webdesign - Getting Users to Sign Up: Factors in Design and Content
Conversions can be tricky to accomplish on any website. A conversion could mean more sales, more registered users or simply more engaged users. Having a great product and delivering value to the user are obviously the factors to focus on when you want to increase your conversion rate. But a conversion rate can also be increased with smart design and strong content. In this article, we’ll discuss how to improve design and content for one type of website conversion: getting users to sign up on your website, whether it’s registering an account for your web app, for an email newsletter, your RSS feed, etc. We’ll go over some design trends and practices that have been proven to improve conversion rates. Everyone Wants Something for Nothing Let’s say you’ve stumbled on a website that you know nothing about. You’d like to investigate further to see if you want to sign up. Naturally, you want to try it out right away! Trials are a strong selling point for increasing conversion rates. A/B Testing
webdesign - 20 Websites to Help You Master User Interface Design
By Jacob Gube As web technologies progress, websites and web applications are becoming more responsive, providing us with more ways and techniques to interact with the users. Form, more than ever, has been superseded by function. The following websites deal with interface design, user experience, user-centered design, usability, and everything in between – all with the goal of enhancing the user’s interface. 1. Boxes and Arrows Boxes and Arrows is a peer-written journal and a premier source for information on interaction design, usability, and information design. 2. UX Magazine deals in the topic of user experience. 3. UXmatters is a non-profit web magazine devoted to sharing information on effective user experience techniques and becoming a leading resource for User Interface (UX) professionals. 4. A List Apart – the leading resource on standards-based design and development articles – has a User Science topic that covers various parts of designing the user’s interface. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
webdesign - 10 Important UI Design Considerations for Web Apps
When I finished building my first web app (CompVersions, which allows you to collect feedback from clients), I was surprised at the number of user interface decisions and considerations I hadn’t accounted for at the beginning of my journey. I’d like to share some of those things with you. Many of these design considerations might seem superficially obvious, but once you’re going through the design and development process, it’s easy to forget about them because they’re like condiments — you hardly notice them when they’re there, but if they’re missing, your food just doesn’t taste right. Blank State The blank state is how your app will look and function when the user hasn’t entered any data yet (except perhaps their email address after signing up for an account). This is the first interaction and scenario that your user will encounter with your app and it can make or break their first experience and impression. Let’s look at a couple more examples of blank states. Plan Upgrading/Downgrading
Subtle Details: Taking Web Designs to Another Level
Have you ever looked at a web site and immediately been impressed with it’s design? Then you take a closer look and discover what really makes it amazing. It’s the subtle details. Some designers are great at including this in their designs. Pixel Perfect Line Work The designer of Image Spark, used a 1 px line along the top of the nav bar and around the bottom of the search field to make the edges pop. A similar technique is being used on atebits, but here it’s used to create dividers. Shadows with Restraint Shadows are a great way to give a design depth, but when creating shadows, it’s important to not over do it. The designer of Fubiz uses a subtle shadow below the nav bar to give the illusion that it is raised off the page. For fun, let’s see what would happen if the designer went a little crazy with the shadow. The official site for the White House has shadows everywhere, but since they are all done subtly, the site maintains a very clean appearance. Simple Gradients Precise Textures
15 Tutorials To Help You Build WordPress Themes
WordPress is one of the most popular applications in the web design community not only for its ease of use as a blogging platform, but for its versatility in any kind of content managed website. Building custom themes for WordPress is pretty straight forward, making it one of the easiest templating systems to master. This post rounds up 15 of the best WordPress theme tutorials, each taking you through the process of building your own WP theme from scratch. How To Create a WordPress Theme: The Ultimate WordPress Theme Tutorial This thorough 11 part tutorial series takes you through every detail of creating your own WordPress theme from scratch. So you want to create WordPress themes huh? Even some of the oldest WordPress theme tutorials are still the best today. How to Create a WordPress Theme from Scratch Sam Parkinson takes us through the process of building this custom blog theme in his tutorial on Nettuts+ and describes the use of each template file along with code samples.
Mixing Fonts
A palette with wit Use typefaces with complementary moods to evoke an upbeat, energetic air. It’s the interplay between fonts that gives them energy. The more distant the moods in a typographic palette, the friskier the design will be. Here, three fonts with distinctive silhouettes have been chosen for their contrasting dispositions: the unabashed toughness of Tungsten is a foil for both Archer’s sweetness, and the cheekiness of Gotham Rounded. Tungsten Gotham Rounded Archer A palette with energy Mix typefaces from the same historical period whose families have different features. Three type families with nineteenth century roots, thrown together in a cheerful typographic riot. Proteus Project Knockout Sentinel A palette with poise Mix typefaces with a similar line quality if they offer different textures. What do a neoclassical modern, a suave sans serif, and a sporty slab have in common? HTF Didot Verlag Vitesse A palette with dignity Mercury Text Hoefler Titling Gotham
