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Brand & Identity Design UI Design Web Design

Web Designing For Accessibility: Tips And Guidelines To Follow

Web Designing

The world is evolving faster than ever, and humans are becoming more and more dependent on technology. The Internet has changed the world, and today all of us depend on the internet for almost everything. Be it searching for a job, ordering a pizza, booking a dentist appointment, learning, and whatnot? The internet may be an ever-present resource for most people, but connectivity to the resource is a challenge for people living with disabilities. Although there are programs and devices, like screen readers, that make it possible for people with disabilities to access websites, web designing for accessibility is still a practice less followed.

According to data from 2012, almost one in five Americans live with a disability of some kind. Close to one billion people in the world, or 15 percent of the world’s population, lives with a disability. Out of all kinds of disabilities, conditions like visual impairment, autism, difficulty grasping objects, and deafness, just to name a few, can severely limit an individual’s ability to use a computer or smartphone without assistance and support.

There’s a myth that web designing for accessibility is difficult and expensive; it’s not true. Making your website more accessible doesn’t mean adding extra features or content; therefore there shouldn’t be an additional cost and effort.

Here are a few tips that will help you in web designing for accessibility in accordance with the AA level of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0), and will allow your website to work on the most commonly used assistive technologies — including screen readers, screen magnifiers, and speech recognition tools.

Maintain a Proper Contrast Ratio

Color contrast is an important aspect of web designing. But, it is often neglected as a web accessibility problem. People with low vision could find it difficult to read text from a background color if it has low contrast, whether on a plain background or text embedded within an image. A movie with subtitles is a good example. The text often appears without anticipating the background. It happens when white text appears in a brightly lit scene. It is unreadable, and the audience is left not knowing the dialogue.

It is critical to consider the sufficient contrast between text and background. According to the W3C, the contrast ratio between text and its background should be at least 4.5 to 1 (conformance level AA.) The ratios become more forgiving with larger and heavier fonts since they’re easier to read at lower contrast. If your type is at least 18 pt or 14 pt bold, the minimum contrast ratio drops to 3 to 1. You can use tools like Contrast Checker to see how your planned font and background colors work together.

Don’t Just Rely On Colors 

When you’re communicating something important, showing an action, or prompting a response, don’t use color as the only visual cue. People with low visual acuity or color blindness will have a hard time understanding your content. Try to use an indicator other than colors such as text labels or patterns.

Elements with more complex information like charts and graphs can be especially hard to read when you only use color to distinguish the data. Use other visual aspects to communicate information like shape, labels, and size. A good trick is to print your graph in black and white and see if you can still understand everything in it.

Keep Your Navigation Predictable

The navigation system your website uses should be consistent across its pages. This includes the icons you use and the way visitors get to different pages within the site. if your homepage has a top header bar with drop-down menus, each of your other pages should have this arrangement, too. Similarly, the icons you use across your website need to be consistent.

You should also stay away from any kind of automatic navigation and auto-playing music and videos. not only are they annoying, but it’s also difficult for a user with a screen reader to determine how to pause them. And when a slideshow or carousel scrolls through content at a rapid rate, users can become confused and frustrated.

Support Keyboard-Only Navigation

Web designing for accessibility is not restricted to the elements on the screen. Keyboard accessibility is one of the most critical aspects of web accessibility. Especially for the ones who are blind and rely on screen readers. Also, for people who don’t have precise muscle control; they can’t grasp a mouse or keep their hand steady on a laptop’s touchpad. These users rely on their keyboards to navigate websites. 

These users typically use the Tab key on the keyboard to navigate through interactive elements on a web page – links, buttons, or input fields. The order of the interactive elements is essential, and the navigation must be logical and intuitive. The tab order should follow the visual flow of the page – left to right, top to bottom.

Add Appropriate Alt-Tags To Images

Alt tags are brief descriptions of the images you use that get buried in the site’s HTML. Most users never see these descriptions, but site visitors using screen readers rely on them since they “hear” the content. These tools convert text to speech so that the person can hear the words on a site. Alternative text, or alt tags, can be presented in two ways –  within the <alt> attribute of the image element, or within the context or surroundings of the image itself. 

Alt tags aren’t just useful for your visually impaired audience; they’re for your benefit too. Well-crafted alt tags improve your site’s SEO, drawing more relevant site traffic and improving conversions.

