Introduction: Web design
Designing a website can be a tricky process even for professional web designers. This is because the quality of web design tools used to create a website dictate the outcome. For instance, if a website is designed using outdated technology, then the resulting website will not be compatible with the latest technological devices. Websites therefore need to be built with the latest and best technologies to serve web visitors better. Examples of the latest technologies include; CSS3, HTML5 and WordPress. These technologies have numerous advantages discussed below.
CSS3 benefits
CSS3 has numerous properties i.e. RGBA colour, corner radius, box shadow and gradients among other properties which offer great material benefits when implementing website designs. These properties save a lot of time wasted on preparing assets and adding superfluous mark-up. Properties such as the corner or border radius provide curved corner’s to background images which are popular properties that help to make the web design process more efficient to produce cleaner results. The properties also help in web maintenance.
Also, using CSS3 instead of image assets offers great performance improvements i.e. faster downloads and less HTTP requests. This is beneficial especially when building mobile web platforms where browsers have decent CSS3 support.
CSS3 features such as 2D and 3D transforms are also important for developing special web-kits for popular devices i.e. iPads/iPhones. Such features save deployment time when creating mobile platforms which is a customization benefit.
HTML5 benefits
HTML5 is currently the best option when building websites. Very many websites rely on this efficient technology. Flash sites have become unreliable, slow and incompatible with many devices today. Many web designers are therefore using HTML5 because it offers numerous benefits mentioned below;
1. Compatibility with numerous browsers and devices: Websites built using HTML5 can be easily viewed on laptops, mobile phones and tablets. Flash websites, are not compatible on some of the latest devices today i.e. iPhones, iPads among other devices. Apple has even been on the record openly opposing Flash technology because of its numerous flaws.
2. Plug-ins: With HTML5, website users do not need to keep downloading numerous plug-ins to get certain functionalities i.e. watch videos in special formats because they have been displayed using QuickTime, flash e.t.c. Website users also don’t need to wait for different elements to load on website paged because plug-ins are missing. This greatly reduces the dropout rates.
3. User-friendly: HTML5 is also user-friendly which is among the most important factors to consider when designing a website. This makes HTML5 the best technology for building ecommerce websites.
Other useful web design tools/technologies
WordPress benefits
WordPress refers to a content management system and an open source blogging tool based on MySQL and PHP that is used to design websites. WordPress is characterised by a template system and a plug-in architecture. WordPress is a popular web design tool because of the numerous benefits it offers website owners/users. Some of the main WordPress benefits include;
1. Saves time and money: Using WordPress as the base for editing and customizing content saves a lot of time and money. WordPress is very user friendly. For instance it is possible to easily change website designs, formats and do other web maintenance procedures/processes with ease.
2. Variety: WordPress also offers variety i.e. thousands of themes to choose from. WordPress also has over 10,000 plug-ins offering website owners/users all kinds of functionality i.e. photo slideshows, SEO (search engine optimization), social media sharing among many other functionalities.
3. Easy updated: WordPress is also easy to update. It is possible to update a site by creating word documents that can be published as new articles on WordPress websites. Updating websites is therefore a simple and fast procedure. Updating your website regularly is important for engaging website visitors and ranking high in search engines.
4. SEO benefits: WordPress sites are the best sites for search engine optimization. Google favours WordPress sites because; they have well structured content. Also, WordPress sites are updated more frequently thus they rank faster than other websites i.e. static website. Google is even on record encouraging business sites to use WordPress.
5. Support: WordPress also enjoys support from a thriving and engaging community. For instance, recent studies show that over 8% of websites online are WordPress sites. This simply shows that WordPress websites are among the leading sites online. WordPress also has thousands of designers and developers like corfian.com who are enthusiastic about offering you help when you get stuck.
Alex Gaslang
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