Aartek Systems

Author: Eric A. Meyer
Publisher: O’Reilly
Year: 2007
ISBN 10: 1-56592-622-6 | ISBN 13: 9781565926226

Let me begin by saying this book is one of the most important, if not THE most important, web design and development books in my personal library. It is a reference for CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) styles, but it is so much more. I read the book from cover to cover twice, and both times found it to be both an easy read and incredibly informative.

It opens with a chapter on how and why CSS evolved, and then Chapter Two goes into the basic rules for writing CSS code. The difference between block-level elements and inline-elements is clearly explained, as is when it is appropriate to use classes versus IDs and vice versa.

Read more…

I’m occasionally approached by someone who is interested in a career in web site design and wants to know where to begin. My approach to answering the question usually involves first defining different areas of specialty in web site development. These areas of specialization, and explanations, are as follows:

Read more…

Many business owners want their website to be eye-catching, but they often overlook other, equally important factors which determine not only the amount of traffic to your website, but the quality of that traffic and, ultimately, your conversion rate. Here are a few of those factors:

1. Your site is confusing. Eye-catching is one thing, but is it clear to a visitor where important information about your business is located? I frequently come across sites which fail to provide easy navigation schemes, thereby hindering my quest to find the information I’m looking for. Make sure your site makes sense and that everything is easy to find and follow.
2. You still have a site that plays background music. Newsflash: this was cool, oh, about fifteen years ago, back in the days when everything about the ‘net was new and exciting. In this day and age, with sites like Youtube, ESPN, etc. sound is no big deal. Visitors want sound when they want it; they don’t want it shoved in their faces when they visit your site.
3. Your text is illegible. I’m frequently amazed at the sites that feature text that is too small, light against a light background, or dark against a dark background. What are these people thinking? Sometimes, in our quest to get “design cute”, we can go overboard. Make sure visitors can read your text.
4. Your site opens with a flash intro. See item #2, above. Like background music, flash doesn’t “wow” anyone anymore; I personally find it to be more of a nuisance to get through than anything. As a matter of fact, it can hurt your search engine rankings. Lose it.

Allways remember: an ugly, but well-structured, easy-to-read website with few hindrances is better than a beautiful, flash-heavy, hard-to-navigate site. Fortunately you can have the best of both worlds. And after all, aren’t sales/conversions really what you’re after?