Use Labels Or Instructions With Form Fields And Inputs 

Using placeholder text as labels are one of the biggest mistakes when designing a form. Placeholder text is usually gray and has low contrast, so it’s hard to read. People who use screen readers usually navigate through a form using the Tab key to jump through the form controls. The <label> elements are read for each form control. Any non-label text, as placeholder text, is usually skipped over.

Always help people understand what they should do and write in a form. It’s best if labels don’t go away, even when the person is filling an input. When designers hide descriptions or directions in their forms, they’re sacrificing usability to attain simplicity. That said, we don’t want you to clutter your design with unnecessary information, just make sure to provide essential cues.

Web designing for accessibility is a new and growing trend. While these tips will certainly help you in creating websites that are much more accessible for people with disabilities, there is still a lot of scope in terms of improving the user experience for this set of audience. As designers, we all need to grow and master the art of accessibility since technology is usable for all – regardless of their abilities. Looking to improve your web design? Talk to our experts.

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SEO UI Design Web Design

The Importance of Content in Web Designing

Content Web Designing

Designers around the globe may argue that the most essential aspect of a web design’s success is its visual appeal, and that content is secondary. But, the truth of the matter is that no matter how good and appealing your website may be, it will not be able to achieve success unless it is designed and developed based on solid, useful content in web designing. Great content is what sets your website apart from the masses and delivers the right message to your audience. 

The success of your website is determined primarily by its content. All other components of your website (design, visuals, videos, etc.) provide a secondary support role. The key to a successful website is having clear, relevant, and keyword-rich content that delivers the right message with power and conviction. The content for web designing should target your audience, engage them, and persuade them to take action.

Before you get started with the web design process, make sure that you have the content ready with you. The reason being, your website needs to be built around the content, not the other way round. Here are a few reasons why content is more important than it looks.

SEO

One of the benefits of publishing good content is that it will increase the number of people who find your website through search engines. Search engines love content, especially frequently updated content. Content is the most significant catalyst when it comes to boosting your SEO. Google checks the content quality of a website to determine its ranking. It reviews the relevancy and authenticity of the content to the subject topic. 

There are so many websites on the internet that have amazingly beautiful homepages, but no relevant content at all. In most of the cases, the homepage is the most frequently visited page of a website and therefore it should contain information about what you do, who you are and what you offer. This is one of the main reasons why scrolling websites have become so popular in recent times. If your site contains less information and content, it will be difficult for Google to identify what your website is about, and it will impact your ranking in search results. Visitor traffic, business visibility, and sales will all increase with higher search engine rankings, which is only possible by creating and offering high-quality content while web designing.

User Experience

High-quality website content enhances usability. Usability can range from the navigation of your site to the ease of use for visitors, to the accessibility of your content and to the interconnection between relevant pieces of content. When relevant and useful content is easy to locate, it results in better user experience and more satisfied visitors. If visitors don’t find your website easy to use, then they are more likely to bounce off and visit competitors’ sites instead. A high bounce rate means a loss to the business.

No matter how good the design and functionality of a website is, if the content is poor, the overall user experience will be disappointing. Visitors come to your website for information; to seek answers to their queries. They also want to find out about you, your services, and/or products. They want to know how are your offerings are unique and different from your competitors. They want to know your contact details, your business hours, the experience of clients using your products/services, and a lot more. This is all content and must be available for visitors. Importantly, the content must be available at convenient locations, where people expect it to be. If they have to search rigorously on your website to seek their answers, that’s negative user experience.

Sales generation

Building trust is a vital part of sales generation for any business. One of the important ways of creating that trust is by establishing yourself as an industry thought leader and authority, through the content you produce. In terms of sales generation, good content can be especially useful if you know how to drill down on your targeted demographics and guide them to the purchase.

An estimated 77% of consumers read online content before making a purchase decision. Publishing product-specific content such as FAQs, product reviews, and instructional videos or blog posts can help reassure potential customers and lead to sales. Add screenshots to reviews and include videos where possible. Videos create a next-level impact. Always use a conversational tone while writing and create blog posts on trending, relevant topics. Provide links between the content which can lead the reader to the related product or service. It is an effective way of generating sales.

Competitive Edge

The sole purpose of a website is to showcase a business and its offerings. We all want to attract customers and words play a vital role in enticing potential buyers or clients. People buy from people, and you are more likely to stand out over your competitors by making a connection with your customers by offering them the right content.

As a business, you would have to do things differently and bring your personality at the forefront to attract customers; do this through your website copy. Use your website content to highlight what makes you different, and why a potential client should choose you over someone else in your industry. Make valuable connections with your website visitors to gain a competitive advantage.

