This Web Design Community section of the site of Viaden Inc web site design and web development company contains very useful tips for everybody in Web Design Community. Please, become a member of our Web Design community and consider the following information to feel yourself more experienced and understanding in the sphere of web site design, web development, logo design, flash design and much more.

When planning and developing your web site design, you should always think of a reason for people to stay. You should remember that you can gain more visitors by making it easy for them to learn more about your business. If you keep the site updated regularly you show your visitors they are provided with the latest news and events. We offer you basic web design tips that will help you to understand what is important for creating an outstanding design. Also we offer to your attention a glossary of major terms related to web building and surfing.

So here are the main web design rules that can be of some help to you:

1. Create an easy-to-navigate Web site.
This tip is often overlooked in web design rules. Place navigation links where people expect to find them, and make sure all pages of your Web site have a consistent set of navigation links. Make sure your audience knows where they are in your web site and how they can get back Home.

2. Don't overload your design. Filling your pages with animation, graphics, and photos that may or may not relate to the page's topic will only confuse your audience. Use standard colors and keep your site clean. Don't try to do too much on any one page.

3. Define your target audience.
The most successful web sites consider their audiences and make allowances for visitors? computer equipment, time constraints and need for information. Ask yourself if you are targeting your local markets or globally. Is your audience young and hip, or older and conservative or visa versa?

4. Make your page look special.
Think how you can let others know that you have services or products that are special and deserve their attention. In addition to a unique web site, make sure each page is unique so your audience is, again, not confused and can easily distinguish one page from another by its topic (not by its design).

6. Use you company's material.
Make sure you make use of the rest of your company's printed material and publicity outlets when you create your Web pages. Be consistent in your graphics; use the same logo that appears on your letterhead and business cards. In addition, make sure that your web site is complementing your current marketing and business strategies.

7. Test even what's been tested.
A key point in creating a Web page is not something you do but something you don't do: make spelling errors and grammatical blunders. A single typo at the top of your Web page can ruin the professional appearance. Most importantly, always test your pages.

8. Promote your business -- online and offline.
If you regularly place an ad in a newspaper or magazine that already draws visitors, add a reference to the URL of your web site somewhere on that ad. Be sure to include your web address on all of your printed material: letterhead, business cards, invoices, envelopes, brochures, shopping bags, billboards, etc. And lastly, be sure to list your web site with the major search engines.

These web design rules will be especially precious for those who have made up their minds to create websites on their own. But to put you mind at rest, you can always trust a real professional! Viaden offers you high quality web design services based on 100% individual approach. See the projects we developed for our customers in the Portfolio. We will be happy to turn your dreams into reality!

Brief Glossary of Internet terms

Affiliate programs - Affiliate programs allow Web sites who provide links to your site to receive payments or reciprocal advertising in exchange for promoting your Web site.

Audio/Video streaming - Audio/video streaming allows you to provide visitors to your site with a real-time sound or video experience.

Backbone - The network of connections and high-speed lines that forms the infrastructure of the Internet. An important consideration in choosing a Web site host is that host's proximity to the backbone. The less intermediate network distance between your provider and the backbone, the faster and more reliable your Web site will be.

Bandwidth - The amount of data that can be sent through a network connection, measured in bits per second (bps).

Banner ad - Banner ads are one of the primary methods of advertising on the Internet. They are usually small graphics with a very brief advertising message.

Bulletin board - A computerized version of the bulletin boards found in stores and other public places, where people can leave messages and advertise things they want to buy or sell.

CGI scripts - Programs that run on a Web server, in response to input from a browser. CGI scripts link the server and a program running on the system; for example, CGI scripts are used with interactive forms.

Chat room - A real-time electronic forum; a virtual room where visitors can meet others and share ideas on a particular subject. There are chat rooms on the Internet, BBSs, and other online services.

Common Gateway Interface (CGI) - A set of rules that describe how a Web server communicates with another piece of software on the same machine, and how the other piece of software talks to the Web server. Usually, a CGI program is a small routine that takes data from a Web server and does something with it, like putting the content of a form into an email message, or turning the data into a database query.

Domain name - The unique name that identifies an Internet site. Domain name registration - Most Web designers will offer to register your chosen domain name for you. Alternatively, you can choose to register your domain name directly through InterNIC. Regardless of the method you choose there is a standard charge of $70 for registration.

DHTML. A combination of HTML enhancements, style sheets and scripts that allow for animation, interactions and dynamic updating of Web pages. Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer have implemented Dynamic HTML with proprietary methods, but are expected to implement the W3C's Dynamic Object Model (DOM) in future versions.

