Synaxiom Media Group Inc.

Visual Design

When considering visual design it is extremely important to follow certain key guidelines in order to successfully convey your message to your user without creating clutter and confusion. The basic elements of visual communication are form, content, arrangement, light, color schemes, typography & the proper use of white space.

Success in visual design can be determined in terms of how quickly this information is conveyed to your user. It may be in the simple form of direct communication of an idea or product or more subtle emotional triggers that will make your user ‘feel’ a certain way. In either case it is pivotal to determine what information needs to be conveyed and then figure out the best case method of getting that information across. Proper blending of the key elements of your design can result in the exact look you desire as well as convey your message clearly to your audience.

Effective web design does NOT mean eye candy. Functionality as well as usability in combination with visual appeal is what effective visual design breaks down into.

Usability & Navigation

A website, unlike a poster or even a brochure, is an interactive tool you may use to promote your business as well as create revenue; the operative word being “interactive”. Even the most basic websites are interactive. If your site is a simple 5 page static website, you still need the user to navigate through those 5 pages with ease. Every time he/she clicks on a button or link, he/she is interacting with your website, absorbing all the information on that page.

Usability & Functionality will always win in the long run. Return visitors do not come back for eye candy, but they do return either for the information you are presenting or to purchase your products. They do not want to sift through a lot of fluff before they get to what they are really looking for. A good example of this type of fluff is flash intros. Certain website force the viewer to watch a 15 second intro and the first time visitor gets impressed by it but the return visitor is not. The intro gets repetitive and boring. Even with a skip intro button you are still turning off a lot of your users who will get fed up and leave your site. Remember, web users are extremely fickle and have very short attention spans. A flash intro is great but it should be an accessory, with a link on the homepage. If a user wishes to, he/she may click on it and watch it at their leisure.

Navigation is what helps users find their way around your website. This is also how a web search engine crawler or BOT (this is a small intelligent program that will crawl around your site and decide where your site should be index in the search results) finds its way around your site when it comes time to index your site on the search engines. If the navigation is not smooth and easy for a user then the same will apply to the crawler and you will have poor results when it comes to your search engine rankings. Good navigation constitutes the following important elements:

1. The navigation bar or buttons should always appear on the same place in every page of your site. Keeping the order in which it appears consistent is also crucial. The idea is that the user will remember where everything is and then it becomes a simple task to navigate around your site.
2. During your planning stage you developed your site’s structure and hierarchy. This should be evident in your navigation. Main sections followed by sub sections followed by the current page. So every page should have the main navigation buttons plus the back links so the user can clearly identify where he/she is within your site. If the user feels lost then the navigation is not doing its job. Back links are also important for the user to find his/her way back up the hierarchy level by level.
3. Having a proper sitemap is also extremely important. If you are building a large website with a lot of information, a sitemap will help guide your users easily towards the information they are looking for. This is also an important part when it comes to the search engine bots that will visit your site.

Accessibility

Accessibility is simply creating a website that can easily be used by disabled individuals. For instance, if you use a text reader to scan your site, the result should be what is viewed on the page. Otherwise visually impaired individuals will not be able to access your site. Furthermore, navigation should also follow keyboard tab keys easily. On certain sites the press of the tab key will jump from one element to the next without any coherent relationship between them.

Therefore it is important to remain compatible to Section 508 standards and W3C WCAG.
If you wish to read more regarding those standards click on the links below.
Section 508 standard
W3C WCAG

Cross Browser Compatibility

In an ideal world (from a web developer’s perspective) every single user would use the same browser so all you have to worry about is building a site that will work on that browser. However this is not the case and in reality there are many different browsers available on the market and the browser used to surf the web is entirely dependant on the preference of each user.

All web pages are coded in HTML but different browsers will read this code differently and some browsers will not read the code at all, causing the site to malfunction. Therefore the best idea is to develop your site so it is compatible with most browsers, allowing the majority of web surfers to be able to access your site and your information. The most popular websites are all built so they are compatible with the most commonly used browsers, hence the name, being ‘cross browser compatible’.

In the past, before the well known browser wars, Netscape dominated the market as the most popular browser. However, today, Internet Explorer is by far the most commonly used web browser, followed by Mozilla FireFox for users on PCs. Opera web Browser is also gaining a lot of popularity.
In order to confirm that your site is fully compatible with most browsers, the only thing you can do is test it out. Site testing must be comprehensive and done completely before being published in order to maintain this quality standard.

Compatibility

The final Quality Standard that has to be maintained is that your code has to be compliant with W3C standards. The most common standards to comply to are the xHTML 1.0 or HTML 4.01., CSS 2.1 standards. You can use the following website to test your code: http://validator.w3.org/ (W3C Quality Assurance Markup Validation Service).