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Tag: Website Designing

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Custom Web Design: Why You Should Custom Design Your Website

What is custom web design?

Custom web design involves a team of people who are specialized in their respective fields working round the clock to build a website as per the customer requirements, keeping their brand uniqueness. The custom web design company takes cues from its customers and develops the website accordingly. When it comes to custom web design and development the possibilities are endless. 

How is a custom web design service different from template based web designs?

Template-based web design involves designers choosing from the available templates and working on the same to create websites for their clients. The basic integrity of template structure and navigation flow of the template cannot be altered, and the level of customization is limited. WordPress for example offers many templates for its customers to play with. But as mentioned earlier the level of customization is limited and it is mainly opted by amateur web designers or small businesses who just need a website for the sake of it.

On the other hand, custom web design companies offer tailor-made solutions to meet customer expectations. For example, a custom WordPress website design will in most cases be more professional than what is possible with a template design. Custom-designed websites are by all means a superior product offering when compared to template-based websites.

Advantages of custom web design

  • Custom web design services offer a high level of customization giving the website individuality.
  • Websites that are custom built are SEO compliant, aiding in better Search Engine ranking like in Google.
  • People prefer websites that are unique and that reflect that brand’s ethos, only custom website design can truly reflect the same in their website.
  • Custom web design and development promotes a customer-friendly(user-friendly) website interface. Customer-friendly websites not only attract large traffic but also drive up user engagement.
  • Custom web design and development ensure a high page speed. High page speed contributes to the overall user experience, better engagement, and maximum conversion.

Custom web design and development process

Custom web design and development process can be divided into 5 simple steps, they are as mentioned below:

Goal and scope identification

The first step in the custom web design process is to identify the goal and objective of your business. This stage is considered vital for the smooth flow of the project. Any discrepancies in clearly identifying the goal and scope of the project can impact the outcome of the project. Hence you (the client) and the custom website design company will take adequate time and effort to develop the goal and scope defining framework.

Identifying the goal of the project involves defining the purpose of the website(is it to sell products like an eCommerce website or provide news reports, blog, and so on), how should it interact with the potential customer, what is its USP, how much should the website be similar or different from the competitors, and so on.

Some of the common tools that facilitate the website goal identification process include the following:

  • Competitor analysis
  • Brand attributes
  • Target audience
  • Target geography
  • Target demography

Once the goal and objective of the website are understood, the client along with the custom website development company can set the scope of the project. Scope of the project includes the website features, graphic and icon design, add-on features, and so on. The biggest advantage of customized web design is the possibility it offers for a business to go above and beyond to develop a product that is unique, distinct, and most importantly reflects the character of the brand. Any discrepancies in the goal and scope identification cause disruption in the execution timeline and budget. Hence, this stage as mentioned earlier is especially important.

A legally binding contract and a timeline chart are used by the custom web design agency as a basis to start the project. This ensures that both you and the web design company are on the same page.

Sitemap and wireframe creation

Sitemap lays the foundation for a well-designed website. A sitemap will usually consist of all the links available on the webpage. It gives you an understanding of how information is spread across the website. A good sitemap also represents the logical flow of information within a website by defining the relationships between various pages on it.

While Sitemap is the blueprint for the website, a wireframe is a two-dimensional architectural skeleton of a web page. This helps designers identify the flows in the components and designs of the webpage, furthermore, it gives them a brief idea about the type of content required for the web page. A well-designed web page can be sleek and user-friendly at the same time.

Content creation

Website content plays a major role in attracting web traffic to the website. The website content should be crisp, clear, precise, and engaging. Website contents should be unique and use simple language for wider acceptability of the same. Furthermore, the structure in which the content is laid plays a major role in making the page attractive, informative, and engaging at the same time.

SEO-friendly content can help with having a good ranking in Search Engine Results (SERP). Tools like Google Keyword Planner helps content writers across the world to identify the most searched keywords on Google.

It is typically the business or the client who offers the bulk of the content. The custom website development company usually structures the content and makes it SEO friendly.

Visual elements

It is only when the designers start inserting visual elements into the website, it comes alive. Visual elements help make the website unique, this is especially true when the designer designs the right logo, images, frames within the website to disseminate information logically. Visual elements come in handy when you want to customize the design of the websites to resemble the brand image and exude brand ethos.

