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Archive for November, 2009


The Future of the Web: Brief intro to HTML 5

Posted November 27th, 2009 by Neil Stewart in Usability, Web Design, Website Development

Some designers will embrace its arrival, others will simply dismiss its existence but the fact of the matter is that new technology in the web arena is becoming ever more apparent. “It’s too far in the future” some may scream, but either way we have all heard the hype around the next best thing in web development HTML 5.

Although it’s a big leap in what many designers are used to, it is something that all designers must accept will happen in the future. So why not learn the ins and outs of mark up such as HTML 5? Knowing something of this kind will not hinder your progress as a designer, simply give you the upper hand when “d day “ does come around and XHTML is something of the past. (more…)

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Website Redirects on LAMP Hosting

Posted November 26th, 2009 by Barnaby Knowles in Website Development

You might want to redirect web pages or even your entire website for one reason or another. Perhaps you changed the name or location of a web page, you changed from HTML to PHP file extensions, you changed your domain name… the list goes on. Luckily there are many different ways in which you can set up redirects in a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) web hosting environment.

(more…)

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CSS 3: New Tools For Web Designers

Posted November 25th, 2009 by Daniel Fielding in Usability, Web Design, Web Standards, Website Development

CSS is used in web design to define the way your pages are presented. It’s a styling language first standardised in 1996 as a way to give designers more power and reduce the complexity of HTML documents. Before its creation, all aspects of page appearance such as colours, sizes, borders and spacing were part of the HTML mark-up. This meant that even simple pages quickly became a large mess of code and the same statements had to be repeated over and over throughout a website.

The idea behind CSS is that it separates the presentational code from the content, so that HTML documents can remain clean and simple with multiple documents all pulling their styles from a single CSS file. This allows pages to be built quicker, with less repetition, and makes any future maintenance or design changes much easier. (more…)

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Writing Text That Sells

Posted November 25th, 2009 by Chrisi Reid in Usability, Website Development

Trying to write the copy for product or service pages can be confusing at times.

You might not always know whether a specific section should be a hard-hitting sales pitch – or simple and direct, something to help your reader navigate through your site. Knowing how to use headlines and body text – and when to ease up on the sales speech – can help you create much more helpful product text.

(more…)

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Twitter to Launch Paid Business Accounts

Posted November 24th, 2009 by Chris Mann in Social Media Marketing

Biz Stone, Twitter’s co-founder has announced this week that the microblogging service will begin charging companies for using the platform in the new year.

Businesses will be under no obligation to sign up to a paid Twitter account.  However businesses who do sign up will be rewarded with an elevated level of access, including feedback and statistics.  Many big brands have embraced Twitter as a method of communicating directly with consumers and engaging with customers.  Businesses which sign up to a paid account will be presented with a layer of features, which will aim to allow them to become more effective at utilising the platform through the analysis of inbuilt analytics.  Stone confirmed personal twitter accounts would remain free. (more…)

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SEO Vs the Credit Crunch – Search Engine Marketing Through the Recession

Posted November 20th, 2009 by John Callaghan in Search Engine Optimisation

The credit crunch/economic downturn/recession (insert buzz word of choice) has impacted businesses in most industries; digital media being one of the exceptions. Investment in online marketing has remained a growing agenda amongst businesses keen to fight through the recession. Those who have taken the opportunity to expand their online marketing activities have increased their chances of survival and can look forward to increased growth as the market improves. (more…)

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Smarter and faster web design

Posted November 18th, 2009 by Neil Stewart in Web Design, Website Development

Many designers believe the only way to reach your goals is to work harder and longer on a given project. This, to many, is paramount although to others simply working “smarter” usually has a more satisfying result in the long run, whether this is simply choosing the right tools or the best plan of attack when looking at a new project. Many designers get clouded by the curse of diving straight into a project, especially if the brief in hand is ideal to your set skills. This blog will hopefully enlighten you to the proper and decent forms of planning a successful, fast and at times enjoyable project. (more…)

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Reducing Form Spam Without the Use of a CAPTCHA

Posted November 16th, 2009 by Barnaby Knowles in Security, Website Development

The problem of form spam

Form spam is a growing problem for webmasters. Through our “contact us” feedback forms we’ve all received the ubiquitous emails advertising everything from the little blue pill to cut-price designer timepieces. Bloggers will also be used to receiving lots of comments linking back to the poster’s own website or advertising various wares. The vast majority of this form spam is automated, meaning that a bot comes along and submits the form rather than a human being.
(more…)

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Better Typography On The Web

Posted November 13th, 2009 by Daniel Fielding in Accessibility, Flash, Interface Design, Usability, Web Design, Website Development

Websites have always had to make use of a pretty limited set of fonts and while there’s still no perfect solution, there are alternatives appearing all of the time. Well chosen typefaces can bring a design to life and give a designer another tool to make their creation stand out. Of course, it also works the other way, badly chosen fonts can make text difficult to understand and impact the usability of a site.

In this post I’m going to discuss some of the popular techniques used to allow more flexibility with online fonts as well as newer solutions that could be on the horizon (more…)

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The Site Is Built… Now What Do I Do With It?

Posted November 12th, 2009 by Chrisi Reid in Content Management, Web Design, Website Development

As a content management specialist, I’ve noticed that getting good text content for a client website can be difficult. Sometimes it seems like all the creative juices available have run out, long before the written content for a site is ready. And although quality photos and graphics, great site design and good solid programming are all necessary to make a site that represents a return on investment, without well-written content, the site isn’t complete.
(more…)

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