Newscounter
Thursday, December 6, 2007
An Introduction to Typefaces

Knowing what you are looking for when choosing a fount is incredibly important. The founts are mainly grouped by their physical appearance. The most recognised groupings are serif, sans serif, script, blackletter, monspaced and ornamental.

Serif

Serif fonts are named after the little characteristics at the end of the missive strokes. They are sometimes referred to as "roman" founts and are used most commonly used in black and white mass media such as as magazines, newspapers and books.

It is widely believed that seriph founts do long transitions of textual matter easier to read (hence their usage in newspapers and books) but actually surveys have got shown a big amount of fluctuation in consequences suggesting that the ability to break prolong seriph fonts is based on pattern and acquaintance with the style.

Serif fonts are also commonly divided into three subgroups called Old style, Transitional and Modern. Old Style Serif founts are directly descended from written styles and be given to have got a diagonal stress. They are still quite widely and you may recognise the founts Garamond and Goudy Old Style as illustrations of this group.

Transitional founts are much more than common and are in between the old style founts and the modern. They have got more than definition between thick and thin lines within the letters and you will recognise Times Roman and Baskerville as recognisable illustrations of Transitional Serif Fonts.

Modern founts are characterised by utmost direct contrast between thick and thin lines. They are considered less readable in big blocks than the other two categorizations and are more than than commonly used in headings.

Sans Serif

A sans seriph fount is named after the deficiency of a seriph at the end of each letters pen shot and they are generally associated with more modern designs.

Sans seriph designings appeared additional down the clip line than their seriph styles blood brother yet are just as popular, especially in digital media. This is because sans seriphs founts promote discernability over readability and are perfect for usage in littler textual matter blocks. Sans seriph is also used more than commonly in the digital field because it throws its discernability better on low declaration or mediocre quality screens; some thicker sans seriph founts have got go especially synonymous with the web 2.0 styling. Sans seriph founts are also commonly used on route or public information signs.

Commonly recognised sans seriph founts include Arial, Sans Serif and Futura.

Script

Script fonts are the 1s often associated with handwritten textual matter or calligraphy. They are quite hard to read in big transitions but are still used in some situations, especially publish media. This is because book founts often give off the feeling of elegance when compared to some of the other fount groups.

You will often happen Script founts used in eating house menus or invitations for the elegant intensions and because these formattings often don't have immense amounts of textual matter collected together.

Commonly used Script founts include Coronet and Handscript.

Blackletter

Blackletter founts are fairly complex fonts that usage an especially complex set of seriphs and designing tweaks. They are predominately designed to suit in with "old English" style penmanship and often look Medieval. They impart a certain amount of powerfulness to textual matter as it goes instantly noticeable, especially alongside normal fonts.

Blackletter is very rarely used for full sets of textual matter and is usually centred around headings and titles. It goes hard to read if set to little and therefore it makes not impart itself to inordinate use. Blackletter is sometimes referred to as "Gothic" but this should not be confused with certain styles of sans seriph fount that have got Gothic styles.

Common Blackletter styles include Schwabacher and Textualis

Monspaced

Monspaced founts are specially designed founts in which every missive or symbol have the exact same width. They were originally designed for typewriters which could not travel a dynamical amount of space in-between letters so every 1 had to be the same. Early computing machines also used this style of font as did early printers.

Monospaced textual matter is still used because of how easy it is to read in big groupings and can be establish today in computing machine scheduling and apparent textual matter written documents and you will very often see it inside cyberspace mistake messages or waiter commands.

Because of its human relationship with computing machines and scheduling monospaced founts often stop up making blocks of textual matter expression very "geeky" or "technical", it would be wise to avoid publication anything in this style unless you wanted to purposely accomplish these effects. While its discernability is high reading it in big amounts can turn out to be difficult.

Modern illustrations of monospaced founts are Messenger and Monaco.

Ornamental

Ornamental textual matter is often referred to under different name calling such as as show or freshness text. It is very rarely suited for organic structure textual matter and is designed for typical titles. The style will very often transport extremely specific intensions (such as Horror or Fantasy) and can stop up being associated with trade names or merchandises very easily. Sometimes the fount characteristics image or icons built into it and will often be involved in logos.

There are many other, less commonly used founts out there such as as as none Latin based 1s or symbol fonts such as Wingdings and Webdings. These all have got their usages but are not always installed on every browser and reader.

The most of import thing to retrieve when choosing a fount is to happen a balance between readability and suitability. If you land site is all about palaces and knights it may do sense to utilize Blackletter but no-one desires to read more than than 20 or so words of Blackletter at a time, pick an Old Style seriph fount for the organic structure of your textual matter and usage the peculiarity of another fount for headings and titles.