Testing and launch

Testing comes in the last phases of developing a website. In this stage, the custom website design company will test the website performance using a variety of methods and techniques to ensure that the website is ready to be used by the end user without trouble. Testing helps to fix issues present on the website. Furthermore, it ensures that the website performs the work it is meant to do in the real world.

Once the testing part of the website is performed successfully and the testers have given a thumbs up, the website is launched with the help of a server. Once it is launched, the website can be accessed by you and your customers alike with the help of the internet.

What language is best suited for custom web design?

There are a variety of programming languages used to develop custom websites. Each programming language comes with its unique set of frameworks and libraries that make them unique in their own ways. Some of the most widely used programming languages in the field of custom web design are as mentioned below. Please note that most of the time, more than one programming language is used to develop a complete website.

PHP

PHP is considered as one of the most commonly used programming languages to create custom websites. The biggest advantage of the PHP language is that it is open-source, which means that it is available for free of cost. PHP is also browser-friendly, making the website user-friendly, efficient, and fast.

HTML

HTML or Hypertext Markup Language is the language used to implement the structure and layout of web pages. Unlike PHP, HTML is a frontend language which means that it helps to develop the part of the website that the end users interact with directly.

SQL

Structured Query Language, or SQL as it is widely known, is a database query language that deals with data and databases of a website. It helps with adding, storing, modifying, deleting, and retrieving data using commands.

CSS

Cascading Style Sheets helps with adding styles to the web pages. Like HTML, CSS is also a markup language and the two often go together. However, the CSS has the most influence on how the web page will appear to the end user in terms of font, font size, colours, etc, and make the style consistent across the website.

Python

Python is relatively a new language but has gained immense popularity in the past few years. More and more developers are showing affinity to Python. It is a very powerful language, that is both simple and easy to operate. It is highly flexible and fluid making it an excellent language for developers who are responsible for building complex applications.

Java

Java as a language was developed in the 1990s, believe it or not, it is still one of the most in-demand programming languages of the 21st century. It is still considered as “the right choice” when it comes to programming. The program has the capability to work on multiple platforms making it highly versatile. A java programmer is still the most in-demand profession in today’s world.

Java Script

Javascript has the capability to support object-oriented styles, this makes it an extremely valuable language for building versatile applications. Javascript was created with the intention to develop websites, apps, and games that can run on all browsers. It can support both function-oriented and object-oriented styles helping programmers make excellent websites that look exotic.

Go

Go is a programming language designed at Google that is relatively a newcomer to the scene. It solves the problems that other programming languages have like ease to use, high readability, excellent integration to name a few. Being a product from Google and Google being the king of search engines its popularity is expected to outshine other languages in the years to come.

Why is a custom website the best choice for your business?

Web customization

Custom website design services offer a high level of customization giving the website individuality. The first impression is the best impression. When a customer enters your website, he/she should feel excited. The color combinations used, the simplicity of the design and the effortless dissemination of information will have a lasting impression on the customer.

These factors motivate the customer to visit the website again. Word of mouth publicity can further accelerate the traffic to your web page. People prefer websites that are unique and that reflect that brand’s ethos, only custom website design can truly reflect the same in a website. Did you know that 75% of perceived web credibility comes from design elements of the website?. This fact emphasizes the importance of customized web designs in this day and age.

Enjoy high SERP ratings

A custom built website is more likely to be SEO compliant; aiding in better Search Engine ranking like in Google. These websites are fast, easy to navigate, tick all the right boxes when it comes to SERP parameters. Even affordable custom web designs, when done right, can meet the basic SERP requirements. When all the right boxes are ticked the website will be ranked top in the organic search, helping you get more customers and business at a cheap rate.

But why is using website templates instead of a custom design bad for ranking in search engine results?

Usually, website templates are clunky and filled with unnecessary features to cater to a variety of businesses. As a result, they are slow, have low onpage scores, and are difficult to rank in SERP. Ultimately this will lead to 89% of customers shopping at your competitors’ websites due to the poor quality of your website.

