Web Development: What is it?

Most people think that they understand what web development is. However, there is much more to it than most realize. Developing the web involves creating a web design, developing content for it, implementing search engine optimization, configuring security for the site and developing e-commerce, plus much more.

It is all About the Platforms

WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and the hundreds of other content management sites have made the work required to build a site much easier. These platforms take a lot of the time out of developing the page, which in turn allows a web designer to focus on other aspects of web development. While the platforms do not take away from the need of proper planning, they do allow users to develop sites without HTML knowledge. This comes with a few problems for web designers, such as

The Demand for PSD to HTML Service is Less

Providers of these services are not necessarily losing their jobs, yet. However, they have had to lower their prices for these services significantly.

Personal Project Focus

Many developers are turning their creative juices to working on their own projects. These projects are typically more fun and provide more challenges and work with your personal tastes.

IE9

This new platform that is offered by Microsoft is a great improvement. With all the bugs and problems of internet explorer, it is time to update. Hopefully, the use of IE9 will soon supersede the use of IE6 as this platform is much better and safer overall.

Open Web Standards

If you are a developer that was never comfortable sticking with standard coding, the open web standards are a huge benefit. You no longer have to explain to clients the need to stick with valid compliant and semantic codes.

Technology and Languages

In order to be vital in this industry, you are going to have to become very knowledgeable in a variety of subjects. You may choose to specialize in a certain area, but you will need to retain knowledge of other areas as well.

When it comes down to it, there is a bright future for web developers. Even if the world of the web is constantly changing, if you are willing to stay along for the ride, chances are you are going to have a thriving business for many years to come.

Use some flexibility with your designs and you will be able to help businesses generate more leads online and to be able to convert those leads into paying customers. When it comes down to it, the design of a website is extremely important and something that every business of today and in the future will need.

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Computers have seen a decline in the amount of human contact that people have with the world. When you are working as a designer, you spend a lot of time sitting in front of your computer screen. You interact with the world through what you see on the screen, and the inputs that you make. Dealing with clients, colleagues and organizations is often done through the use of a computer. Many freelancers now spend their entire work life interacting through their computer. I know that I only deal with clients by emails and IM. How many other people are losing their sense of humanity because of the use of computers?

While technology seems to be causing a decline in human interaction, there are ways in which it can help to bring out and share our humanity with others.

When you are going to design something, you have to think about why you are doing so. What is the intention of the product that you are advertising? How do your client’s services propose to help others? Creating a sense of feeling in through visuals, content and branding is a difficult thing to do. Many companies appear to be cold and heartless, while lacking any sense of humanity. Fixing this problem is one of the things, which a good designer must do in order to portray their client’s message to the public.

In years gone by creating a product from a client’s brief meant conducting face to face meetings, or at least communicating over the telephone. These days’ people communicate electronically instead. Without having face to face meetings, it is difficult to get across exactly what a client wants. Often we are left with alienating and robotic designs, which are void of any human emotion at all.

Working through the internet over long distances might seem like a more effective way to do business, but without human contact, design ideas are often not as effective. This can lead to those ideas being less efficient at doing what they are meant to do. Without close communications, the process of getting a job done can often take even longer, despite what we might think about internet communication. Sure, you can hire a worker from another country, who has the best skills and the best price for you. However, you will lose something by being able to communicate only through emails and IM programs.

Human beings are becoming more and more influenced by how they interact with technology. As consequence people often forget about putting humanity into their products, which in turn makes people even less human themselves. People need to consider the human interaction with a design if they are going to make something that elevates humanity, rather than taking away from it.

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It makes sense that we should put a lot of effort into creating effective links and navigation systems, right? If your website has poor linking and bad navigation, people are most likely going to be tired of it and navigate away to another page. Do not let your competition steal your visitors just because you have not implemented a good navigation system. Even if your website has the best content out there, you will need to have your links in the right places, leading to the right things if you are going to entice people to stay on your website.

Because website designers are working with a computerized medium, they are not limited in what they can do. That is one of the greatest things about the internet. However, the navigation for many sites seems to have become stagnant and boring, simply following the trends of the past.

If you are making a small site, such as for a small business, many people will use a horizontal navigation bar across the top of the pages. This works well, but it is not very inventive. However, if you are getting a lot of traffic to your site and you do not see the sense in making changes, perhaps this article is not for you.

Bigger sites, which have to deal with more pages, tend to have vertical navigation bars, because they allow the designer to include more links on the page. Drop down menus are very popular these days, with sites using similar things such as fly out menus in order to store their navigation links.

Early website design limited people in how they could display their navigation links. Today people simply follow that tradition and use what has always worked. Many people are just used to these types of navigation design, and do not question their use. However, some people are starting to become tired of seeing the same old thing on every single website that they visit. People are yearning for a change, and there has to be someone to give it to them.

The internet has always evolved very fast, ever since it was first created. Designs are becoming easier for users to deal with, and they are becoming more enjoyable to interact with. There are more features, and websites are more attractive than they have ever been. However, while everything else seems to be evolving, navigation seems to have stayed pretty much the same. It is up to designers to come up with new ways to rethink website navigation.

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The good news is they don’t have to stay in the burial ground permanently, not all of them, anyways.  There are some that will be sent to their final resting place, never to be revived.  Others can be.  The reasons why they ended up in the burial ground in the first place is contingent as to whether or not they can be revived.

There are many reasons how they end up there, some of which are as follows:
•    Creation of More Than One Design: There are occasions when a client requests for two or more designs creation.  This is not an idealistic situation for a designer to be in.  Chances are that they will not all be chosen and one or more will end up in the burial ground.
•    Unfinished Projects: Sometimes, communications or the work relationship disintegrates between you and the client. Depending on the contract, the design (no matter what stage it is at) will either go with the client or to the burial ground.
•    Sample Designs and Crowdsourcing: Through both sources, a lot of creative energy can go into a design that will never see the light of day.  Since, they were intended for a specific purpose that did not happen, they will more than likely go to the burial ground.
•    Old Age: Eventually, it will be time for a design to go to the burial ground.  This happens after its life span has completed its course.

Whatever the reason that made the design to go into the burial ground, often it can be revived.  It is not always a good idea to leave them in the design burial ground doing nothing.  They can be used for other purposes, and some of these are as follows:

•    Salvage Them: Sometimes, you can salvage a design and recycle it.  Of course, this is not an option for designs that have launched.  Only for those that did not make it that far.
•   Share The Design: Open source the design, if it is of good quality.
•    Teach Other Designers: If you are legally allowed to, use the design to teach other designers.  If your design would be useful to others, put it in a blog, tutorial or article.
•    Recycle Elements: If a burial ground design has an element that you like, use it in a different design.
Think of your design burial ground as a resource, rather than a final resting place.  Time and energy had been utilized in their creation and letting them rot seems like a complete waste of time.

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