The latest Web Design Index for 2011 has been published, and is now available to buy from Amazon and other book retailers. (more…)

Almost like when your electricity goes out and you have no idea what to do with yourself but stare at the lights willing it to come back on, the internet now has a similar effect on many households across the UK. For many of us if the internet is not working for more then 15 minutes we begin to panic and start to visualise a list of all the things that we won’t be able to do if the internet remains this way for much longer, it could be said that we are far too dependant on net. (more…)

#1. Keep it Simple

The first thing you need to realise is that people do not read web copy in the same way that they do books magazines etc. The main difference is that people tend to scan text on web pages as opposed to the more in depth attention they tend to pay to books and magazine articles. This is because they are searching for information in a variety of areas and are prepared to look elsewhere if they don’t get an answer from your site straight away. (more…)

CSS Tools: Diagnostic CSS

Have you ever created a website, only to find that some of the links are broken?!

Using validation is Very useful, but it won’t pick up everything. For example, if you have a link where you have not added a URL value to the href attribute, the validator won’t flag it as an error. The syntax is valid, even if it’s a ‘broken user experience’. Similarly, the validator will be happy to let through empty class and id values.

Maybe you planned your site to work that way, but more likely not. That’s where using diagnostic CSS come in. (more…)

Today I will show you how to build on your Web Design skills and create a simple newsletter sign up form. 

After the form has been filled in we will send them to a php page that will process the data and send us an email .

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When it comes to creating a new website, there are fundamental elements that must be touched upon before even starting. The level of success you will achieve will depend on how well thought-out the website plan is; with scope for growth and development, and additional features being essential.. (more…)

Testing your new website on all the major browsers can be one of the most irritating things that a Web Designers has to do.

At the very least you should be checking it on the 4 main browsers. (more…)

A lot of people with websites think that an HTML sitemap will do, that they don’t really need a XML (aka Google) Sitemap. In a way they’re right of course, an HTML sitemap will do a perfectly decent job. There are however, a range of advantages to making the jump to XML that more than justify the hassle of doing so.

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Following on from last week, where I briefly outlined some of the ways one could plan and organize a CSS (cascading style sheet) for web design – from comments to structure; rules to declarations, this week I briefly outline how I work and the various methods I have for sorting the files and folders used in the web project I am working on.. (more…)

The more we rely upon CSS within web design, the larger and more complex our stylesheet files (.css) become. Planning and organising your stylesheet can be compared to planning a well-written, sematically correct poem. (more…)

If you are looking to start building your first online application, the easiest and most useful languages to learn are PHP and MySQL.

With a copy of Dreamweaver, PHP and MySQL installed on your computer and knowledge of Web Design you can build almost anything you put your mind too! (more…)