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Website Design: Guidelines to help you design a Hotel/Restaurant Website for better online presence!

3/4/2013

Website Design & Development has become a necessity for industries of all shapes and sizes and the hospitality industry is no exception! Today, various hotels and restaurant owners are getting into the website design field to leverage from it and to get maximum exposure across the globe.

In today’s internet age, if you do not have an online presence, then you will lose a large number of users searching for best hotels and restaurants over the internet. Moreover, it becomes crucial for the website designers make sure that have a clear idea about the variations in designing a website for the hotel or restaurant compared to designing website for any other industry.

If you have recently started your career in website design field and you have been asked to design a website for a hotel or restaurant, then you must follow the guidelines discussed below in order to design a website that boosts its online presence over the web.

•   Don’t forget the audience or potential customers! It is crucial for a designer to have a clear understanding of what users are actually expecting from the website they are designing. As you are designing for hospitality, you have to use lavish colors and graphics in the website. But make sure which color combination will suit the website most.

•   Make it is easy for end users to understand the information provided in the website by using clear and easily understandable language. While designing for the hotel or restaurant, navigation plays a key role. So make sure you provide seamless navigation to the user in order to make it easy to land on the desired page easily.

•   Use videos, flash, animation etc. to make your website more interactive and appealing. But ensure that such multimedia elements don’t affect the loading time of the website.

•   Make sure you highlight the promotions and offers! You can create a separate page for these. Make sure you provide detailed information to the users. You can integrate promotions and packages with the hotel booking engine in order to make it easy for users to avail of those discounts and offers easily.

•   Make the booking process as simple and quick as possible!

•   Provide ample contact and booking information over the website in order to make it easy for visitors to find the desired details on the go.

Follow all the above discussed guidelines when you design a hotel or restaurant website ad you’ll get great online presence!

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Top 7 online tools for website design

2/13/2013

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There are many tools for website creation but the selection of tools is an important factor. We can find many offline designing software tools like Dreamweaver, Adobe Photoshop and Coffee-Cup, but it’s good to be aware about online website designing tools too.

I have collected information about online designing tools and selected the top 7 free online tools. Here’s some brief information about them.

1. Yuuguu
This is a great tool for sharing display screen from one person to another. Whenever a web designer works with a large team and they need to share a design concept, then Yuuguu will be helpful. It includes very simple content and it can support on all major operating systems.

2. Dropbox
Dropbox is the most popular cloud storage service provider for storing large amount of data. This tool provides free registration and offers 2GB free storage. The web designer can also get more space through referring friends on Dropbox website. Here, the designer can store graphics, multimedia, web pages and much more. Dropbox is a secure and safe data storage service provider which also works for easy data sharing.

3. Favicon Generator
The Favicon Generator is an online tool for designing Favicons for a website. The Favicon is the header part of a web page which needs small but effective design. Mostly, Favicon images contain .GIF image format. This tool helps to make an impressive graphic.

4. Redmine
This is a project management application which can manage many projects at a time. It includes a large number of features for storing lots of details with time, date, personal information, graph chart and many other elements. This online tool is very effective for website design.

5. Pixlr
Pixlr is a great graphic design tool which provides a large number of features for image editing. We know that Adobe Photoshop is a much used tool by web or graphic designers but if a designer needs to edit images online, then I always prefer Pixlr. This tool includes same facilities as Photoshop for best image creation and to change the look of existing image.

6. Kuler
Kuler is an online color tool from Adobe Labs. If a web designer needs to change color design or set the color scheme with some new color mix, then it will be easy with this tool. This tool also provides color slide with different color mixes and many patterns for best color combinations. It surely helps to make a website more stylish with great colors.

7. BrowserShots
Many times designers need to take some screenshots of the website for planning the design project to get interesting ideas. At that time Browsershots can help to get a website look into the image. This is not a very easy tool because of its large features of JavaScript, flash design and perfect size concept.

Since all these designing tools are free and have easy concepts for complete website design work, designers should be aware about them to get best results.

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Web designer guide: Build navigation bar in web design

1/30/2013

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How to build a creative web design? This is a common question for all web designers and they must find solutions to it. The basic concepts about web design are very important and the navigation bar is the most basic requirement of any website; it makes the site interesting.

What is the navigation bar?

The navigation bar is that part of the web design which includes various page links of websites. The primary concept of the navigation bar is to build with JavaScript, Flash design or common HTML.

