What is it that makes a website stand out from the crowd? What makes it memorable and meaningful? This eBook wants to approach these questions. It's in no means a step-by-step guide to follow, but rather a collection of thoughts to give you some general impulses and perspectives on creating meaningful websites. Starting with a comprehensive website planning guide to the question, "Which role does emotion play within the emotionless Web system?", our Smashing authors explored a variety of different aspects that all contribute to aesthetically beautiful and thoroughly thought-out user experience. TABLE OF CONTENTS - A Comprehensive Website Planning Guide - A Fun Approach To Creating More Successful Websites - Defending The Generalists In The Web Design Industry - Breaking Down Silos, Part 1: The Consequences Of Working In Isolation - MUD: Minimum Usable Design - A Craft Of Consequences: Reader, Writer And Emotional Design - Easier Is Better Than Better - Designing Engaging And Enjoyable Long-Form Reading Experiences - Symptoms Of An Epidemic: Web Design Trends
Do you want to build web pages but have no prior experience? This friendly guide is the perfect place to start. You’ll begin at square one, learning how the web and web pages work, and then steadily build from there. By the end of the book, you’ll have the skills to create a simple site with multicolumn pages that adapt for mobile devices. Each chapter provides exercises to help you learn various techniques and short quizzes to make sure you understand key concepts. This thoroughly revised edition is ideal for students and professionals of all backgrounds and skill levels. It is simple and clear enough for beginners, yet thorough enough to be a useful reference for experienced developers keeping their skills up to date. Build HTML pages with text, links, images, tables, and forms Use style sheets (CSS) for colors, backgrounds, formatting text, page layout, and even simple animation effects Learn how JavaScript works and why the language is so important in web design Create and optimize web images so they’ll download as quickly as possible NEW! Use CSS Flexbox and Grid for sophisticated and flexible page layout NEW! Learn the ins and outs of Responsive Web Design to make web pages look great on all devices NEW! Become familiar with the command line, Git, and other tools in the modern web developer’s toolkit NEW! Get to know the super-powers of SVG graphics
Are you ready to take your website design skills to the next level? Introducing "Websites That Wow: Ignite Your Design Skills and Create Jaw-Dropping Sites" - the ultimate guide to creating stunning and impactful websites that leave a lasting impression. In this groundbreaking eBook, we dive deep into the principles of effective web design, exploring the elements of visual design such as color, typography, and imagery. You'll discover how to create a solid foundation with layout and composition techniques that captivate your audience from the moment they land on your site. But it doesn't stop there. "Websites That Wow" takes you on a journey through the world of user experience, teaching you how to optimize navigation and usability for seamless interactions. Learn the art of storytelling through web design, harnessing narrative elements that engage and connect with your visitors on a deeper level. Ready to take your designs to new heights? We've got you covered. Discover how to implement interactive features and animations that captivate and hold your users' attention. Unleash the power of multimedia elements, such as videos and audio, to create immersive experiences that leave a lasting impact. But it's not just about aesthetics - "Websites That Wow" also delves into the world of emotional design. Learn how to evoke feelings and connect with your users on an emotional level, creating websites that resonate and forge strong connections. In an increasingly mobile world, responsive design is crucial. Our eBook guides you through the process of understanding the importance of responsive design and optimizing your layouts and content for various devices. Say goodbye to frustrating mobile experiences and hello to seamless interactions that delight users. And let's not forget about performance - "Websites That Wow" reveals the secrets to optimizing your website's speed, load times, and file sizes. Discover how to leverage caching, compression, and content delivery networks to ensure your site performs at its best. But we don't stop at theory - "Websites That Wow" equips you with practical knowledge to implement advanced CSS techniques, modern design trends like parallax scrolling, and streamlined development using grid systems and frameworks. Unleash the power of microinteractions and subtle animations to polish your designs and create a truly exceptional user experience. Finally, we wrap up with invaluable insights into A/B testing, gathering user feedback, and continuous improvement. Learn how to optimize your designs based on data-driven insights and showcase your work effectively to potential clients or employers. Whether you're a seasoned web designer looking to enhance your skills or a beginner ready to dive into the world of website development, "Websites That Wow" is your roadmap to success. Packed with expert advice, practical tips, and inspiring examples, this eBook will empower you to create jaw-dropping sites that set you apart from the competition. Don't settle for mediocrity - ignite your design skills and create websites that wow the world. Get your copy of "Websites That Wow: Ignite Your Design Skills and Create Jaw-Dropping Sites" now and embark on a journey of web design excellence.
