Web Page Graphical Design
From early days of www, the Internet sites that are added day by day are increasing tremendously. When you will consider this pool of web, may be they are about computers, industry, entertainment, search engines, fashion, organizational or even individual, all of these sites are concerned about one major part of web development apart from the logic or programming efforts behind it is User Interface Design'.
Any web site will gain your interest by its appearance in front of you as well as ease of using and understanding the contents in that particular page. Therefore many of the web developers out there are always trying to go for the best user interface design which must also be affordable, can be either done by the developer firm or by web developer individual himself or he have to outsource the site for user interface creation.
The main stages in the creation of the user interface can be roughly listed as follows:
1.Note down all the aspects of your web site,
2.Try to list items as per their priority on the web page as well as consider their categorization.
3.From this list highlight points that are required to be catchy (e.g. in most of the general web site the Chat / Mail / News are considered to be the most catchy points whereas on the online shopping site the special offers and hot selling items may be the most catchy points).
4.Then decide the color combination of your interface (As per my point of view this is the most crucial part which many of them out there do not take into consideration which results in to a web site which is nothing but a site full of color in fact site looking like a circus! (You can understand what I want to say). So if you are rally very careful about the richness of the user interface then you should not fail to consider this point.
5.Once you have decided the color combination you have already won half the battle. Now you have to draw a picture of how your web page will look like finally, where on the web page I will place the catchy points I have listed previously, what will be common between the web pages (A date and time may be there from home page to the last page of your web site).
6.Finalize placing of all the remaining points in the list prepared by you.
7.If required repeat the steps for all the succeeding pages in your web site.
8.Then and only then go for designing of the web pages using various tools.
You may take help of various image-editing softwares like Adobe Photoshop, Paintshop Pro, even normal paintbrush for giving effect to the various images, backgrounds used in the page design. You can also embody various animations in your web page to give it a nice touch. You can try Macromedia Flash, GIF Animator or Animationshop for the same.
A collection of websites offering free graphics, clipart and animation.
- A-1 Icon Archive- Over 300,000 free webpage graphics. Icons, balls, backgrounds, bars, graphics, animated gifs, clip art, and more.
- Animation Factory- Over 10,000 Original 3D Animations. All Free for personal use. They claim to be the Largest collection of original animations and clipart on the web.
- ArtToday- Over 40,000 free Icons, Rules, Buttons, Bullets and animated Gifs. Memberships available for just $29.95 a year giving you access to over 750,000 images.
- Cool Archive- A large selection of fonts, icons, animations, bullets, backgrounds, bars arrows, sounds and more.
- GraphSearch- Search for Animated Icons, Photos, Icons, Clipart and 3D Icons with many subcategories.
- Optical Resolution- A constantly evolving collection of buttons, banners, clip art and themed page sets. Holiday and seasonal graphics are rotated in and out of the collection, as appropriate. New material is added monthly.
Web Graphics & Clipart Library
Enhance your web site with your choice of 1000's of images for your site. Browse the directory to find the right web graphics, clip art, animated gifs, and icons you need.
| Graphics
Collections: Clipart, Backgrounds, Animated GIFs |
| Web Clip Art |
"A resource for topic specific Web clip art of all kinds--
backgrounds, borders, animation, people, sports, animals, food, flowers,
cartoons, music, military, holidays, Web basics such as arrows, menu
buttons, lines, tutorials and help pages and much more plus on site clip
art collections of holidays, snakes, lines backgrounds, borders and
more." |
| Yahoo's
Pictures & Clipart Index |
Photos & clipart index from Yahoo |
| Webmaster
Clipart Site |
A clipart index from webmasterengine.com |
| Graphics
Archive |
Large collection of images |
| ClipArt.com |
Links to clipart collections |
| OpenClipArt.com |
Modest (~7K) collection of open source clipart |
| Map Clip Art |
Free clipart collection of maps |
| freegraphics.com |
"Featuring the Internet's top 508 graphic links!" |
| Design
Gallery Live |
From Microsoft - clipart & photos for use in Office |
| freeimages.com |
Free web graphics |
| 321clipart.com |
Free web graphics, templates, more. |
| Web Clip Art |
Links to clip art collections |
| MediaBuilder |
"If you are building a website, creating a multimedia presentation, or
designing a new graphical interface, [they] have all the materials you
need." |
| Cheryl's Image Gallery |
Original clipart & textures library |
| Animated GIFs for
Free |
FREE Animated GIF Site from webdeveloper.com |
| Animation-Station |
FREE Animated GIF Site |
| GIFWorld |
FREE Animated GIF Site |
| The Wizard of
Draws |
Original cartoons - some quite good |
| Absolute Background
Textures Archive |
Many web page backgrounds |
| Absolute Web Graphics
Archive |
Many web graphics |
| Buglight |
Offbeat, but professionally done backgrounds, other graphics |
| Animation Factory |
"11,000 Original Animations for use on web pages and in e-mail" |
Is a picture really worth a thousand words?
By Maricon Williams
Are you amenable to the maxim a picture is worth a thousand words. If you do, then you are presumed to use more colorful and arty images and not so much with texts.
If you are on the contrary opinion, then you are presumed to believe that a word is worth a thousand pictures. Ergo, your principle is to use powerful words in order to convey ideas and actions.
A word of caution to all designers out there what is pleasurable to you as a designer may not be appealing to the visitors. This is because they may be having different needs and that needs are the ones that should be answered. The site must make obvious the benefits it is offering to the visitors as well as its call to action.
Images enhance the site's appearance however, they must be coupled with complementing and moving words and contents to make it functional. Do not focus strictly on graphics. Go for copy!
The solution is not the elimination of pictures and images. Considerable amount will be fine so long as the right impression is created. The text can take care of the hunches and doubts. Be sure you answer all of them so as to keep them coming and purchasing.
It is important to revolve around the information they needed. In the first place, people surf to search for information, answers, solutions and motivations. Thus, your site especially the homepage, must entice and catch the attention and seize it and let them be satisfied of what they are staring. Otherwise, they can tend to leave the site in a matter of seconds. We all know that visitors have very short attention span. Moreover, you have to get his attention and interest before that span wanes.
Explain the 'call to action' and give them clear and simple instructions so that they will no longer look for other sites that can satisfy all their wants and needs.
Form is to aesthetics and function is to the content and purpose. If the form is the queen of the websites, then function is its king! The latter must dominate and the former must subordinate. Thus, prioritize function over form because that's where the real action is. It is the way to capture your probable client's heart and choice by the use of persuasive and moving text!
About the Author
Please visit Web Development Services Pros site at http://www.webdevelopmentpros.com for comments and inquiries regarding this article.
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