Mobile-friendly websites reap the benefit

Mobile accounts for about 50% of the global website traffic today. About 74% of people are likely to come back to your website if you have a mobile-friendly interface. This is because as per the statistics available people spend about 70% of their internet time using mobile phones.

To capitalize on this opportunity, it is important that your website is mobile-friendly. If you choose custom web design services over ready-made templates, you have more control over offering the best mobile experience to your customers.

For example, if you are looking for a custom eCommerce website design, you can make sure that the front page is tailored to your customer interest, the inner pages are aligned with the sales funnel and it is easier for your customer to find the products they need, add them to cart and complete the order by making payment the most convenient way for them.

We should not forget that there are thousands of mobile-friendly templates available for websites that are built on platforms like WordPress. But are they able to showcase your business’s value and ethos? Can they incorporate the identity of your business as it is?

Also remember that in order to convert high traffic to more sales, the sales funnel should be properly planned and implemented. It is quite common that these sales funnels may vary from industry to industry and business to business. So, to make your website an effective conversion tool, it is better to go for a custom web design that focuses on your customer, their interest, and the brand identity and strength of your business.

Custom websites help with creating engaging websites

Websites need to be engaging. Only an engaging website can retain traffic. Only when the customers are engaged the traffic gets converted to sales figures.

95% of the internet users testify that a good user experience is an important factor while consuming content from the website. Hence, creating and displaying engaging content is a necessity for any website to sustain. Only a custom-made website allows you to develop a website that disperses information in a logical manner that engages the users and presents value and facts in a clean and crisp manner.

AlignMinds has more than a decade of experience designing best-in-class custom websites that are tailored to fit the interest and preferences of end-users. If you are in search of a competent custom web development company, contact us now!

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Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP): What to Expect?

Accelerated Mobile Pages is an Open Source Initiative to overcome the slow and frustrating experience of web pages and to provide fast mobile experience. Google together with other publishers and technology companies found this solution – AMP Project to bring the whole internet to your mobile really fast – be it images or videos. AMP is a fantastic approach to make the mobile web faster.

How does Accelerated Mobile Pages work?

AMP basically has three components

1. AMP HTML

These are a subset of HTML designed to create “reading” contents than interactive contents. This strips out most of the elements that make the app pages load slowly in mobile devices.

2. AMP JS

It strips down third-party JavaScript and manages resource handling and asynchronous loading.

3. AMP CDN (Content Delivery Network)

Cache and optimize AMP-enabled pages for better performance.

Pros and Cons of AMP

Pros of AMP

  • Instant speed
  • Increased performance and reliability
  • Increased customer visits
  • Excellent support for ads
  • Improved ranking

Cons of AMP

  • Rewrite your template to accommodate the restrictions (like, CSS must be inline and less than 50 KB).
  • A custom amp-imp element must be used for images and width and height must be included explicitly.
  • Custom tag amp-video must be used to embed videos via HTML 5. Amp-YouTube must be used to embed YouTube videos.

Is using Accelerated Mobile Pages good or bad?

Performance is crucial for a website to be successful. If the web pages cannot load fast, the user will simply leave your website and try somewhere else.

AMP provides the free flow of information and works faster and better for everyone and everywhere. However, it comes with the cost of removing sometimes your most desired piece of code because AMP does not allow some form elements and third-party JavaScript as they really slow down your pages.

Therefore, for the developers who are interested in exposing their website features to the fullest, rather than relying on a stripped-down version of their code, there are so many performance gauging tools available online that provide recommendations on how to improve performance. It provides you with a list of blocking JavaScript files, large-sized images, resources requesting for an HTTPS connection, the order of display of items in your web page and every other information that is required to improve your website’s performance.

Instead of using AMP to shorten your piece of code, focus on finding slow areas that affect your app performance and think of ways to fine-tune and optimize your code. You won’t end up displaying the stripped-down version of your code and can utilize the power of your website to its fullest. In other words, AMP is not of much importance for developers who aim for code optimization and for those who are not interested in integrating a third-party concept to their code.

– Susan B. John

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Top 7 UI Trends in 2020 That Will Make Users Fall in Love with Your App

In today’s digital world, it is essential to create websites and mobile apps that enhance your brand identity, boost customer engagement and drives more traffic for your business. The customers expect a lot many things from brands and one of them is great user experience. We need to understand the customer’s preferences before we start designing our product.