Hopefully this have been at least a small educating and adjacent clip you make up one's mind on a fount for a undertaking you will be a small better suited to making the right choice.

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Friday, August 24, 2007
The Importance Of Good Web Design

Have you ever at some point thought about designing your ain web site?

If so, what make you believe is the most of import facet of this popular task?

Is it the manner your pages look? Well to some grade it is, but it's more to make with the pilotage of your golf course and how your website flowings and shows itself to your viewing audience as a whole.

When possible visitants see your land land site you desire them to happen the relevant information quicker than they would researching it themselves, so that hopefully they will come up back to your site either by bookmarking it or taking short letter of the URL(web address) for later use, and so that they don't just travel elsewhere on the net, because once they are gone you'll more than likely never see them again! (fact!).

So you desire to make your land land land site easily accessible and all the information that the visitant desires is clearly marked with golf course of study that draw them in.

Of course you are not in full control of peoples heads to do them stay, but retrieve by making your site synergistic and with something for the spectator to do you may derive an advantage over other land sites that don't offer this.

Images and streamers should be used sparingly and only to compliment your targeted content, 70% writing(content) 30% pictures(Images) is a good regulation to follow, ideally either your place page or your index page should have got got your chief content and the point of your website should be realized here, maybe you are promoting a service or product, make it known.

Your site overall, necessitates to be attractive to the eyes and not that much of a distraction that put option your readers off, clear, readable and easily viewable articles and valued content are what should be presented here, there is no point in mis-matched colour founts or a premix of small, medium and big sized founts scattered throughout (this looks quite childish), you necessitate to believe beyond the fact that that peculiar designing may look good to you, but may be off putting to others, seek to believe about your endorsers or future 1s as these are the people who will distribute your repute so make a good professional first impression.

It's also a good thought to acquire a basic apprehension of HTML, which is the codification that all websites are partly made up of and designed by, all tabular arrays and colors are formatted using hypertext markup linguistic communication and then divide up by other coding language such as as as Javascript which makes the interactivity into a web page, you do not have to be a complete cognize it all in hypertext markup language but it is helpful to cognize the rudiments such as creating hyperlinks and golf course to mental images etc.

Lastly of all retrieve there is information all over the internet(that is what the web is about!!) when you necessitate it, you just have got got got to make a hunt to happen the information you need, but of course of study if you cannot be bothered there is always the added fillip of determination a inexpensive ebook that person have gone to the problem of compiling themselves through extended research that they have done, so you just have to purchase it and it is downloaded instantly.

Ps. If you are considering a good web host for concern on the cyberspace then you should seek http://easydesi.thirdsphereplus.com it have all the tools for automating your concern and economy you more than clip to make valuable content for your web pages.

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Friday, July 27, 2007
Keep Your On-The-Go Customers By Optimizing Your Site For Mobile Browsers

Remember These Tips When Design Your Site For The Mobile River Web

As a website owner, you must maintain up to day of the month with all of the new engineerings surrounding web designing and development. One relatively new and very popular method of accessing the cyberspace is via mobile devices such as as cell phones, blackberries, and PDA's. While the figure of mobile web users' stay somewhat limited, as terms come up down and connexion velocities increase, more than than and more people will get using the mobile web. However, it is of import to remain ahead of the game and do certain that all of your customers, wherever they are, can access you website quickly and easily. Therefore, when optimizing your website for mobile users retrieve the followers tips.

Graphics

While your chief land site may incorporate brassy artwork that entreaty to your customers, mobile web users happen artwork bothersome and hard to see. At the same time, using tons of artwork will increase your loading clip dramatically for your mobile users. Therefore, when designing your mobile land site do certain to utilize almost no artwork and acquire consecutive to the point.

Text

Because most mobile web browsers show at a much less declaration than normal computing machine monitoring devices it is very of import to utilize very small text. Instead of having respective paragraphs of textual matter per page attempt to maintain the subjects limited to a few short sentences so that people acquire the chief thought of the article. In the same way, maintain the textual matter that is used to as little of fount as possible so that users make not have got to coil to read your webpage.

Links

Adding golf course instead of pages full of textual matter is another great manner to optimize your webpage for mobile users. If golf course are arranged in vertically it will be very easy for users to entree the pages that they wish to see quickly and easily. At the same time, do certain that each nexus makes not incorporate a drawn-out verbal description of the page.

