A new era in web designing

Gone are the days when the web pages used to be designed for showing the information this ways or that! Now we see new web designing trends or methods are coming in front of our eyes! Whether it is the structure, use of tools, medium of display or the nature of interaction, web design has gone admirable changes to make it more acceptable and striking to users! Actually the thought behind web page designing has gone upside down – now the motto is to convey the message and gain return on investments by any means.

Anyways, here we may have a look on a few aspects that has been giving web designing ever new lease of life. In other words the designers are trying to survive against the increasing and ever changing demands from the users and the site owners. At least when people seek and find out a freelance graphic designer like me, the first thing their demand is - what is new with you to offer? Let’s see the things:

• The structural look of the web pages has gone huge change. The latest trends of web designing are driven to break all the conventions. No way are the three column structures bound to be there! Now designs are purpose oriented or simply to attract the eyes of the visitors. For example we may find out a huge header and small footer or embossed design reflecting the printed effect. All the icons and logos are bold and glossy!
• To create ever effective web designing, the designers are ever innovative to try with new design tools. They want to create designs fast, effective and prefect. And in making the designs truly perfect new design tools (Firebugs, fireworks or panic coda) have come up in use. For example slicing and dicing images to create PDF with clickable component in light weight Fireworks is just amazing.

• Now web pages are not only designed for the desktop, laptops or other computer types! Browsing webpage has entered into mobile phones. Now web pages are specially designed to fit in mobile phone browsing. Some websites even have two separate versions of websites. We find trimmed texts, images, graphics and animations are what designers aim to create mobile versions of web pages.
• Now the web designing has become interactive in true sense. With the evolvement of web 3.0 technology – the mantra of which is to interact and present what the user is looking for – designers are designing to match this technology. The 3D or animated characters, navigations are designed to let the users feel ease and at home. Even structuring the designs for "augmented reality" is cared by the designers.

The above are only the four aspects of web designing that has come up with the changing taste of the era. There are so many other things that have come up with this era and its users. But remember one thing for sure, you as the site owner, never should go for anything new that does not suit the purpose of your business. Actually you should be properly guided by the experienced and expert designers about your web designing requirements and the trend of this new era. Again you have to be initially careful when you hire website designer or a freelancer to design your site. Carefully look out for their web designing portfolio and you will understand if they are keeping up with the changing of the era or not. Hope you will select the right designer for you!

Custom error page - do's and don'ts

We all know why the error pages occur.Apparently this may look a simple matter, especially if you are newbie in handling the matters of your website. Plainly speaking, error pages does matter. Particularly the most common error page is the 404 which comes in case there is any broken link, unidentified deleted page or page with a misspelled URL. Whatever the case may be, there has to be proper reply to the user query. Here is the use of a customized 404 page.

Now there may be a question how should be the look of the custom error page? You may also ask what should be there in a customized 404 page when you hire website designer to know the level of efficiency he or she has. Anyways, let us have a look on the matter.

• Never let your visitors feel irritated with junk scripts rather state them in clean and clear language that the requested page is not found. Custom error page should clearly say what the reason of the error is. The user should understand that the result against their query is not found through a simple customized 404 page.
• The custom error page has to be designed just like the other pages. It is sometimes found that the 404 pages are very dull in look and does not fit to the overall design with the site. Remember you are to show the customized 404 page in a way that user feel it no way boring or something irrelevant.

• Have you customized 404 page with only a blank message"page not found"? Make its presence relevant, put there your site map which will help the user navigate to other pages. If you can custom error page in this way, definitely the user going to stick with your site; otherwise they will never return to your site anymore. At least there should be a link to go to the sites home page.
• When you customized 404 page, have you ensured that the pages are not indexed by the search engines? Sometimes it is found that the custom error page is left to be indexed by the search engines. This creates really bad impression to the eyes of the visitors. Simply block the page with meta tag from the web crawlers to crawl.
• Custom error page with widgets that help to show a search box with which users can search anything within the site just staying on the page. It will certainly help the users to stay on your site.

However these are few dos and don’t about the custom error page. There may be many other things to show a customized 404 page to the users. Even today it is found that the pages are with an option to report the broken link. Visitors are politely requested to report through this type of custom error page. However the error page design is no issue to me. I have been working as a freelance graphic designer for last decade and no client of mine has any question about the customized 404 page design for their websites. You should equally take care of customized 404 page design issue and keep your visitors coming back to your site.