Internet users are notorious for doing more skimming than reading, so the images on your site may be your only chance to hook readers and make your point. Keep users interested by using images that are engaging and informative.

Be Prepared

Images that are chosen after your text has been written may come across to viewers as generic or irrelevant. Avoid this problem by planning the content of your website - text and images – in tandem.

Before beginning your webpage, know how many images you wish to use and what the main point of each image will be. To help you choose the right picture for each available spot, make a short list describing the purpose or message of each intended image. Allow your chosen images to influence the text, and allow the text to influence your choice of images.

Less Is More

Keep your image simple. Use flat or minimalist backgrounds, in colors related to the image’s central figure. Photographs that place your central figure against a flat wall or a subtly textured background will keep the focus of the image on the subject. Busy backgrounds have a snap-shot like quality that can distract from the image’s main message.

Trick Of The Light

Lighting is equally important. Pictures that feature subjects that are too dark, too light or washed-out may be ignored or misinterpreted. Lighting extremes, with deep shadows and harsh, bright light can create confusion as well. When in doubt, diffuse natural day light is flattering and attractive, and will keep the image clear and informative.

Size Matters

Although a digital image can be shrunk to a size much smaller than the original, a digital photo cannot—should not—be enlarged beyond its actual size, or resized using HTML. Doing so compromises the focus and quality of the image. To avoid issues, use digital images much larger than you need and plan to reduce the size of the image as required.

Captions and Alt Tags

Don’t forget the alt tags. This is an important detail that’s easy to overlook. Text readers rely on alt tags to convey information from your image to the visually impaired. Alt tags are also recognized by search engines and can lead traffic directly to your site.

Captions can be helpful when used properly. Think of a caption as a chance to support the information in the corresponding image and offer extra, related information. Avoid captions that restate the obvious information provided by the picture.

Stock Photography

Avoid stock photographs that appear on hundreds of other websites. These images have a generic quality users will be sensitive to, and will detract from the uniqueness of your site.

When In Doubt, Seek Professional Help

For a sleek, professional site with clear and informative images, plan to hire a web designer, and maybe a professional photographer. People with web design careers have special insight that allow them to choose tasteful, interesting and informative images that capture attention and enrich the user’s experience.

Leslie C is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments.

Increasingly, online advertisers face the challenges of remaining visible, relevant, and engaging. Those just beginning their web design careers and seasoned veterans alike are always on the lookout for trends and advancements that can help their clients stand out.

One of the new toys that developers and designers have been tinkering with are Fixed Headers (a/k/a “sticky navigation”). These static menus hold their place at the top of the browser window as readers scroll down, keeping options at eye level.

But the latest thing isn’t always the greatest thing. Consider the needs of the advertiser and their target audience when implementing this design strategy, as well as some of these pros and cons.

 The Good

People like them. Industry experts Smashing Magazine conducted a study that indicated 100% of visitors polled preferred sticky menus, without even knowing why. Short of the word “free,” it would be difficult to find another tool that so drastically improved user response.

They Prevent Leaks. Having ever-present navigation retains leads. When readers end up halfway down a page without a convenient way to move around, they resort to using familiar tools. More often than not, this includes the dreaded “back” button!

They Expedite the Process. The same Smashing study indicated that fixed headers are 22% faster to navigate. Although this number may not seem significant, it matters tremendously in a world where delays lasting literally as long as the blink of an eye can cost leads.

They Allow Flexibility. For these reasons, employing fixed headers can allow greater design options. Creating a hot, vertically-scrolling page wouldn’t be feasible without sticky nav.

The Bad and The Ugly

Lost in Translation. Mobile developers need to consider this limitation especially; sticky navigation with the “fixed” element does not always render effectively on mobile and tablet devices. Thorough compatibility testing should be conducted prior to release, and visionaries need to be ready to part with those pretty pixels if necessary.