These tips are just a few of the ways that you can convey the mobile web to your customers. While the engineering is still relatively new, it is always of import for any company to remain ahead and do itself ready for the future.

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Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Four Critical Web Design Rules

When creating a new website or redesigning an existent site, there are four critical regulations which the interior designer should follow to do the land land site effectual and functional - and successful.

1. Easy to Read

When edifice a website, the first thing you necessitate to be certain of is that your website is easy to read. When you compose content, retrieve that most web land land site visitants don't read every word of a page - in fact, they only scan pages to happen what they want.

Break up Your Content

Break up your pages and usage headings between major thoughts so people scanning your site can happen what they desire quickly. Use meaningful headings between each paragraph or major thought - this assists with SEO. Headers should be created with the H1 through H4 tags for SEO. Always usage good authorship structure. Additionally, avoid long paragraphs that tally on. You should interrupt up any long paragraphs.

Color and Fonts

To assist readability, usage high direct contrast colours between fount and background. Black textual matter against a achromatic background may look stark, but it is very readable. To do a website easy on the eyes, seek an off-white background and a dark grey (almost black) textual matter color.

Things to avoid with content color:

  • Avoid vivacious background colours like violet or yellow. Such dorsum colours do textual matter hard to read.
  • Avoid using an mental image behind your text.
  • Avoid using bright textual matter colours on bright backgrounds.

Fonts Matter

One simple statement covers the fount issue:

  • Simple founts are the best; the more than illusion the font, the harder it is to read.

Since many browsers only have got the criterion fount set, usage criterion fonts. In reality, there is no "standard", but there are certain founts that are installed on most browsers. These include Arial, Verdana, Tahoma and Times New Roman. Your readers will see something different than you see if you utilize other fonts.

Standard Compliant Browser for Development

When developing and testing your site, usage a Standards compliant browser like FireFox. If you develop your land site to be criteria compliant, it will work in most browsers, including multiple sclerosis Internet Explorer (IE). It is recommended that you prove your land site using the up-to-the-minute and last browser versions of IE (IE6 and IE7). To run multiple versions of IE on the same machine, TredoSoft.com have a free installer that volition put in multiple versions of IE. It works great!

2. Simplify Navigation

The menus and golf course do up the pilotage that the visitant utilizes to acquire from page to page in a site. Always program a land site around how people will acquire from page to page. A visitant to your land site should be able to acquire to what they desire within three chinks of their mouse.

Multiple pilotage points do it easy to happen things. Repeat the top bill of fare and at the bottom. Also make a left or right menu.

Using golf course within your textual matter to other countries on your site. You can make golf course so that they are good for hunt engine optimisation (SEO). There are generally two ways to make golf course within your text:

  • The incorrect way: "For hunt engine optimisation techniques, click here."
  • The right way: "Good techniques for search engine optimization are of import to use."

  • Using nexus textual matter (anchor text) that depicts what the nexus is about is the best way. Search engine web sycophants (programs that automatically index the table of contents of websites) visit your site, they "read" links. Spiders can index descriptive golf course into a topic or keyword category. Spiders have got nil to work with when reading a "click here" until it attains the linked page.

    This is Cross Linking - usage it as much as possible when it make sense to do so when authorship your content.

    3. Consistent Design

    At most, one or two layouts should be used in your land site design. As a reader browsings your site, they should be able to acquire used to looking in the same topographic point for your navigation, for your sub-navigation and for your content. That's all there is to state about that.

    4. Lower Berth Page Weight is Better

    Page weight is the sum size of a page on your land site in bytes - code, textual matter and images. Your site's page weight do a large difference to your viewers. Lighter page weight is better for your readers because the page will download faster. The faster a page downloads, the faster they will acquire to the content.

    What is Means to be Light

    • No big images. (unless the site's intent is to show window images, fine art or photos)
    • Fewer mental mental images are better.
    • Optimize mental images for the web at no more than than 72 dpi
    • Use as little an mental image dimension as possible for the given design.
    • Use a tabular array td bgcolor property or a background-color style property for solid colour backgrounds.
    • Make gradients horizontal or perpendicular (not diagonal) so that you can utilize a little mental image "strip" and repetition it.

    How "Heavy" Should a Web Page be?

    Certain surveys demo that 64K is a good upper limit webpage size. 64K is a maximum, however it is still, in my opinion, really big! The littler the page, the better. 25K is good, 15K is even better. There is a balance between designing and function. It is a good thought to concentrate more than on function.

    Try putting pages on your web host waiter as you construct your land site so you can prove it as you go. For pages online, you can prove the page weight to be certain you are on track.

