Saturday, January 2, 2010

Understanding the Web Design Process

A good way to understand the web-design process is to understand it through a case study. In this article, I will present the case study of Jake, a busy web developer, as he works with a client to create a small web page.
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<br>1. Gathering Design Requirements
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<br>Jake has a new client, an import and export agent. The agent needs a simple web site to give her brief background and details of the services she provides. After an initial meeting with Dianne, the real estate agent, Jake grabs a pencil and sheet of paper, and he starts creating rough sketches of the home page. He draws a number of different layouts and then picks the three designs that he thinks will work best, given Dianne's needs. He meets again with Dianne to discuss the three designs. Dianne selects one of the sketches and makes some suggestions. When Jake brings up colors, Dianne decides on a color scheme of green, gold, and white because these colors are similar to the ones on her business card.
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<br>2. Photoshop Mock-ups
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<br>Later that day, Jake sits down at his computer, fires up Adobe Photoshop, and quickly mocks up the home page using the finished sketch and Dianne's preferred colors as his guide. He grabs a few royalty-free stock images from a stock photo site and places them on the mock-up. He spends a little time looking at various shades of greens and golds until he gets something he likes. Once he's done, he exports the document and sends it off to Dianne to get some feedback.
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<br>After waiting a week, Jake calls up Dianne to get her opinion on what he's done so far. She tells him she'll take a look at it when she gets back from her vacation in a week.
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<br>3. Coding Time
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<br>Another week goes by, and Jake finally gets a call from Dianne. She says she likes how it looks, and she wants to move forward. Relieved, Jake fires up his trusty text editor and begins the transition from mock-up to web page.
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<br>Jake begins by creating a simple HTML document that defines the structure and content for the page. Next, he uses Photoshop to slice up his mock-up so he can extract the banner graphics and other images, which he then inserts into the HTML document. Next, he carefully codes corrresponding CSS to pull the whole thing together. The style sheets transform the linear-page skeleton into a brightly colored, two-column layout.
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<br>Jake opens up the new web page in Mozilla Firefox, and everything looks great, just like his mock-up. He then fires up Internet Explorer 6 and winces at the ugly page staring back at him. Fortunately, Jake has seen this kind of thing before, so he quickly throws in a few extra style definitions in an IE-only style sheet. Presto! He's ready to show Dianne the finished page.
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<br>4. Ready to Go
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<br>Dianne loves the site, and Jake is ready to start building the rest of the pages for the site. Now that Jake has worked out the colors, the images, and the style sheets, it will be easy to produce the rest of the site. Jake can take pride in the fact that he's made his new client happy.
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<br>5. Ideal Situation
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<br>Jake got lucky this time. He got an easy and laid back client. The thing is, clients are usually not so easy to please in the real world. For that, you should be able to demonstrate technical knowledge and have effective communication skills to reply to client's tough queries and be able to convince them.
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<br>About the Author: John Bladeus runs <a href="http://www.webdesignpakistan.pk/" rel="nofollow">Web Design Pakistan</a>, a low-cost, high-quality <a href="http://www.webdesignpakistan.pk/web-design-karachi/" rel="nofollow">web design service in Karachi</a> and also has a passion for writing on subjects related to <a href="http://www.logodesignnext.com/" rel="nofollow">logo design service</a> and <a href="http://www.hqlogos.com/" rel="nofollow">business logos</a>.
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How To Use Social Media To Expand Your Business And Make More Money Online

Social media represents one of the largest shifts in modern business—and because of this your customers are changing. No longer satisfied with listening to marketing messages and doing what companies want them to do, customers now want their voices heard and they want companies to react and fulfill their needs—not the other way around.
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<br>Social media can be an incredibly effective way for companies to get their messages out to their audience, but more importantly, it's a way for companies to actively engage and listen. Social media creates direct access never before been seen in the business world, access that helps businesses provide products and services directly to those who want or need them in a very targeted, real-time manner.
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<br>So how do you use sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Blogger in an overall marketing strategy and even create new revenue streams in the process? In addition to showing you why being involved in social media is important, this book provides you the tools to get a running start.
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<br>Power Social Media Marketing not only explains how social media has changed the game for anyone doing business online, but also provides lessons about traditional Internet marketing tactics and ideas. This is an important point because traditional Internet marketing tactics still work. The people making the most money online understand that pay-per-click advertising, search engine optimization, and effective content are as important as any of the new tools available. A combination of both is what will take your business to the next level.
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<br>Building an audience and driving traffic from social media sites to your own website are two key lessons taken from this book. But what is just as important is learning what visitors are doing on your site, what they are searching for, and how they got there. The chapter in Power Social Media Marketing on how to use analytics software will give readers an understanding of how to create a better website experience for their visitors while also learning how to market better to these visitors.
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<br>SEO is another key element to building solid exposure online that is discussed in this book. Creating a search engine and social media friendly website is absolutely key to gaining exposure on the social web.
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<br>This book also tackles blogging. Learning how to properly use a blog for PR, reputation management, and marketing purposes is an essential and cheap way to enhance your business online. You will also learn how to use a blog to create additional revenue streams—something of interest to every business owner.
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<br>This book is a great primer on social media and how to get started promoting yourself and your business online, but it is also good for the experienced marketer who wants to build more market share and make more money on the Internet. It combines knowledge of traditional Internet marketing with the evolution to social media to help you build a solid foundation built on both. Power Social Media Marketing lays out a roadmap that will take you to the next level in Internet business.
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<br>About the Author: As a web marketer, I can tell you the next big movement on the web is social media. You can't ignore the details included in this ebook called <a href="http://www.powersocialmediamarketing.com" rel="nofollow">Power Social Media Marketing</a>. I give it my highest recommendation for both internet professionals and newbies looking to <a href="http://www.moneyonline.net" rel="nofollow">Make Money Online</a>.
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