When Headers Attack. Sometimes “sticky nav” can make visitors feel violated. A fixed header that is too intrusive, distracting, jerky, or buggy will turn readers off. If the header interferes with the content, readers will hate the site, not in spite of, but because of their interest in it. The whole point of providing easy menu access is lost if an audience is so annoyed by it that they resort to the good old “back” button just to feel normal again. Don’t overdo it.

This can be remedied by employing visual elements that help divide the two areas – using banners and ribbons, for example, or creating a subtle disruption with color or text style.

You Say Po-tah-to. When considering a fixed header, keep viewer’s personas and the needs of the advertiser in mind. The same trendy technique that sells hosting to startups like hotcakes will not likely appeal to seniors interested in life insurance.

It’s tempting to employ trendy technology just for the sake of fun. Trying new tricks is stimulating and challenging. But as enticing as it may be, the best designers are always those who assess and fully realize the needs of their clients.

Helena L is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments.

What is Clean Design?

 Designing with simplicity can bring beauty and efficiency to a business. Designing in a clean style is a challenge pursued by artists, architects and engineers universally. A clean design is elegant, utilitarian and functional. It can lead to comprehensibility and fluidity that can fuel a highly efficient and useable business function. Designing with clarity requires understanding, vision and skill. It’s both challenging and worth it.

You can get the best results when focusing on your goals. Whenever you get tired or lose touch with what you’re striving for, revisiting user goals can give you needed inspiration. If you need help with website design it’s easy to use creative staffing techniques in order to find mobile developers with just about any skill set.

Simple Web Designs Work Better

Ben Hunt believes that clean web design benefits designers, clients and users. Web design that strives for simplicity will lead to production sites that load faster, have excellent responsiveness, are scannable and easily navigable.

From a commercial perspective such websites are quicker to design and implement, easy to re-design, require less server space and bandwidth are more maintainable and are easy to port to different platforms and browsers.

Occam’s razor Drives Clarity

Occam’s Razor states that given any two solutions to the same problem, the simpler solution will be the best. It’s clear through numerous examples that this applies to web design.

With Occam’s Razor as a guideline you will uncover the most elegant and direct design solutions.

• Simple designs are more likely to work for your users than those which are complicated.
• Simple messages are easier to understand than a complicated ones.
• Interactions with few instructions are more effective.
• Clear, uncluttered design leads to greater usability
• In many cases, pursuing simplicity in design can lead to competitive advantage.

Minimalism for Clarity

Minimalism is a design style found in art, web design and architecture. One goal of this style is to highlight simplicity, while removing unnecessary elements. Constraining the elements in a composition of art or software can result in strong and utilitarian design as well as the beauty born of simplicity. Here are some examples: 40 Beautiful Examples of Minimalism in Web Design.

Examples of Clear Design

Three of the most popular and successful sites today are Airbnb.com, Craigslist.org and Google.com. According to techcrunch.com, Airbnb is valued at $2.5 billion and is a relatively new business dealing in short term accommodation hosted by individuals – not hotels. Airbnb’s homepage is breathtaking, not because of any fancy footwork, but because of the magnificent photography. You can find the most elegant or simple place to stay on most continents, just by entering a location and clicking on search. The entire application is simple, elegant and effective. In March, Fast Company added Airbnb to their list of the world’s 50 Most Innovative Companies.

Craigslist.org considers itself a community organization is now located in 50 countries worldwide. Its goal is as community support. Craigslist is a platform offering classified advertisements for people trying to sell goods and services or to buy them. Craig Newmark began the service in 1995 and in 2000 it started expanding outside the San Francisco Bay Area.

The Craigslist interface is very plain and self-explanatory. Categories can be added by users. This site is used by millions of people and many rely on it for business. Its beauty and strength are its simplicity and usefulness.

Google is likely to be among the most popular web sites anywhere, yet its home page is a single text entry area.

When website developers implement their projects with clean design beauty will be just one part of exceptional functionality.

Linda K is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments.

 The website has largely replaced the magazine. Not many of us are as willing to spend five, seven, or even two dollars on some glossy print that’s half ads just to read some of the same editorials and articles that we can find online for free.