    Ways to do pages lighter:

    • Use linked style sheets
    • Use DIVs instead of TABLEs where possible
    • Use simple repeating backgrounds for consequence

    Summary

    Visitors to your website should be able to happen what they are looking for within about three clicks. Making a land site easy to read with consistent page design, and easy to voyage volition do it easy to happen information. You will be on the manner to edifice a readable, effective, functional and hopefully successful website if you follow these rules.

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    Monday, July 2, 2007
    Does Using Flash On Your Website Help or Hurt

    While the verdict is still out, using Flash on your site has its pros and cons. However, before you decide if you will be using Flash or not you need to think about if Flash is right for you.

    Pros

    Flash does indeed have its many advantages. In fact some of the best looking sites on the web today are flash based sites. One of the biggest reasons for this is the fact that using Flash improves the interactivity of the webpage. Because it is much easier to create interactive buttons on Flash, users will be able to interact with your site much more than without it. In addition, Flash enables you to get very creative with your website and offers you endless creativity. Depending on what you want your site to convey, this creativity can greatly improve your companies image. Yet another advantage of using flash is that you do not have to worry about browser capability because all browsers have the ability to see Flash pages.

    Cons

    Just as there are many advantages to using flash on your website, there are just as many disadvantages. For one, using Flash will dramatically increase the load time for your page. In addition, some users may not wish to install Flash onto their computer, effectively losing them for good. However, the largest disadvantage of using a flash based site is that it is very hard to optimize for search engines. In fact, it is nearly impossible and doing so assures that your site may never be found by potential consumers.

    The decision to use Flash is entirely up to you, however it is good to know the advantages and disadvantages of using it. What works for one site is not going to work for another, so before you choose what you are going to do make sure to evaluate which option will work best for your company.

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    Tuesday, June 26, 2007
    Web Designing Tips

    More and more people are getting fond of web design. Whether for work related purposes or for personal-use purposes. Some people get short courses to study web designing and some rely on e-learning and get web designing tutorials on-line. For people who works as a web designer, they know the do's and dont's of web designing, for most of them at least. For those who don't, especially those who are new in the field, here are some basic tips that would help in enhancing your web designing skills.

    Keep your index page short

    For the convenience of your visitor, don't place all your content on the index page. Remember that you can use several pages on making a web site. Having a single-page site with all the contents there will make a visitor dizzy and confused.

    Create a toolbar or menus easy navigation

    This will make your visitors stay in your site longer. After reading the content of your page, it is more likely that your visitor will look for other pages on your site that would interest him. Using short, clear and precise words will also help the visitor know the content of the page where your link is going. I suggest to place the navigation menu on top and the other main links on the right hand side menu. You can also use a drop-down menus if you have many links.

    Clean layout design

    Align the contents of the page properly. You can use as many tables as you need to be able to insert the images or whatever you need for the page. Beginners tend to put as much images as they can, thinking it would be nice to look at, but it is advisable to put minimal photos. For a safer design, you can also use templates.

    Use uniform fonts

    As much as possible, use only two to three kinds of font face and the suggested sizes are ten to fourteen points. Just use different font styles, italics for instance, to emphasize keywords. Also, use a font that is available on all computers to prevent having a messed up design.

    Cross browser compatible

    Keep in mind that there are other internet browsers other than what you are using. At least make sure that your codes and design are compatible to the major browsers like Internet Explorer 5+, Mozilla Firefox 1.0, Opera 7.0 and Netscape Navigator 6+ .

    These are just basic tips and suggestions on web designing but are guaranteed useful. These can be used as guide on building your own site but still the overall design is in your hands.

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    Wednesday, June 20, 2007
    Web Accessibility A Universal Goal

    Over the last decay, an increase number of research were conducted to determine ways Information Technology can assist in meeting special needs to ensure universal accessibility. Findings to date suggest that by being more knowledgeable about accessibility issues, Web designers and developers are able to accommodate end users with special needs.
    As we enter the knowledge age, it is no longer acceptable that people with limited or no vision are on their own when it comes to accessing the web, nor those with mobility problems are on their own when it comes to use a hardware.

    To ignore website accessibility raises moral, business, and legal issues. It is morally wrong to discriminate against disabled people on the web simply through lack of thought, consideration, or awareness. Many business web sites designed without considering accessibility issues result in loss of revenue. Some countries, such as the US, UK, and Australia has introduced legislation that requires organizations to adhere to accessibility issues.