Design structure:

Navigation bar includes main three HTML tags - Div Id, li and ul - which can build the structure of the navigation bar. In the adjoining figure, the designed structure of the navigation bar shows the menu bar with Div Id which is already built in CSS. Another part of the navigation bar is “li” to include web pages link in the menu as a drop down bar. “li” can include the links of various web pages and the anchor text of those web pages.

Navigation bar can be simple or multilevel. In a multilevel navigation bar the sub menu includes an additional menu bar.

HTML structure of Navigation bar:

The common code system of navigation bar is mentioned below:

<div id="class_name">
<ul>
<li><a href="web_page_link_1">first option</a></li>
<li><a href="web_page_link_2">second option</a></li>
<li><a href="web_page_link_3">third option</a></li>
<li><a href="web_page_link_4">fourth option</a></li>
<li><a href="web_page_link_5">fifth option</a></li>
</ul>
</div>

Here, “ul”, “li” and “class_name” have specific CSS style.

CSS and JQuery:

CSS includes the designing structure of the website and provides a perfect style of different web design elements. Here we have Div Id with class_name so we can create the CSS as

#class_name{
height:40px;
line-height:40px;
background:#5F6708;
padding:0 10px;
}

Same as given, the web designer can also build the CSS with “ul” and “li” .

#ul{
<!--Body part--!>
}
#li{
<!--Body part--!>
}

This is coding of the simple level navigation bar. The multilevel navigation bar requires advanced CSS for different “li” and “ul” structures.

Jquery code needs to include two main events like “mouseover” and “mouseleave”. A web designer has to just include the function in Jquery with “mouseover” and “mouseleave” event.

<script >
function class_name(){
$('div#class_name ul li').mouseover(function() {
$(this).find('ul:first').show();
});
$('div#nav ul li').mouseleave(function() {
$('div#nav ul li ul').hide();
});
</script>
< !--Make same as given code system--! >

By using the given JavaScript code the web designer can build the perfect style of navigation and build the perfect navigation bar.

Advantages of Navigation bar:

•   It helps to find landing pages of the website and also to manage the all web page links at different menu parts.
•   The graphic design and JavaScript effects make it possible to attract more users.
•   The multi-level navigation bar can include lots of web links of the website that can help to find lots of information at one place.
•   The navigation bar is also useful for SEO because of its link structure with particular web pages and the main keyword on the website.

Navigation bar is the best concept for a web designer and is very useful if included in the web design. The latest web design trends and creative concepts are most effective for designing but this is the most common, so don’t forget it.

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UX design is not just a web design concept -- it’s a sign of success!

1/18/2013

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The user experience web design is also called UX design or UED which is the concept of providing best to the user and getting their response. Many designing factors like graphic design, typography, interface and full web elements are included in website design. If the design has a creative concept that is effective on the website and provides best response then we can call that website design UX design.

Introduction

Whenever users visit the website they first check its look and then the functions of different web design elements. The user then decides whether the website is effective or not. If it’s effective then the user will visit more pages and also to that website a second time. Thus the website gets more users with user review and the UX design.

If a designer needs to build a UX web design then the first requirement is to find a creative plan for the website and use the best designing. The web design tools and designer creativity are inter-connected , if the designer uses effective web design tools then it will be easy to build best web design with least effort.

Multimedia concept for website design

The multimedia includes graphic design, videos, animation and many more elements. The most basic part of a website is the graphic design which can be seen by users at first look. Relevant images can help in effective design.

Make user friendly concept

Every designer has to build a website from a users' point of view. The designer knows the concept of the website but users are not aware about it. Easy but innovative concept can easily catch users, get perfect information and find the services of buy products from the website.

Support new users

All users are not technically proficient or they don’t have experience about surfing all types of websites so the help section is a necessary part of a website. The help section is the best idea for users to get step-by-step instructions.

Design concept of mobility

Latest information says 30% of internet users use mobiles to surf a website. So it will be best to create a specific website for all mobile users. The important concept is to make effective mobile websites that can work on Android, iOS, Windows and Symbian mobiles. These operating systems have different structures so they need to use common concepts while designing website with the goal of UX design.

Do analysis, don’t make copies

The common concept of web designing is to check other similar websites and get some concepts from those designing ideas. It’s good to visit different websites and find designing concepts, but don’t copy. A unique design can increase real traffic on the website and also make users feel that they have found something new on your website.

Finally I just say that UX design is not simply making a website; it’s the concept of success. If a website has innovative design then users will visit that website.

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Website Design: Guidelines to help you design a Hotel/Restaurant Website for better online presence!

Top 7 online tools for website design

Web designer guide: Build navigation bar in web design

UX design is not just a web design concept -- it’s a sign of success!

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