Content Is More Than Just Text

Content doesn’t always come in the form of text. Visuals, especially videos, on websites are changing the way important messages are communicated. Visitors expect to get the information they need effortlessly. Custom videos provide a great way to engage audiences and drive essential messaging in a format that requires less effort than reading large amounts of text. Additionally, illustrations, infographics, diagrams, and interactive presentations are often used to explain difficult concepts and help users in taking decisions.

Market Your Content

Even great content will not be able to become effective content, if not marketed properly. Content Marketing involves the creation and sharing of media and publishing content to acquire customers. This information can be presented in a variety of formats, including blog posts, news, videos, white papers, infographics, case studies, how-to guides, photos, etc. Content Marketing is one of the best methodologies for marketing your website and your business. Posting relevant, valuable, and frequently updated information on your website will also boost your search ranking and will allow you to build long-lasting relationships with your audience.

Conclusion

Good quality content while web designing is pivotal to the success of your website. It helps in achieving better Google search rankings, enhanced user experience, and leads to more sales. An aesthetical appeal is also important, but the content is the base of any website. Just like web designing, copywriting also requires expertise. Therefore, you must consider hiring a professional copywriter to create your content. Talk to our team of experts now!

Read more about how to design a content-heavy website

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Blog Brand & Identity SEO Web Design

5 Annoying Things To Avoid In A Web Design

Web Design

Competition over the Web Design internet is fierce. Today, there are a large number of individuals and businesses who spend money and time on digital marketing and SEO to rank higher on Google searches. It has become tough to differentiate from rivals and get users to visit a particular website over others.

Since acquiring new visitors is very difficult, providing a delightful user experience gains importance and is pivotal to retain each hard-earned customer. If a website offers an unpleasant experience to its users, forget about winning repeat visits, they might never come back on the website. Here are some of the most common things in a web design which leaves users in frustration and thus must always be avoided.

Slow Website Speed

With the boom in technology, everything has become super quick. Everyone has a smartphone these days, and access to the internet is just a tap away. Even half-baked questions or half-remembered trivia get instant answers from Google. People can contact each other, sitting halfway across the globe in a matter of seconds. Today, the speed and responsiveness of our hyper-connected world have spoiled us all. Therefore, when we click on a search result, and the page keeps loading even for only three to four seconds, it is equivalent to eternity for users.

Remember, you’re not the only one providing an answer to a query or serving what a user is looking for. If your page doesn’t load within a blink of an eye, they will click on other best available options. Get rid of all the unwanted elements which are dragging down the speed of your website. Ensuring a good page load speed is critical to create new visitors and retain them.

Too Many Popups

It’s a shared experience, wherein we click on a link in our Google search results, and we are directed to a webpage which is full of popups. So much as so that we are not even able to read the actual content available on the page. Moreover, they keep popping up, even after you close them.

Combined with a browser alert that “this website would like to send you notifications”, the overall effect is one of being barraged with irrelevant information. It ultimately kills the actual content you were trying to reach.

Some advocate the fact that popups significantly improve conversion rate, while others get put-off by their potential of pestering the users. No matter which side we stand, one thing is for sure that popups are badly planned, throwing information and content which is not relevant for users. Therefore it is better to stay away from them.

Not Mobile-friendly

According to Statistic, 52.2 percent of internet traffic was generated through mobile phones in 2018. That’s a considerable ratio, and thus it’s pivotal that the website is responsive and mobile friendly. We are in 2019, yet we come across many mobile sites where items aren’t aligned properly, overlapping, strangely formatted or subject to some additional oversight from the designer. It creates a negative impression on users. They might feel that your company doesn’t take the time to go over little details.

Coupled with the recent change in Google’s algorithm to prioritize mobile-first indexing, there is now no reason at all to ignore the mobile experience of your website. A low-quality mobile site can negatively affect your SEO performance as well as the experience of your users, so it’s essential to get it right.

Animation Overdose

We like animations. Yes, they do look good and enhance the aesthetic value of a website. A few smooth transitions, transforms, appearances, and well-deployed animation can infuse vital life into an otherwise static and dry layout.

However, animation should be used sparingly, as and when required. Overdoing it can distract the audience. The key role of animations is to draw user attention to key content and call-to-action buttons. Users should not feel confused to read the actual text.

Animated introductory screens, too, are great attention-grabbers when users first reach on to your website, but avoid making them sit through the same animation every time they want to return to the homepage. Their beautiful presentation shouldn’t dictate the function of website elements.