    In June 1999, the Disability Discrimination Act (1999) has been used to fight for access rights in
    Australia. The 2000 Olympic Site Games, jointly developed by Sydney Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games (SOCOG) and IBM was found inaccessible to the blind users, and SOCOG was fined A$ 20,000 [1].

    The purpose of this paper is raising awareness among web designers and developers, to achieve universal web accessibility goal. The paper looks at the disability issues and the existing assistive technologies or methods used by disabled users to assist them in accessing the web.

    Afterwards, the paper reviews guidelines for good web site design, and provides analysis for designing an accessible website. Furthermore, the paper highlights on the challenges and gaps in the web accessibility area.

    Literature Review:

    Two years ago, a Conference was held in 'London' and attended by representatives of commerce, industry, government, and the IT Sector aiming to raise awareness of the potential benefits of assistive technology to disabled users. The outstanding number of speakers highlighted through number of cases how technology can transfer lives. 'Sue Bassoon' a Business Development Manager at IBM said: "IBM's goal is to have a speech recognition system as good as the human ear by 2010" [2].

    The objectives of this literature is two folds: (1) explain how a particular disability (e.g. visual impairment, mobility restriction, hearing impairment) can impede the use of the web, and what can be done to accommodate special needs; and (2) show how web designers and developers can construct accessible web sites to end users with disabilities, such as visual or hearing impairment.

    (1) Disability Issues

    The section begins with a descriptive part concerning disabled user functional limitation and dependence on assistive technologies.

    A- Vision Issues:

    A web user who has no sight (totally blind) is likely to use the screen reader technology to reads a load the content of the web page. Other web users, with partial or poor sight need to be able to enlarge the text on web page using a screen magnifier.

    B- Mobility Issues:

    A web user may have mobility problems as a result of an accident or disease such as:(loss of limb, Injury, or aging process). The technologies used by users with mobility problems are:

    - Sticky Keys: For users with one finger typing.

    - Filter Keys: Ignores repeated strokes for people with hand tremors.

    - Mouse Keys: Permits moving pointer with numeric keypad.

    - Serial Key: Permits access to alternatives for mouse and keyboard functions such as Foot Mouse.

    - Eye gaze: A video camera that racks eye movement as the user look at an on screen keyboard. It is customizable as how long a key must be looked at to be recorded. When system has identified the key looked at the symbol appears and the user look at next key.

    C- Hearing Issues:

    A web user may be deaf or experiencing problems with hearing due to the natural aging process. To assist those users the audio or video need to be translated to the ASL (American Sign Language) language of the deaf, in which certain signs represent words.

    (2) Design for Accessibility

    In the above section, the paper provided readers with a general knowledge about disability issues, disabled users, and the existing assistive technologies. This section is intended for web designers and developers, because it provides them with tips and guidelines on ways to design a good and accessible website. There are two main aspects to take into account:

    I- Look and Feel

    Web designers need to present a user friendly interface that addresses specific ability needs. The designer should be able to describe ways disabled users interact with a website, and how they move through the pages and how they achieve their goals. Below, are helpful tips that designers need to consider when designing an accessible website.

    - Web Designers & Developers; should follow the four principles of visual organization in the process of designing a website which are: Proximity, Alignment, Consistency, and Contrast.

    - Web Designers & Developers; must avoid using HTML tables to control the layout, instead use style sheets.

    - Web Designers & Developers; should use legible fonts, and font size to allow disabled users to easily change them from the browser interface.

    - Avoid poor color contrast in your design, and do not use color for meaningful description.

    - Avoid the use of animation, and flash which may affect users with photosensitive epilepsy.

    - Avoid using Frames because it can pose problems for technology used by some disabled users.

    - Try not to use graphics for menu and button forms.

    - Avoid hiding menu items (using DHTML or applets)

    II- Content

    Web designers should organize content in a way that can provide ease of use and simplicity. Below, are helpful tips that designers need to consider when designing an accessible website:

    - Use a clear language, and write short sentences.

    For example, a web page should provide blind users with a short summary of what they can find. A Search Functionality is important because a blind person can't scan the page, and will generally trust first result he/she receives.

    - Add Accessible tags and attributes by using rich set of tags to enhance accessibility. For instance, an ALT tag is used to provide a text equivalent for images within a website. The ALT text description is what the screen reader or talking browser will read to the blind users .

    - Use clear link descriptions, and include links that a user can click to skip repetitive regions of the page.

    - Ensure the pages are usable when scripts, applets, or style sheets are turned off or not supported.

    - All audio and video content should contain captions, transcription, and descriptive information.