The product should be user-friendly, easy-to-use and efficient. It should be neat and interactive. Your page design, logo design, navigation, and colour selection should be well researched and user engaging.

It’s important to leverage the UI designing trends that keep changing at frequent intervals. The competition bar has raised and mere updating your apps and websites bi-annually will not take you to a favourable position.

So, here are some latest trends for designing the UI that you can follow to remain ahead in the race.

Top 7 UI Trends in 2020

1. Gradients

We can see them everywhere; in illustrations, UI elements, and text. We love gradients because they add realism and depth to the platform, the way we see everything in real life. That probably explains why elements with gradients feel more natural.

The gradient designs also provide scope for performing creative colour experiments on the layout of the mobile apps, in an attempt to make them vibrant and eye-catching. Next year will probably bring us many more apps and websites with bold colours and gradients mixed with transparency.

2. Typography

Typography is one important factor that helps us to make the best UI. There is a trend of using big “headings” with gigantic fonts in combination with a little bit of smooth animation. Even if there is only a little content, it will catch the attention of eyes.

Today, UI designs for mobile apps seem to be incomplete without adding some bold typography as it is a key factor that contributes to holding the users’ attention. The typography trend works great with creative experiments that require a mix of elegant fonts with catchy taglines. Here are some examples of the same:

  • Text content that is visually integrated into creative images.
  • Addition of animated typographic elements.
  • Using interfaces based on typography as the core visual elements of a UI design.

3. Illustration and animated graphics

Illustrations are one of the most powerful tools in a designer’s toolbox. Well-crafted illustrations allow designers to convey pretty complex ideas without using too many words. So, when users see illustration, they can understand the concept in a glance.

An enjoyable illustration can give websites or mobile apps their own personality, thus making them more memorable.

Micro-animations help customers distinguish elements on the screens they are going to interact with. After an event takes place, feedback performs an important task in assuring the user that the intended action has actually happened.

This, in turn, brings users a better experience. Additionally, to make these pages stand out, these illustrations often come to life with complex motions.

4. Augmented Reality (AR)

In 2020, web design trends will all involve thinking outside the box, or rather, the grid. We need to forget UI fixed to screens. Instead, we should emphasise interactions which feel like they take place within the real-world environment. Google and Apple have already introduced their own AR development platforms, ARCore and AEKit, that blend the physical and digital worlds.

Designers will need to go beyond screen-only interfaces to include physical interactions. Augmented Reality has ushered a new era in user interface design, a new way of thinking.

Augmented Reality (AR) has become one of the top UI trends in the year 2020.

5. Voice User Interface

The popularity of Alexa and Google Home can’t be undermined. They are the new norm, as they become users’ go-to medium to seek nifty information, get entertained and even control their routine tasks. The navigation-less, button-less and menu-less experience seems so intuitive to a user that 40% of adults now use voice search once per day!

This makes it clear — voice search is not the future. It’s already here and will only become more prevalent in 2020. Voice interactions are slowly but fundamentally changing the way we interact with interfaces.  Instead of relying on touchscreens, mice and keyboards, users are steadily accepting the hands-free way of doing their everyday tasks.

Smart home speakers have already found their place in the hospitality industry, automobiles and large enterprises. The convenience of having an always-on machine that helps you do your digital tasks will not only aid the visually impaired but also introduce a unique way for illiterate users to access the web, in years ahead.

6. Parallax Scrolling & Fixed Navigation Bar

Parallax scrolling is a website trend where the background content is moved at a different speed than the foreground content while scrolling. Parallax Design is a newer element which is being used by several designers in their designs. It involves creating a visual setting in which the object appears moving, or it appears different when viewed from different angles. This type of design is even possible with video and multi-layered parallax.

Fixed Navigation is helpful for users. When they scroll down a website, the navigation bar will be still visible to users and, it will help them to move to another webpage if they like to.

7. 3D graphics

The mass-market currently has little demand for this technology and 3D graphics seems a bit unusual for websites. Nonetheless, 3D elements rendered specifically for a platform get a place in this year’s UI trend list.