Users shouldn’t be waiting for an element to appear or to become interactive. Using a lot of moving parts or content that flashes can pose problems for users. Some users may have an attention deficit disorder, making it very difficult for them to concentrate on the content.

Video Autoplay

Videos are an essential aspect of your online marketing efforts. They are a good source of explaining your products, brand message and other aspects, better than text can. Designers are often tempted to put the video on autoplay when they place them on the website. There are ways to do it tastefully, but it’s so often misused and creates a negative user experience.

Many sites place a video next to the body text. Usually this is entirely irrelevant to the content of the page. Even if you close it before navigating to another page, it quickly reappears. That’s really annoying.

Even worse, many sites preface these videos with automated advertisements which, given that the videos themselves are generally advertisements in one form or another. Some web users also hate auto-play as it can ruin their user experience and would rather prefer reading the information on the page without a distraction. It is more polite and effective to let the video be turned off until the audience chooses to play it.

To wrap up

Everything which we have mentioned above is basically issues of a bad UX design. It is important to consider every element and its effect on the overall user experience. If something hinders the user in finding what they’re looking for or detract them from the actual content of the page, it should be avoided. Speak to our design experts to know more about it.

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Blog Design Technology Web Design

Tips To Choose A Website Builder for Your Next Project

Website Builder

Every business needs a compelling website these days. We come across loads of websites on the internet, some of which we find very attractive, some not so much. A lot of these websites are developed using website builders, which are great assets and expedite the process of designing and developing a website. A website builder is an effective tool to design a corporate website, blog, landing page, an eCommerce portal and a lot more.

A good website builder is easy to understand for even novice web designers. It typically provides templates and features that are based on web design best practices. But, what should you look for in a website builder to zero down on the best one for you? In this article, we will discuss exactly on that. Irrespective of the size of your business, this article will help you choose the best website builder platform for your website.

Set Your Budget

First and foremost, examine and ascertain your affordability. There is a website builder for every pocket. Start by considering the other costs involved in building your professional website. While deciding on the budget, consider the other costs involved as well, like domain registration and hosting. The images and copy for your website will also require some investment.

A lot of website builders offer a free plan, but that has its own limitations. Mostly the services cost somewhere between $5 to $40 a month, for plans that offer features required by businesses. If your budget is limited, you can save money by looking for plans that bundle different website services you need.

Prioritize Your Needs

Every business and website will have different needs. Based on these needs, a suitable website builder can be selected. Before you can decide on the best website builder platform, you need some idea of what you want your website to do and be like. Consider the level of experience you have in designing. Most websites builders are made for people that don’t have much experience with design or website coding. Still, some of them are easier to understand and get used to.

If you’re a newbie and would be starting from scratch, then look for a builder that offers website theme templates and drag-and-drop design options. If you want a lot of options and flexibility in designing your website, then go for a website builder which offers plenty of templates and further flexible editing options.

For instance, if you’re developing an eCommerce website, think if your website will include videos? A photo gallery? A blog? A map that shows where your store is located? Make sure your website builder supports the types of content formats you plan to include.

Also, Make sure the website builder you pick provides responsive website templates or other options to make your website mobile friendly.

Look For Ease Of Use

You don’t want to scratch your head figuring out how to use your website builder. Make sure the builder you select is one which can be easily interpreted. The key thing is ease of use for your comfort and at your skill level.

If you have a background in coding and want customization, you may use slightly advanced tools like the most popular builder – WordPress; you can also buy customizable templates. The templates also vary in ease of use, so choose wisely.

To be fair, almost all independent website builder platforms are easy enough to use. However, the features provided by the builder creates a huge difference. Always go for a feature-rich website builder as it adds to the ease of use.

Consider After Sales Service And Support

A quality website builder will have a solid support and troubleshooting team in place. The team would promptly answer your queries and troubleshoot if anything goes wrong.

Generally, customer service levels vary, based on the pricing plan you choose, but is an important consideration before choosing a website builder.

The support is offered at various levels, email support, priority support via email, chat support, or phone.

Check Out The SEO Features

No matter how good your website is, it’s of no use if people are not able to find you on the web. Once you’re done building your website, you want people to easily find you. Your website should not get lost in the deep sea of countless websites over the web.

For that, you need to implement SEO best practices along with the design of your website. A good website builder should include SEO features that simplify on-site optimization. You must be able to update all the SEO meta elements, on each page, without any hassles, so as to provide your sitemap to the search engines.

