Considerations for web designers looking to optimize the user experience

When it comes to what they want to accomplish when creating or redesigning their commercial websites, it seems only natural that every company our web designers talk to in New Jersey or New York is looking for a way to gain an edge. They all want to develop a look and feel that is more attractive than the competition’s, and that retains visitors long enough for them to engage with the business. A key — but quite possibly under appreciated and overlooked — calculation in website design involves the interplay between screen size/resolution/width and user preferences.

An article on the front page of last week’s New York Times called attention to the growing popularity of 30-inch desktop monitors, and even 55” HDTV screens now have such good built-in web browsers that using a giant TV to access the Internet is well within the range of possibility. Screen resolutions have risen dramatically over time, too, with 1280×1024 now typical. So is it time for web designers to unleash their creativity by using all that space and all those pixels to the fullest?  In particular, how wide should we make the screen? Read the rest of this entry »

How to Design an UNattractive Website

Website Design Don’ts from Dotcomweavers’ NJ web designers

One of the blessings – but also a curse – that the availability of powerful yet simple-to-use website development tools has bestowed upon us in recent years is that now it seems nearly everybody and his brother consider themselves web designers. In New Jersey, we are well-acquainted with the self-styling phenomenon. To get a taste of the havoc it can wreak in the area of personal style, all you have to do is watch an episode of MTV’s Jersey Shore. Equivalents to Snookie’s poof, J-Wow’s new figure and The Situation’s droopy acid-washed jeans abound in cyber-space, and they certainly aren’t confined to NJ-based websites.

Last week, we had a few things to say about website development technologies that work at cross-purposes with your best intentions. In this installment, our  website designers in NJ focus on just as inadvisable visual design elements that are likely to drive away those visitors you’re trying so hard to acquire and retain. Read the rest of this entry »

What Not to Use

A friend of ours who used to be an English teacher tells us that the absolute worst way to teach kids how to spell is to show them the wrong way to spell commonly misspelled words. And yet our New Jersey web design and development team can’t resist the urge to warn our readers away from some of the most damaging – and easy-to-avoid – pitfalls we have seen a lot of small NJ and NYC businesses fall into when developing their first websites.
Today, we’re going to talk about five website development elements that deserve to be obsolete or even forbidden in effective website design projects. In our next installment, our  website designers in NJ will focus on equivalently inadvisable visual design elements that can do a similar job of undermining your best intentions for your website. Read the rest of this entry »