    Analysis:

    It is estimated that 20% of the population has some kind of disability. The internet opens a new window of opportunity and independence to disabled users from reading news to banking to conducting business. For example, by using the screen reader technology a blind user can listen to the latest newspaper published electronically. Similarly, a user with mobility problem who can not go out shopping to buy a newspaper, nor use a keyboard or mouse independently, can rather use the eye tracking software that allow people to use a computer with nothing more than eye movement.

    Nowadays, organizations are asking designers to make their web sites accessible and for good reasons. First of all, the more people who can use a site, the more potential it can generate. Online stores, in particular have a great deal to gain, since many people with functional limitation problems, find it much easier to shop online. Most Web designers are not personally opposed to the concept of making web sites accessible to people with disabilities. In fact most accessibility errors on web sites are the result of ignorance. A large proportion of web designers and developers have simply never thought about accessibility issues. A small proportion of web designers (4%) do not understand the needs of users with disabilities; another (46%) understand some of the needs of users with disabilities. While only (26%) of designers understand most of the needs of users with disabilities and can accommodate them [3].

    The Challenges and Gaps of Web Accessibility:

    In this section, we highlight the challenges and the requirements posed by user needs, to access the web. We argue the need for a new approach to address accessibility issues, and include it in each and every web project life cycle.We recognize that the vast majority of disabled users face challenges when accessing the web. Why is this? Is it the lack of technical solutions to meet their needs – absolutely not! You will hear today that there are new technological solutions to address even most extreme form of disability. Is it cost?

    Again it is not! Some technical solutions, cost nothing at all, and already exist in software. So, What then? Is it that web applications are being developed that present challenges to accessible design? Is it lack of knowledge and skills to meet their needs?

    There does seem a general lack of awareness of web accessibility issues. Web Designers and Developers, need to have a better approach to tackle the problem in each phase of the web development process. For example, during the requirement analysis phase a web developer must define the target audience of the site, and should take into account people with a combination of disabilities. In addition to this, during prototyping phase a web designer must have the knowledge to accommodate end users with special needs, and also the skills to meet their expectations.

    Moreover, testing the web site using different technologies is critical for a successful web site, to ensure it meets the accessibility standards and user requirements [4]. Therefore, in each phase of the web development process, accessibility plays an important role. Accessibility and Usability should be completely embedded in web design and development cycles from beginning to end.

    The future looks bright for web accessibility. It promises to educate web designers and developers about accessibility issues, through training courses offered at universities.

    Conclusion:

    The Internet offers independence and freedom. But, this independence and freedom is limited to certain users. Many websites are not created with accessibility issues in mind. Whether it is the Web Designer lack of knowledge or ignorance, they exclude a segment of users that in many ways benefit from the internet [5].

    In short, designing accessible websites does not require an enormous effort or time. It simply, requires commitment, and accountability, to achieve a universal goal.

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    Friday, June 8, 2007
    Use Of Graphic Design To Increase Website Useability

    There can be no argument about the importance of design in attracting Internet users to a particular web site. No one would bother to explore the contents of a site if it does not contain eye-catching graphics that can please the visual sense of the users. With so many kinds of web sites existing online, it is extremely challenging to attract users and keep them interested in the site.

    But a web site developer does not simply apply graphics freely on a site. Graphics should be used in the correct manner, or else, users might get turned off because the graphics featured just overwhelmed or confused them.

    While it is true that attractive design is important for reasons that need not be explained, the choice of design must be carefully considered against the fulfilling the needs of users. When done successfully, it could be safely said that the web site has achieved its goals.

    Graphics used in the Internet is inextricably linked to multimedia. Multimedia is a combination of graphics, text, sound, and animation to express a message to users. The multimedia features that will be incorporated to a web site should be dependent on the content. In general, multimedia and graphics should serve as supports to content, and should have precise, instructional purpose.

    According to research, animated images can facilitate the transfer of learning in a positive way if it is utilized to show a vital part of the concept that is being illustrated. On the other hand, animation can serve as a barrier to user recall and performance.

    Here are the guidelines in incorporating graphics to web sites:

    1. Justify the usage of the graphics


    The most obvious problem that can be seen on web pages is the over-usage of graphics. The main downside of this is that complicated, unnecessary graphics can take a long time to download, and this, of course, will not sit well with users. The graphics to be applied should support the transfer of data and should also be in relation to the accompanying text.

    2. The difference between graphics with text-redundant data and those containing information that is non-redundant is that the former facilitates and ushers in the learning process, while the latter does not either help or slow down learning.