It is added at the end of the list because, the production cost of 3D elements is not only higher, they take a longer time to load on a screen.

Nobody loves waiting. Users expect platforms to load in an instant. Any element that adds more time to the user journey meets with frustration.

The good news is, we don’t have to give up entirely on 3D elements. Faux-3D lets objects look three-dimensional. The downside is, they are not completely convincing regarding light and shadow.

The change in the design-first approach

The design-first approach for digital products became a primary attribute this year.

Why?

These designs should improve people’s lives and help businesses to meet their goals.

Most phones have lost their borders and have rounded edges, bezel-less displays or notch displays. That changes their interface quite a bit. It will pose challenges for designers to use sharp-edged elements in their mobile UI and app design.

In 2020, the trends prioritise speed, simple page designs with asymmetrical layouts, and most importantly, a mobile-first approach.

It is more likely that these trends will also change in the coming years as the main platform(mobiles) will be having major changes in layout and sizes.

– Vishnu Anilkumar

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When to Use Parallax Scrolling in Your UI?

Market research has shown that 95% of users assess the value of your website based on its visual appearance. Websites must be creative and innovative enough to keep users attracted to your website.

When someone visits your website, their first question would be “Why must I access this site when I have other real worth websites? What is so different about this site?” and that’s where your website must stand out from the crowd dominantly, clearly and convincingly answering user’s queries and making them stay on your website.

Parallax Scrolling is one such hot design technique used in most of today’s websites providing its users close interaction with the site and making browsing more interesting. Parallax effect was more popular in 2D video games in earlier days, but with the advancement in JavaScript, one can successfully use effects of Parallax in their website to give completely unique experience.

How Parallax Scrolling works

Parallax scrolling is achieved by having the background image (or elements) move slower than the foreground image giving an impression of 3D depth. Different elements move at a different speed, creating a sense of animation and enhanced interactive user experience. Content is marked up using HTML tags, while jQuery checks how far the user has scrolled and move different elements at a different speed.

The Parallax movement started in the web using two simple layers. Thanks to advancement in JavaScript, HTML5 and CSS3, now foreground and background elements can be grouped into different layers and speed of these elements can be controlled based on their layers.

Pros of Parallax Scrolling

Holding visitor interest

As a user scrolls down the page, he is taken to the next level of information without having the user to click anywhere to see the information. This feature keeps user attracted to your website, stirring their interest and wanting them to view more of the information.

Better product display

Instead of just displaying your product as a static image, Parallax scrolling can help the user explore your product in a totally new and different way. It gives 3D view presentation controlled by their own scrolling behaviour.

Bagigia is a classic website where user gets totally different experience of viewing products. 3D presentation of the product is shown with the user controlling the scrolling behaviour.

Visual narration (Storytelling) made more efficient

Storytelling is the best way to communicate a message to a human mind. A well-designed, one-page website can prove powerful storytelling equipment because scrolling through it will be like reading an interesting book that you cannot put down unless complete.

With the right amount of animation and scrolling, Parallax scrolling can effectively communicate your message about your product, their effects and the audience. Parallax provides a nice overview of your website by letting the user visualize the website through scrolling efforts.

Unique Design

Using the Parallax effect, you can design a website that is visually appealing and user-friendly and make your website more fun place and interactive thus, making it stand out from the crowd.

Cons of Parallax Scrolling

Parallax site takes longer to load

JavaScript/JQuery is used to calculate the position of every element in the page and every time there is a scroll, position of all elements needs to be re-calculated that could slow down page load.

Parallax Scrolling does not always work

Parallax effect does not always work well with mobile technology. You might need to make sure you have a separate mobile-optimized version of your website if your parallax scrolling website does not play well on mobile devices.

Too much scrolling

Too much scrolling may irritate the user that would tempt them to leave the site before viewing the main contents of your website.

Conclusion

Parallax scrolling is just sweeping the entire web community and is expanding across the web. Parallax scrolling websites are the future of tomorrow’s website design. It has become the biggest trend in the design world today and when done right and with the right amount of Parallax scrolling, it can no doubt, put your website ahead of the curve providing that extra edge over your competition.

–  Susan B John