However, magazines still offer a certain design sensibility that you don’t see on a lot of websites. Taking some inspiration from these magazines can be a great way to set yourself apart for creative job placement on web design gigs. Here are a few ideas inspired by real life magazines.

1. William M. Gaines Spends More on Worse Paper

MAD Magazine always prided itself on its “cheap” feel and appearance, going out of their way to print on the coarsest, most low-quality paper that they could find. When the price of this paper went up, publisher William Gaines actually spent the extra money to keep printing on the same stuff, even though it would have cost him less to go with a higher quality of paper. Applying this to web design, we can keep in mind that a glossy, slick appearance isn’t always what we’re after. Think of the charmingly outdated website for a Karate dojo, or the blogger so devoted to content that they never bothered to change the default font. Sometimes you send the right message to the reader by not going all out on quality.

2. Remember the Little Things

Sometimes it’s the little things that define a magazine. How many people do you think pick up the New Yorker primarily for the comics? How many people do you think read Rolling Stone just to see the caricatures by Drew Friedman? The little features that make a magazine complete, the bits and pieces that don’t make up the “meat” of the magazine, but the trimmings, are really the biggest thing that set one magazine, or website, apart from another.

3. Guiding the Eye

A magazine places articles and images side by side in a way that leads the eye across the page, like a good painting. Take note of where your eye goes when you look at a page from your website, and focus on how to direct the eye in subtle and interesting ways. There are more ways to format a blog than endless vertical scrolling.

Obviously a website is not a magazine, but when you take certain ideas from magazines, you may just prove that you have what it takes for that creative art director gig.

Gilbert S is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments.

 Once you have decided that curated content is something to include on your client’s website or your own website, it is important that you go on to the next step to make that content personal. Many freelance writing jobs online will ask for a design that includes curated content. This is a great idea, but it is not the best solution to just plunk it down on the website without some attempt to personalize it to the new website.

Make It Yours

Making curated content personal means adding some text or other feature that tightly associates it with your website or your client’s website. It is an attempt to dress up the content a little, to brand it as your own creation, even though many will understand that it is borrowed creativity. You can post links to the original website, but make sure you also have some text or other means of letting the visitor know that this is an integral part of your website.

You can draw the visitor’s attention in with a creative headline that also relates to other material on the website. You want to make it feel like this content is your own, that you thought of that brilliant idea or video clip, even if the actual piece is labeled as created by another. From a design viewpoint, you do not want your curated content to look like a magnet on a refrigerator, mixed in with other magnets. You do not want it to stick out like a sore thumb, added on or unrelated to other content. You can blend in the content with your graphic design or use framing that corresponds to other content on the website.

Making Good Impressions

Look at the web page as a puzzle where everything looks perfectly put together, a family of information. You do not want your web page to look cluttered or messy. There are many elements that must work together when you are using any content to draw in visitors. You should have the social media prompts to encourage visitors to share your content, including the curated pieces. The overall design needs to work well, and you still want to have a clean look to the entire page. Again, be careful about ending up with a cluttered or confusing visual impression.

Other ways to personalize curated content include making comments about it on your webpage and in your guest posts on other websites that refer readers back to your web page to find this content gem. In essence, what you want to achieve is similar to flashing neon lights that tell the reader “here it is” – “I put this here for you” – “this is so important I put it here” and similar thoughts.

When you post curated content, you should also add your own editorial viewpoint about why this content is important to your visitor, why you added it, and be sure that you talk directly to them. You are befriending them and trying to give them what they are searching for. Obviously, any content you use on your website or a client website must be of value and high quality. When the viewer notices the content and then also sees your text personalizing that content and justifying its inclusion on the website, you have done well.

Linda E is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments.

Content marketing is the practicing of publishing and sharing content for the purpose of acquiring customers. It may refer to content on a variety of media, although the Internet is one of the most common forms of content marketing. Mobile web design involves designing a website to accommodate mobile devices, which have a much smaller viewing area than traditional computer monitors.