    3. Consistency should be a priority in graphic design

    4. Web pages should be marked up so that text will be downloaded before the graphics. In this way, the users will know immediately if the page has the information that they are looking for, and if not, they will be able to save precious waiting time knowing that they do not need that certain page.

    5. The loading of graphics should be controlled as such that loading will commence from top to bottom, and the users scrolling down the page will encounter said graphics.

    6. The downloading of pages should be fast in order to save users waiting time, and in order to reduce the chances that they will get frustrated that they will abandon plans to download. Here are several ways to achieve fast download periods:

    -Keep the physical size of the graphics to a minimum


    -Images should be combined in order to minimize the number of server connections. Remember, the more connections that exists, the slower the download time will be


    -Decrease image resolution


    -Limit the colors that will be used for the images


    -Limit the use of animation

    Animation is very much a part of web graphic design. The primary difference between web text and graphics and contents that are print-based is the dynamics. Moving displays attract the attention of users as long as the frequency of the display is regulated. Too much animation display can irritate and distract users. An animation that is perpetually moving can destroy the readable quality of the web page.

    The usage of blinking texts should be avoided. It has long been regarded as an overused feature and the latest browsers no longer support it.

    In designing a web site, there always exists a conflict between the desire to have total control over the appearance of a page and the need to permit users to establish their own preferences. The general appearance of the page should be made by the designer, but there are certain elements that users should have control over, such as color and text background, and the option whether to display graphics or not.

    It takes a considerable amount of effort to establish and maintain the attractiveness and efficiency of a web site. If the guidelines above will be followed, all the efforts of web designers will bear desirable results. They only have to remember that the benefit of the users will always be the basis for everything.

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    Wednesday, June 6, 2007
    Rich Fonts In Your Web Sites

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    Thursday, May 10, 2007
    Web Page Keywords - Do's and Don'ts

    Quite simply, our Web sites should produce returns just like we expect from our other marketing programs. Surely, you've heard the terms "optimized" and "keywords" thrown about. Perhaps you suspect that your web page keywords are important but you are not quite sure why.

    These days, there are a number of hotly debated issues related to Web page keywords and the search engine optimization techniques that rely upon them. In this article, I will identify these debates in the course of discussing the proper selection and use of a Web page keyword list.

    Meta Keywords TagFirst, let's be clear about the importance of your web page "Meta keywords". So the question is: Is the keywords Meta tag important? Answer: It's not clear. Meta tags are HTML code snippets inserted into the "head" area of your web pages that are, for the most part, not viewed by visitors to your web site. The "Meta keywords" tag contains phrases and synonyms designed to be a brief and concise list of the most important themes of your page.

    But, many experts suggest that the major search engine crawlers ignore the Meta keywords tag (e.g., see "How To Use HTML Meta Tags", Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Watch, 5 Dec. 2002). Heck, some experts claim all Meta tags are useless. It turns out that over the years spammers put keywords into the Meta tag that had nothing to do with the content or theme of the site. It is believed that Web crawlers ignore the keywords Meta tag because of past deceptive practices.

    Should you care about the Meta keywords tag? I believe you should. Your search engine optimization strategy should be as comprehensive as possible. You should use every legitimate technique available to you, including utilization of the standard Meta tags.

    Regardless of where you stand on the keywords Meta tag issue, it is clear that the careful creation of a keyword list is an important first step towards optimization of your Web page. We now turn to the process of selecting your keywords.

    Keyword Selection How should you select your keywords? Your goal is to find keyword phrases that are related to your business and that your potential customers actually use in Google, Yahoo! or other Internet search engines. You know your business best – should you just choose the key phrases that best describe your products and services? WRONG!

    Let's pretend that you sell Global Positioning Systems and that you have adopted "global positioning systems" as a keyphrase. But in December of 2006 YAHOO recorded 655,000 searches on "GPS" and only 7800 searches on "Global Positioning System". Another one - you sell Pneumatic Nail Drivers but in December of 2006 there were about 9700 YAHOO searches on "nail gun". Few searches on "Pneumatic Nail Driver" occurred – perhaps just a few folks can even spell pneumatic?

    See where I am heading with this? You may be too close to your business to objectively determine how your prospects will look for your products and services. You may not be the right person to develop your keywords unless you have kept up with the latest trends in search engine optimization. At a minimum, spend time analyzing the keywords and techniques your competitors and peers use to achieve search engine success.

    In addition, you will want to factor keyword popularity into your analysis. Here are a few keyword selection tools you may wish to utilize:

    • Overture Keyword Selector Tool - inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
    • The Google Suggest keyword selection tool - google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en
    • The Google Adwords Keyword Tool - adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

    You can use these tools to suggest alternative phrases and synonyms that you may not have considered. In addition, the Overture Tool in particular provides invaluable quantitative information about the actual popularity of these keyphrase Internet searches.