On-site optimization is just one part of SEO, but surely a significant one. An SEO feature-rich website builder will help you in successfully implementing your SEO strategy into the design right from the very start.

In nutshell, the best website builder for you is the one which is easy to use, offers plenty of features, meets your specific needs, has a strong support team, and is easy on your pocket. Sounds too much of information? Don’t worry, leave your design requirements to us. Discuss with our design gurus and get your dream website designed cost-effectively.

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Blog

Follow These Simple Tricks To Create A SEO Friendly Web Design

seo friendly website

The visual appeal of any website holds a lot of importance but isn’t the only criteria for its success. No matter how cool your website looks, it’s a complete waste if no one knows that it even exists. That’s when SEO comes into play. Search Engine Optimization helps in driving more and more customers towards a website thereby increasing the chances of conversion. That said, it’s important for website designers to keep SEO at the back of their head while designing a website in order to increase its effectiveness. In this article, we will learn 7 interesting tips to create an impressive SEO friendly website design.

1. Integrate Social Media

Search engines give a lot of importance to Social Media. Websites with social media elements enjoy higher search engine rankings which lead to more traffic on the website and eventually boosts the conversion. So, include social media icons of all your social media accounts on your website. Besides, don’t restrict yourself to Facebook and Twitter only. A lot of other social media platforms like Snapchat, Youtube, Instagram, Flickr etc. are gaining popularity these days and must not be left out. This helps in creating a personable image of your brand in front of visitors.

Integrate Social Media

2. Optimize The Images On Your Website

It’s not enough to optimize the text of your website to make it user-friendly. The same level of optimization must be done for the images as well. Ensure that the images you use are of good quality but small in size. Ideally, images must be between 30kb to 100kb and have a resolution of 72dpi. Large images will increase the page load time of your website which can hamper your search rankings. While selecting an alternative text for your images, ensure that you use relevant keywords. Furthermore, in order to enhance your search rankings, it’s best to use only relevant images and place them appropriately on the website.

Optimize The Images On Your WebsiteImage Source: SEO Rave

3. Create SEO Friendly URLs For Your Web Pages

A complicated web page URL can adversely affect your search engine rankings. For Example – http://www.myfashion.com/products/item2?=6541 is not an SEO friendly URL as it doesn’t help the search engine to understand what this page is about. Instead, http://www.myfashion.com/Men/Shoes/Casual is way better as it clearly explains the details about the page. That said, avoid using too many categories. Another best practice is to use a hyphen instead of an underscore to separate words in the URL.

seo urls

4. The Web Design Must Be Responsive

Your website design must be responsive and must be accessible from all the devices and across browsers. If visitors are not able to access the website from any particular medium, they are forced to bounce off and might not ever return back to your website. Also, the page loading time goes hand in hand with the accessibility factor. Eliminate any design elements that may cause the web pages to load slowly as it will hamper the search rankings directly.

responsive website

5. Don’t Overuse Javascript

It’s a common mistake done by web developers and designers to use Javascript in the entire site design. Search engines crawl through the website to index them and rank them accordingly. They will struggle to crawl through your website if your site heavily uses Javascript. Moreover, Javascript doesn’t perform very well especially in cases of mobile devices. Stay away from excessive use of Javascript and use it sparingly on your website to make your web design more user-friendly as well as SEO friendly.

javascript

6. Incorporate Keywords In The Entire Design

If you think that keywords can only be used in the copy of your website, then you’re sadly mistaken. Keywords can be easily incorporated into the entire website design. As mentioned earlier, keywords can be used as alternative text for images. Moreover, they can be used at many other places like in the title tag, H1 tags, website slogans, meta descriptions, meta keywords, navigation, H2 tags, bullet points, title attribute on links, H3 tags, breadcrumb trails, footer links, URL’s, file names, internal links and folder names.

7. Use A Sitemap

The sitemap becomes very critical for a website especially when you have a dynamic site or a site with thousands or lakhs of pages. All the content heavy websites with a large number of pages and dynamic sites face a lot of difficulties while being crawled by search engines. To overcome this problem XML sitemap is used. XML sitemap ensures that a website is crawled easily by search engines, even if there are a lot of content-heavy pages in it.

sitemap

Designing a website not merely playing around with different layouts, themes and color schemes. It’s way more complex than that. It’s very important for designers to understand each and every element of web designing in order to create a successful web design. Talk to our design experts and discuss more about effective website designing.