It’s one of the current web design trends that are growing due to the rapidly increasing popularity of mobile devices. Web design for small businesses often must allow for users with mobile devices, especially businesses in a specific geographical location. The necessity of providing quality content for mobile users is a challenge for today’s web designers.

 Overview

Before It’s News reported in February on the difficulties of designing web content for small screens without sacrificing the design or content. It shows that a web site can provide a fulfilling experience to mobile users when its design is properly integrated with the site’s marketing strategy. Most website owners already understand that their mobile customers can use their devices to talk, text and surf the Internet. It’s less likely that they will realize how much a well-designed website can help attract mobile users. Tools such as GoMo Meter from Google show how a website will appear on a mobile device.

It is routinely necessary to omit important content when designing a website for small screens. This often requires the designer to create media queries that will change the information that appears on the screen. Mobile design may also involve building new content with these responsive techniques.

User Requirements

A designer must determine the needs of mobile users to optimize their experience on a website. This includes identifying the users, the information they will most likely be seeking on the website and the time of day they usually access the website. It’s also important to know the specific mobile devices that visitors are most likely to use. Each device has features that a designer can use to present content to a mobile user in an engaging manner. These features may include a browser, camera, GPS, phone and touch screen.

Multiple Devices

Mobile users are more likely to use multiple devices to view a website than traditional desktop users. Google reported in 2012 that two-thirds of users shop with more than one device, which occurs as they transition from browsing to making a purchase. For example, visitors to a shopping site often browse with a smartphone but switch to a tablet to use a shopping cart.

This process is known as multi-screening, which may occur simultaneously or sequentially. Designers must accommodate this type of browsing behavior by extending web content across multiple screens. For example, a television ad may display the URL of the website which viewers can access on their mobile device. Multi-screening generally requires a more responsive approach to presenting content to the user. This means that mobile design tends to make greater use website analytics to anticipate the needs of a particular user.

Device Limitations

Designers need to consider the limitations of mobile devices when designing a website. This typically means prioritizing content to determine which pieces of information are more important than others. Designers often need to collaborate with other team members to ensure that the mobile website displays the most valuable data. Selecting the right content to display will minimize the chances of a user losing interest while reading content on a mobile device. Designers must also simplify the design elements to prevent users from becoming frustrated as they navigate the website.

Emmet M is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments.

Using photos on your website as an interactive marketing strategy is now a basic part of creative marketing. It also is an excellent way to engage followers in social media. Not only can you promote your photos yourself via social media outlets, but the better goal is to have your visitors do that work for you. Have your photos tell a story and relate to your product or service, but also have your photos and associated text talk directly to your visitors.

 Why Are Photos Best?

People who are social media users enjoy many outlets for their socialization activities. They may be active on Facebook, Linked In, Pinterest and many other websites where photos are a major enhancement to their posting activities. Recent research into social media use has determined that people prefer images to text, and are drawn in more by graphic images and photos. Besides this, one old favorite saying still is true, that a photograph is worth 1000 words.

Smaller images are simple to take and upload to your website. They also are simple for visitors to link to or copy and place as curated content on their own websites. When you do post photographs, remember that when you place anything on the Internet, it means that item is an open target for others to copy and use for their own purposes, despite copyright protections. You can attempt to thwart copying by using watermarks, but even those can be circumvented. Just assume that your photos will be copied, and in this case, that is exactly what you want done.

When someone else reposts your photos elsewhere, it is very important that you convince them to also give you credit by linking back to your website. They can share your photos on their social media websites and their link back to your website can bring you many new visitors at virtually no cost. Design your website with this in mind, and make it welcoming and personalized towards these new visitors. Invite comments that they can track responses to and also share with others.

Capture Website Visitors

A creative web designer is up-to-date on all the latest marketing trends that can be used on websites to draw in and capture website visitors. They know how to best optimize photos with text and keyword use in filenames and tags. They will have new insights and suggestions for you about how to improve your existing website to increase measurable results.