    Note, however, that keyword popularity alone is not enough! Scrub your list of phrases carefully to ensure each phrase is BOTH popular and relevant to your business. Your list should contain phrases that generate a reasonable volume of qualified leads. You want visitors you can convert to customers not just visitors.

    You provide a wide range of products and services. So you should you add them all to your list, right? WRONG! Experts disagree on the ideal number of keywords you should define. However, there is no reason to exceed 20 or 25 keyphrases. And remember - order does matter. Put your most important phrases first.

    Create a comma-separated list of keywords that you can copy and paste into the keyword Meta tag of your HTML Web page. Here's an example of a keywords tag designed for the hidden heading code of a "Search Engine Optimization Tip" page:

    • meta name="keywords" content="seo tips,search engine optimization tip,seo google tip,denver seo,denver search engine optimization,search engine optimization denver,seo company,search engine optimization company,internet marketing strategy"

    As you can see, the keywords Meta tag appears in the "HEAD" section of your Web page. The Meta tags, however, are not visible on the page. If you view http://www.ebizmachine.com/seotips.html you will not observe the keywords Meta tag.

    Keyword Placement Let's assume you have carefully created a keyword list and you have updated the keywords Meta tag of your Web page. You're done, right?

    Not even close! There are a number of ways in which you will utilize your most important keyphrases. Unfortunately, this brief article cannot speak to each of these techniques. In fact, experts disagree about the relative importance of the many locations where you might embed your keywords. I will discuss a few techniques that are almost universally considered important.

    Here are several potential locations where your primary keywords can appear:

    • Header Tag Content (i.e H1, H2)
    • Title Tag in Anchor Tags
    • Body Text
    • URL/Filenames
    • Meta Keyword Tags (discussed above)

    First, the title tag is believed to be very important. Like the keywords tag, it is an HTML code snippet but in this case, the title tag content actually appears in the top bar of your Web browser. Make sure to embed your primary keyphrase in the title tag.

    Here's an example of the HTML title tag also contained in the "HEAD" section of the web page:

    • TITLE - Search Engine Optimization - EBIZ Machine SEO Tips

    As you can see, it also appears in the "HEAD" section of your Web page even though it is not a "Meta" tag.

    It is also believed that keyphrases embedded in HTML header tags (like H1, H2, H3, etc) are given more weight by some search engines. Here's an example of the Heading1 (H1) tag:

    • H1 align="center">Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Tips and Tricks

    If it's not too late, create domain names, file names and URLs that make use of your important keywords. Here's an example that focuses on the keyphrase "Search Engine Optimization":

    1. First create and upload a web page named Search-Engine-Optimization-Tips.html

    2. Create a link that is something like Review key search engine optimization techniques designed to improve your page rank that links to your new page.

    Note: it's OK to separate the keywords in your file name by hyphens in order to help search engines distinguish the keywords. You can see that the link text discussed above also uses our keywords – don't just display "click here for more information" – you're missing an opportunity to promote your important keyphrases.

    Finally, your keywords should appear in the body or content areas of your Web page. However, you should not overdo it! In the online "SEO Chat" article "The Ten Commandments of Keyword Selection" (seochat.com/c/a/Choosing-Keywords-Help/The-Ten-Commandments-of-Keyword-Selection/), the author speculated that the optimal keyword frequency range is between 4% to 9%. This suggests that you should stay below the 9% frequency limit in order to avoid penalties from the major search engines for "keyword stuffing."

    ConclusionGood search engine optimization requires a great deal of experimentation – what works for one Web site might not work for your site. The techniques your SEO company will recommend and implement will go well beyond those discussed in this article.

    In this document, I summarize several proven techniques for using your carefully developed keyword list and dispelled a few myths along the way:

    1. Do create a short keyword list of phrases that are popular and relevant to your business.

    2. Don't assume you know what Internet users type into the search engines – you might be too close to the business.

    3. Do consider keyword search popularity but don't forget about the quality of the leads a search is likely to generate.

    4. Do use your primary keyphrase in the Web page title tag, heading tags, domain name, Web page file name and page links.

    5. Don't overdo it – pay attention to keyword density.

    [1] Please keep in mind that this content is provided for educational purposes in order to introduce you to important search engine optimization concepts. There are many factors that influence search engine page rank - we cannot promise that the techniques described in this article work in all cases. Thank you! –Bill Schwartz, EBIZ Machine

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