E-commerce - Electronic commerce is the exchange of goods or services via the Internet.

Features - The features available for designing a Web site are numerous, from guestbooks, to audio/video streaming, to chat rooms and bulletin boards.

GIF. (Graphics Interchange Format) A bit mapped graphics file format. It supports 8-bit color (256 colors) and compresses the files well. This translates into faster load times GIFs include a color table that includes the most representative 256 colors used. For example, a picture of the forest would include mostly greens. This method provides excellent realism in an 8-bit image.

Guestbook - A guestbook allows visitors to your site to give you their contact information (e.g. name, email or postal address, telephone number, business). You may be able to use this information to send email or direct marketing newsletters or simply collect marketing information about your customers.

HTML. (HyperText Markup Language) The document format used on the World Wide Web. Web pages are built with HTML tags, or codes, embedded in the text. HTML defines the page layout, fonts and graphic elements as well as the hypertext links to other documents on the Web. Each link contains the URL or address, of a Web page residing on the same server or any server worldwide, hence "World Wide" Web.

Hyperlink. A jump from text or from an image map to a page or other type of file on the World Wide Web. In World Wide Web pages, hyperlinks are the primary way to navigate between pages and among Websites.

IP Address. (Internet Protocol Address) The standard way of identifying a computer that is connected to the Internet, much the way a telephone number identifies a telephone on a telephone network. The IP address is four numbers separated by periods, and each number is less than 256, for example, 192.200.44.69. Your system administrator or Internet service provider will assign your machine an IP address.

JavaScript. A popular scripting language that is widely supported in Web browsers and other Web tools. It is easier to use than Java, but not as powerful and deals mainly with the elements on the Web page. On the client, JavaScript is maintained as source code embedded into an HTML document. On the server, it is compiled into byte code (intermediate language), similar to Java programs.

JPEG. (Joint Photographic Experts Group) Primarily used for still photographs. Pronounced "jay-peg." An ISO/ITU standard for compressing still images that is popular due to its high compression capability. Using discrete cosine transform, it provides lossy compression (you lose some data from the original image) with ratios up to 100:1 and higher. Again, this translates into faster load times.

Meta Tags. An HTML tag that identifies the contents of a Web page. Using a format, Meta tags contain such things as a general description of the page, keywords for search engines and copyright information.

Microsoft NT. The brand name for Microsoft's server operating platform. See also, Unix.

Plug-In. A single document in a World Wide Website written using the HTML language.

Rich Text Format (RTF) - A standard for specifying the formatting of documents. Some documents formatting languages using RTF include Hypertext Markup Language.

Security functions - Securing areas of your Web site can allow visitors to your site to submit credit card payments online or access sensitive information (e.g. account information).

Search Engines. Software that searches for data based on some criteria. Although search engines have been around for decades, they have been brought to the forefront since the World Wide Web exploded onto the scene.

Shopping cart - Shopping carts serve two functions: to manage your Web-based inventory and to help you design a browser interface for displaying your product or service line.

Resolution. The degree of sharpness of a displayed or printed character or image. On screen, resolution is expressed as a matrix of dots. For example, the VGA resolution of 640x480 means 640 dots (pixels) across each of the 480 lines. Sometimes the number of colors are added to the spec; for example, 640x480x16 or 640x480x256. The same resolution looks sharper on a small screen than a larger one.

Web Browser. The program that serves as your front end to the World Wide Web on the Internet. In order to view a site, you type its address (URL) into the browser's Location field; for example, www.computerlanguage.com, and the home page of that site is downloaded to you. The home page is an index to other pages on that site that you can jump to by clicking a "click here" message or an icon. Links on that site may take you to other related sites.

Web Page. A single document in a World Wide Website written using the HTML language.

XML. (EXtensible Markup Language) An open standard for describing data from the W3C. It uses a similar tag structure as HTML however, whereas HTML defines how elements are displayed, XML defines what those elements contain. HTML uses predefined tags, but XML allows tags to be defined by the developer of the page. Thus, virtually any data items, such as product, sales rep and amount due, can be identified, allowing Web pages to function like database records. It is expected to become the dominant format for electronic data interchange.

Unix - The name of a group of server operating platforms from Sun, RedHat, HP, and others.

URL - Uniform Resource Locator (formerly Universal Resource Locator). An Internet address which tells a browser where to find an Internet resource. For example, the URL for Viaden is http://www.viaden.com/.