Web site design has certainly, in
past decade, evolved tremendously. More clients now are demanding custom design, as opposed to 'cookie cutter' sites of yesteryear. Where once there existed a limit as to types of fonts used, types of coding languages used, and styles themselves, there is now possibility for more variety in Web site design than ever before. This has come about because of advances in technology that did not exist even a few years ago, and it has opened up many creative avenues for Web site designers in creation of custom designs.
Web development overall, has to be more competitive, and take into consideration needs of clients now, when literally billions of Web sites compete for attention online on a daily basis. A Web site is first impression owner of an E-commerce business makes on their own potential clients, and competition factor, has now led to burgeoning of more creative designs and implementations to deal with this competition factor.
Web development now needs to speak to needs not only of clients that are building Web site, but needs of visitors who are, overall "potential prospects' of Web site owners.
E-commerce needs have created some rather unique approaches to Web development, from most beautiful to most garish, unfortunately. In an attempt to have their own E-commerce sites 'noticed', some business owners have become too individualistic, and there does abound many sites that are not easily navigable, nor especially pleasing to eye. A Web designer needs to use good judgment when making choices about how much is 'too much' individuality.
Web site designers can avoid pitfalls of becoming overly creative, and yet do much now to make a client's site, very appealing and eye-catching by keeping a few simple rules in mind:
A. Are colors pleasing to most visitors, without being garish and hard to view? B. Are fonts easily read by most visitors, which means not too large (too much scrolling), or too small, (too much squinting)? C. Is navigation and usability of site what it can be? Can visitors find features easily? D. Is site clean and uncluttered? It should never look like your grandmother's attic, where thirty years of junk abounds in every corner!
At same time, E-commerce functionality can be maintained with advanced creativity, as navigability and usability can be implemented flawlessly also. The new advances in technology now have led to following changes that increase ability to improve creativity:
1. A staggering number of font sizes that can be flawlessly implemented to distinguish a site. Up until just a few years ago, Web masters were limited in choice of fonts, and font sizes. Times New Roman and Arial were two standard fonts used, as some browsers could not effectively display other fonts with any reliability, changing fonts that were not Times New Roman and Arial into Sans Serif, which is not all that attractive. This was a big deterrent to creative use of fonts. With new embedding technologies, this is no longer a real problem, and many designers are now using great new fonts that make a site 'stand out' effortlessly.
