Web Site Design - South Florida - Fort Lauderdale - Miami - Boca Raton
Look and Feel - The Web Interface
Web site design is one of the most complicated aspects of getting your web pages ready for public consumption. While having a pleasing and professional appearance to your site is important, there are other aspects of design that are even more crucial for your business. If the interface (buttons, links, and navigation) is not intuitive and easy for your visitors to use, they will leave your site before finding our what you can offer them. Studies show that interface and load time largely influence the time a prospect will spend deciding whether you offer what they need. You only have a few seconds to get their attention, explain what you do, and persuade them to read more about your products and services.
After years of working with our clients on the design of their home pages, we have learned how to satisfy their goals for the appearance of their site and ensure that it loads quickly and that it is easy for visitors to find what they need.
Our designers will review your business, your current artwork, literature, and advertising and create a design for your site that fits what you have already produced. If you are a new business or have not done a lot of look and feel "branding" work, we will help you determine the style that best reflects your capabilities as a business and the expectations of your clients.
Often clients want to see a lot of bells and whistles on their home page and while we strive to create an exciting and captivating look based on your standards, we always keep in mind the need to help your visitors find what they came for in the first place.
Custom Web Design
Why settle for a Web site template that thousands of other businesses and individuals can also buy? Make yourself and your business stand out from the many millions of other Web sites by having a custom Web site created just for you. A custom Web site can be as simple and plain as you like, or as complex and detailed as you need.
At MVI, we can create a custom Web site design that will fit the needs of your business all while within the limitations of your budget. We will meet with you to gain an understanding of your business and how you conduct it, to learn who you are and what kind of image you want to project on the Web.
About Custom Web Design
When young and inexperienced Web designers were asked what made a great Web design, they responded with something like "lots of cool graphics and moving objects!"
Web design is a true art. Web site success stories are born after strong considerations over content placement, graphics and template design are thoroughly scrutinized. This process may (in fact, it should) take time to complete -- days, weeks and perhaps even months depending on the complexity of the site.
The question of what it takes to create a great Web site must be taken into context. Search engines, for example, most likely wish to create a faster loading site, perhaps compromising the amount of graphics. Media companies, however, most definitely place higher value on the design, including graphics and other visual enhancements.
Therefore, the question here is largely subjective to the type of site it is applied to, and we will keep these considerations very general.
A true analysis of great Web design should not only consist of graphics and objects. In fact, it may be the least important issue in this argument. Web design is great when it works for the site's purpose, addresses customer needs, and furnishes a positive visage for the product; service or person the site is serving.
Content placement plays a role in what qualifies as great design. It is no surprise that content is placed in a prominent location on the page, and this particular element is not the problem. Font sizes should be kept large enough to be easily read by the Internet population (size 2 is nice, but size 1 can be used with proper line spacing). The text should contrast well with the background of the page. Web designers have more freedom over font color when placed upon a white background.
A very important element in Web design is often overlooked when designing a site, and that is content organization. Create major section titles and provide all relevant content and links within those titles. Implement a clear barrier between the major sections on the site, and also consider placing each title on a separate page.
On MVI's site, for example, we separate each major section by page. We have placed all articles within a single page. Additionally, we have placed all information about the site on another, separate page and contact information on the contact page. This schema is clear as day and easy to navigate through.
Tables are the essence of many designs, and that is more than understandable. Web designers should strive to keep nested tables to an absolute minimum. Further, consider slicing your tables up -- vertically. One long table will require more load time than multiple tables will aligned vertically.
Now we arrive at images, perhaps the most controversial part of Web design. Read carefully, because this is important: graphics do not make a Web design great. In fact, the overuse of graphics detracts from what the Web site was built to provide. Graphics are enhancements, not elemental objects of a Web site. Use them to enhance and not to build. A rule of thumb is to aim for a 10 second maximum load time of any page.
Straying from the how for a moment, let us examine the what. A good Web design includes originality. Originality requires thought, consideration and creativity, which is what makes Web design a fun endeavor for a lot of us. Giving your visitors a unique perspective on a Web design is refreshing in this world of predictability.
Want a one-to-one relationship with your visitors? You may have noticed sophisticated, database backed Web site designs equipped to serve each visitor independently. By supplying the site with your preferences, you can alter the design, including the content and sometimes the color, with a simple click of the mouse. This type of sophistication is certainly not mandatory, but it does offer food for thought.
A great Web design is not just visual. It should include standard, efficient coding practices. For example, the HTML <body> tag's deprecated attributes -- margin width, margin height, left margin and right margin -- are often written within code to explicitly set the margins, in pixels, of the Web site.
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