inspire You appeared first on WebFX Blog.

Are you looking to start 2020 with a fresh web design for your business? If so, you must know what you need to do in 2020 to have a website that drives success for your business. With website statistics for 2020, you can see what to do and what to avoid, which will help you […]

The post Website Statistics for 2020: 10 Critical Stats to Know for Web Design appeared first on WebFX Blog.

With Internet marketing and Search engine optimization, crucial components to owning a company site, most web designers are adding SEO to their arsenal of capabilities. The concern is that most of these designers neglect to understand the whole picture of… Continue Reading →

Coffee, music, YouTube channels, and procrastination— only a handful of things can make your day when it comes to increasing productivity but none of them are as complete as having a home office setup. It makes a world of difference where and how you work especially if you work from home. Hence, some home office […]

The post 12 Home Office Setup Ideas for Web Designers and Developers appeared first on SpyreStudios.

One of the biggest mistakes a business owner can make today is ignoring social media marketing or treating it as an afterthought. This is even more so in an increasingly competitive space like the web design niche where small businesses have to strive to leave the shadows of more established brands with years of history […]

The post How to Use Instagram To Grow Your Web Design Business appeared first on SpyreStudios.

With the lockdown across nations, you are probably spending more time reading. Whether it’s for pleasure or for work, we’re here to help you fill your time with some reading material. These web design articles are not only about best practices, deals, and trends in the niche but also include feel-good stories that we all […]

The post Roundup: Web Design Articles May 8, 2020 appeared first on SpyreStudios.

H K Digital Online is the Best Web Design Company to outsource your web designing needs in India. Our web designers specialize in creative fresh web designs with an artistic flare with affordable rates.

H K Digital Online is the Best Web Design Company to outsource your web designing needs in India. Our web designers specialize in creative fresh web designs with an artistic flare with affordable rates.

H K Digital Online is the Best Web Design Company to outsource your web designing needs in India. Our web designers specialize in creative fresh web designs with an artistic flare with affordable rates.

H K Digital Online is the Best Web Design Company to outsource your web designing needs in India. Our web designers specialize in creative fresh web designs with an artistic flare with affordable rates.

If You Want a Job in Web Desing, Web Developemnt, Software Development, Link Building, Multimedia, Networking. Do not Wait Apply Online Jobs in H K Digital Online

If You Want a Job in Web Desing, Web Developemnt, Software Development, Link Building, Multimedia, Networking. Do not Wait Apply Online Jobs in H K Digital Online

If You Want a Job in Web Desing, Web Developemnt, Software Development, Link Building, Multimedia, Networking. Do not Wait Apply Online Jobs in H K Digital Online

If You Want a Job in Web Desing, Web Developemnt, Software Development, Link Building, Multimedia, Networking. Do not Wait Apply Online Jobs in H K Digital Online

H K Digital Online delhi based web design company India provides web designing delhi and Web application, Web development, Search engine promotion and web page designing services in india Delhi.

Eric Bailey shares some thoughts on creating, maintaining and evaluating accessible technology. Adam Silver passes on loads of knowledge about form design. High-quality and customizable Gatsby themes and more. Enjoy.

The post Web Design Weekly #363 appeared first on Web Design Weekly.

Marianne Bellotti passes on some great advice that has stuck with her during the process of becoming a better manager. With Chrome 76, you'll be able to use the new "loading" attribute to lazy-load resources. Robin Weruch explains how to fetch data in React with Hooks and lots more. Enjoy.

The post Web Design Weekly #364 appeared first on Web Design Weekly.

Adam Noffsinger explains how Dropbox Design migrated to Figma. Harry Roberts dives into 'Time to First Byte'. Linzi Berry, Product Design Systems Manager at Lyft, shares the story and core principles of their design system. Enjoy.

The post Web Design Weekly #365 appeared first on Web Design Weekly.

Hui Jing sheds some light into why reading CSS specifications is immensely helpful to build a strong understanding of CSS. A look into how visual elements affect our perception, recognition and memory by interacting with digital products. Philip Walton explains how to bundle modules and lots more. Enjoy!

The post Web Design Weekly #366 appeared first on Web Design Weekly.

Is the internet boring now? Jake Underwood reflects on the years gone by and asks the questions, where did the web’s old personality go? Virginia Start shares a 5-step guide for designing global addresses that she devised during her research for Shopify’s International team. A handy tool that automatically generates splash screen and image assets for your Progressive Web App and lots more.

The post Web Design Weekly #367 appeared first on Web Design Weekly.

Milica Mihajlija covers how browser rendering works and how to navigate DevTools to diagnose animation performance issues. Travis Almand look at how to use intersection observer watches and lots more. Enjoy.

The post Web Design Weekly #369 appeared first on Web Design Weekly.

A look behind the scenes at how Netflix keeps you engaged and addicted. An insight into how Design Ops at Spotify work. A look into moving from Sketch to Figma and lots more. Enjoy.

The post Web Design Weekly #370 appeared first on Web Design Weekly.

Rachel Andrew looks at some common layout patterns that we can’t yet do on the web. All the React Conf 2019 videos are now live. A dive into making Instagram faster and so much more. Enjoy!

The post Web Design Weekly #371 appeared first on Web Design Weekly.

Robin Rendle has some wise words around the difference between a junior and senior front-end developer. Figma posted about gathering the data behind your design systems. The Cloudflare team did a deep dive into how they went about reworking the use of colour within their products and so much more. Enjoy.

The post Web Design Weekly #372 appeared first on Web Design Weekly.

Although life hasn’t returned to normal yet, the web design and marketing space doesn’t seem to have been too badly disrupted — at least not with all the new research and surveys floating around. And thank goodness for that. If we can maintain some semblance of normalcy, I think we’ll all get through this crisis in good shape.

Hunt, Ben (Ben R.)

Niederst Robbins, Jennifer

Niederst Robbins, Jennifer

Beaird, Jason, author

Powers, David, author

Grannell, Craig

Felke-Morris, Terry

Felke-Morris, Terry

I've noticed that there are very few moms speaking at conferences in our industry. I'd like us to do our little part to make it easier for women to work in technology fields by making web design and development conferences more mom-friendly. This can help all of us, not just the moms.