It is necessary to use new creative marketing techniques to promote your online presence. Consider the many notable photos and video clips that have gone viral on the internet. These images end up being viewed by multi-millions of viewers across the globe. If it is your image, just being “out there” can drive high numbers of new visitors to your website. Once they arrive, it is up to your interactive marketing strategy to get them involved, remain and revisit your website repeatedly. This is where having a professional web designer work with you can be of immense value.

Photos are the best way to engage followers in social media. It is a viral outreach to untold numbers of potential customers. Do this correctly, and get ready to see measurable results. That is the goal of any creative and interactive marketing strategy today.

Linda E is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments.

Infinite scrolling is not a new phenomenon, but in recent months web designers have gone crazy over it. The increase in touch screens, lowered attention span of Internet users and growth of social media have all combined to create an environment where designers are turning to infinite scrolling to improve conversions for their clients. This design trend offers several key benefits to website owners that are worth considering.

Taking a Page from Social Media

Because social media is so popular, drawing a full 67 percent of online adults as of December 2012 according to the Pew Internet Project, web designers are taking design elements from social media and incorporating them into their own site designs. Infinite scrolling is one of these designs.

Pinterest, one of the fastest growing sites that is rivaling Twitter in popularity in spite of its young age, uses infinite scrolling. Twitter also uses it. Facebook, by far the most popular social media site, and one used by the full 67 percent of online adults, has embraced it as well. Those who are in web design careers are taking notice of these trends, and infinite scrolling is popping up on sites across the web.

Infinite Scrolling Is More User Friendly

When a user on an ecommerce site spends time browsing page after page, only to forget which page an item he was interested in was on, that user is going to get frustrated very quickly. After clicking back a page or two, the likelihood that the user will click off the page is quite high, which leads to a lost sale for your site.

Browsing page after page, even with a high-speed connection, increases the time it takes to do something online. The paginated experience draws out the browsing of your site’s content, which may lead to lost sales. Infinite scrolling in many instances creates a more user-friendly site and a better overall online experience.

As an added benefit, when users are not asked to scroll through page after page of content, more of your content or products are placed in front of the user. This, in turn, leads to more opportunities to make a contact or sale from each site visitor you have.

Works Well for Touch

Talk to a member of a creative talent agency or web design firm, and you will hear that mobile is not the next “big thing,” but the current driving force in online marketing. Forbes reports that there will be 7.4 billion mobile devices in the world by 2015. Even now, smartphones and tablets are beginning to rival computers as the main Internet connection for most consumers.

Infinite scrolling works much more efficiently than paginated designs for those accessing the web with touch screens. The growth in the number of mobile devices on the market is adding to the renewed focus on infinite scrolling.

Infinite scrolling makes a better user experience, works well for touch screens and gets more of your content in front of the reader. It’s no wonder that those in web design careers are starting to rely on this design trend in their ecommerce sites. If you are starting a new ecommerce site, consider infinite scrolling as a way to make it more effective.

Nicole H is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments.

 A new trend is making many online marketers very happy: people love reading curated content. Blogging online has just become easier. Feeding the hunter-gatherer takes patience, awareness, and intuition. Put out the tidbits they love and yes, if you filter it, they will come.

The use of curated content is important to all persons involved in website content creation and blogging online. Talented writers, graphic designers, web specialists and clients all need to understand the how, what and why of curated content usage. Saving time, money, energy and being efficient are the top reasons most people would come up with as answers.

Why People Love Curated Content

Another aspect of curated content use is to understand what your readers love to read and why. Many people are browser-happy. Compare them to hunter-gatherers. The hunter-gatherer constantly seeks out, in this instant, information of a particular type. If you can provide them with an ongoing source of that information, you will have a visitor who is happy to return to your website repeatedly over time. In some cases, they will eventually only visit your website, because your content is so filling and satisfying. They just do not need to look elsewhere. At that point, you have created a “raving fan” of your website, a loyalist.