Web designers are no longer just web designers. To create a successful web product that's as large as Etsy, Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest-or even as small as a tiny app-you need to know more than just HTML and CSS. You need to understand how to create meaningful online experiences so that users want to come back again and again. In other words, you have to stop thinking like a web designer or a visual designer or a UX designer or an interaction designer and start thinking like a product designer. In this breakthrough introduction to modern product design, Etsy Creative Director Randy Hunt explains the skills, processes, types of tools, and recommended workflows for creating world-class web products. After reading this book, you'll have a complete understanding of what product design really is and you'll be equipped with the best practices necessary for building your own successful online products.
The ultimate guide to UX from the world’s most popular resource for web designers and developers Smashing Magazine is the world′s most popular resource for web designers and developers and with this book the authors provide the ideal resource for mastering User Experience Design (UX). The authors provide an overview of UX and User Centred Design and examine in detail sixteen of the most common UX design and research tools and techniques for your web projects. The authors share their top tips from their collective 30 years of working in UX including: Guides to when and how to use the most appropriate UX research and design techniques such as usability testing, prototyping, wire framing, sketching, information architecture & running workshops How to plan UX projects to suit different budgets, time constraints and business objectives Case studies from real UX projects that explain how particular techniques were used to achieve the client's goals Checklists to help you choose the right UX tools and techniques for the job in hand Typical user and business requirements to consider when designing business critical pages such as homepages, forms, product pages and mobile interfaces as well as explanations of key things to consider when designing for mobile, internationalization and behavioural change. Smashing UX Design is the complete UX reference manual. Treat it as the UX expert on your bookshelf that you can read from cover-to-cover, or to dip into as the need arises, regardless of whether you have 'UX' in your job title or not.
Why attractive things work better and other crucial insights into human-centered design Emotions are inseparable from how we humans think, choose, and act. In Emotional Design, cognitive scientist Don Norman shows how the principles of human psychology apply to the invention and design of new technologies and products. In The Design of Everyday Things, Norman made the definitive case for human-centered design, showing that good design demanded that the user's must take precedence over a designer's aesthetic if anything, from light switches to airplanes, was going to work as the user needed. In this book, he takes his thinking several steps farther, showing that successful design must incorporate not just what users need, but must address our minds by attending to our visceral reactions, to our behavioral choices, and to the stories we want the things in our lives to tell others about ourselves. Good human-centered design isn't just about making effective tools that are straightforward to use; it's about making affective tools that mesh well with our emotions and help us express our identities and support our social lives. From roller coasters to robots, sports cars to smart phones, attractive things work better. Whether designer or consumer, user or inventor, this book is the definitive guide to making Norman's insights work for you.
Creating Meaningful Impact: The Essential Guide to Developing an Impact-Literate Mindset looks at impact from inside the research sector, celebrating the opportunity to make a difference whilst recognising the challenges this brings.
This is not another SEO book written for marketing professionals. Between these covers you’ll find practical advice and examples for people who build websites aiming to reach their target audience. Each chapter will introduce you to best practices and fresh perspectives on how to accomplish these simple, yet indispensable goals: Help more people find your site Help users find content within your site Encourage return visits The path this book travels through the villages of Web standards, accessibility, and contemporary technologies like Ajax, APIs, Flash, and microformats. You’ll find the big ideas behind these technologies and real world examples, illustrating that you don’t have to compromise the user experience to create search engine friendly, findable websites. Although this book illuminates a broad range of findability strategies, one common theme pervades: Web standards + compelling content = improved findability = more successful sites You’ll find even more findability guidance on the book’s companion website (http://buildingfindablewebsites.com) including 5 bonus chapters.
Better Web Typography for a Better Web is a book based on a top-rated online course explaining typography to people who build web sites-web designers and web developers. The author, Matej Latin, takes complex concepts such as vertical rhythm, modular scale and page composition, and explains them in an easy-to-understand way. The content of the book is accompanied by live code examples and the readers go through a process of designing and building an example website as they go through the book. This is a new typography book for a new medium, the rules haven't changed much, everything else has.