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2. Original layouts can be more easily implemented due to
emergence of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) technology. Prior to CSS, it took much work (and therefore much money) to create designs with 'punch' as every design demanded hours upon hours of work with HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), old standard for writing and creating custom designs. CSS has freed Web designers from these restrictions, and of course, saves clients a great deal of money spent on man hours, leading more clients to demand great looking custom designs.
3. Navigation and usability have also increased, once restrictions were lifted from creation and development of custom sites. Oddly enough, for some reason, many years ago, it was thought 'common knowledge' that all sites should contain a left-hand navigation bar, and nothing else. This was old standard that designers had used for decades and no one thought to question this practice. This gave rise to sites that were for most part 'cookie cutter' varieties, each having same standard layout and left-hand navigation bar layout. Creative use of right-hand navigation bars and other techniques have created sites that are very much different in layout and navigation than old standards, and this has not proven to be a detriment for most E-commerce businesses. In fact, uniqueness seems to be more memorable, and may indeed be a competitive edge in itself.
4. The emergence of WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML technologies has opened up a whole new world of creative fonts, creative color schemes, and creative layouts. With WYSIWYG, designers can see exactly how a site will appear all through process, eliminating much of time consuming trial and error that preceded this. Even novice designers and those that seek to create their own site can benefit from WYSIWYG, as most Web site creation software and online sites used for Web site design incorporates this technology, which is easy to use for almost anyone and requires no coding language knowledge.
5. Better flash techniques have also been discovered and employed in past several years, leading to greater effectiveness of flash sites, and faster upload speeds (a problem with flash prior to technological advances was slow loading). Sites that employ flash now have a more professional look and feel to them, and flash is used often now in construction of online videos and games that appear on sites and educates and entertains visitors.
The past decade in technology has indeed lent itself to emergence of superior creativity in Web site design and Web development by Web masters. Gone are old days of stagnantly designed sites, 'same old, same old' fonts, dull colors, and slow-loading and ineffective flash. It seems now, that sky is limit with customization of sites, and this can only be called one of best developments of this century. Beautiful sites, that will hopefully bring beautiful results to personal and E-commerce clients, are now standard, and future looks brighter than ever for Web site designers and developers!
Nathan Drew Sire, President of Captain Media, services the web design/development market. He's been developing code since eight years old. Learn more about his company at www.captainmedia.com