Encourage Sharing

The beauty of curated content is that you can assemble a treasure chest of related information quickly and inexpensively. Displaying digital content on your website that has been created by others is a fast way to build a sort of library of information for your visitors to enjoy. You can use it to generate additional traffic to your website, as your loyalists inform their friends and family about your website and your amazing content. You may be able to exchange backlinks with other website owners, and your visitors can also be encouraged to “share” a link to your website with their friends.

Referrals are Marketing Gold

It is another new trend that obtaining referrals from friends or family is a highly effective way to market your website and online information. Sharing is the newest keyword in marketing. Get visitors to share anything about your website, and chances are good that you will reap rewards in the form of new visitors they have recruited for you. As the hunter-gathers feast at your website, they may also drop link seeds elsewhere to encourage others to join your party.

Using Curated Content

You can generate curated content by including RSS feeds, twitter links, Facebook links, content copied from other websites, video clips, images and other content on your own website. It is best to find a highly qualified website designer, writer and other talent to ensure that the quality and organization of your website is what you want it to be. There are tricks of the trade these insiders know that can help bring you the best results from your website promotional activity.

If you have a website in need of content, or you are blogging online and want to increase your visitor counts, call in experts to help you create a content feast for those visitors. Finding content is the job of an experienced web designer or writer; using that content effectively lands in the laps of the website designers and creators. You should discover that feeding the hunter-gatherers online is an effort well worth the time and energy.

Linda E is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments.

 If two words can describe The New York Times’s new design format for interactive viewing, they are beauty and simplicity. A piece called Why We Love Beautiful Things explores visual elements and how they connect with viewers on an innate level that can actual enhance physiological response.

The 2000-year-old proportions of the Golden Ratio of approximately 5 x 8 are common in everything from credit cards to the original iPod to the Stradivarius violin to the proportions of Mona Lisa’s face. Shapes having proportions approximating the golden ratio are believed to facilitate human image scanning.

It is only human to be drawn to good design. Color can enhance creativity and motivation. Jackson Pollack’s later paintings were found to replicate cerebral patterns that decrease stress levels by 60%. Beauty, color, form and design are fundamental to optimal web development.

In 2011 Andy Rutledge analyzed selected news websites, including the NYT’s, and created a redesign. The result was widely criticized because it eliminated useful features such as summaries. But it also eliminated much that was detrimental.

Lead by Ian Adelman, Director of NYT Digital Design, the in-house design team began a focused effort at decluttering presentation and ensuring a clean and continuous flow of information. Those interested in seeing the results of the redesign process can view the prototype.

In a very modern move, navigation by pagination is being replaced by continuous scroll. The next most important change is shifting to responsive design. Content will adapt to screen conditions on the new site. A version especially for mobile devices is anticipated to launch in 2014. The content will be simplified for maximum speed on smart phones and tablets.

Ian Adelman notes that this is the first major redesign since 2006. At the time he started in 2011 there were only about 5 templates. Now the number of templates is in the hundreds. They support different article types, advertising types, screen sizes and custom layouts. The paper will support any size display, cross platform customization and frequent design updates.

In the new layout everything from news to magazine stories is on a single page. In the header area a horizontally scrolling navigation menu called The Ribbon displays stories related to the current context.

The new design supports both active and passive personalization. A navigation menu at the upper left corner of each page distinguished by a “hamburger icon” provides the reader with access to any section or subsection in the newspaper.

The New York Times redesign features an elegant and highly useable structure customizable by users and able to function in diverse environments. Those who currently have websites should observe how The New York Times is moving from a PC-centered design to the post-PC world while enhancing usability.

Companies that would like to have a professional team in-house should consider creating a freelance web designer job opening. This can give your business the skills necessary for creating a website with a high degree of usability and elegant design. For ongoing website design support, a fulltime interactive designer can provide the expert services needed to create a world class website.

Linda K is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments.