Make sure your website scales well: So, you’ve worked tirelessly on your website and it’s finally finished. Everything looks great, that is until you let your friend look at it on his/her monitor.  Then everything goes to hell. Unfortunately making your site scale to all monitors, and monitor configurations perfectly is impossible. But you can always make it better.

First, try and keep your width to 800 or less. Rarely, do sites even need to be wider than that anyway. But just a friendly reminder, as people don’t mind scrolling up and down as much as they do side-to-side. Your code can greatly help this problem as well.

The more browser testing, the better: If you used Dreamweaver as your design program, then you can never have too many browsers in your test list. In fact, there really isn’t a negative to have more browsers. Unless you think it’s going to take you along time to test all of them. But the time is worth it to make sure your site is compatible no matter what browser someone is using.

Ok, so you look around the internet and see all of these cool menus with effects attached to it. I’m guessing you immediately think that it’s Flash, but more than likely it isn’t. There’s a code base that if utilized to its full extent can provide you with some pretty cool features to add to your site.

The latest example that I created was for a site called PS3Trophies.co.uk. If you browse around the interactive menu on the top of the screen, this gives you an idea of what JQuery can do.  If you look at the core of JQuery, you’ll find some pretty complex code.  Luckily, you don’t have to deal with most of it. In fact if you find a good tutorial, or find someone who doesn’t mind sharing you can create something in JQuery very easily.

A good start is to visit jquery.com. Here you’ll find some tutorials, tips, and more about what the JQuery script can do. Once you have the code you need, the rest is just adjusting your CSS, and HTML.

Has anyone used JQuery for their sites? If so, have you found it simple to use with tutorials?

Compress, Compress, Compress: When you’re adding images to your website, you need to keep one thing in mind. The size of your site should be treated like an inventory, or budget. You only have a certain amount of space to use, as you don’t want your site to become too large from a file size point of view. If an individual page is taking 8-10 seconds to load on a broadband connection, then it’s too big.

If you did take an inventory of your site, you’d see that images is what bogs things down for you. To stop this from happening, you need to decrease your image’s file size as much as possible. The best program to do this in is Photoshop. When you export an image, you’re given options that can greatly help decrease an image’s file size. You can save it in a certain format that provides smaller sizes, or decrease the quality.

Flash can be your friend, but on in certain situations: When web designers caught on to everything that Flash was capable of, there was a huge revolution for the program. Animated, and stylized menus that could play embedded movies and the list goes on. The only problem is that while people love style, they love speed more so.  When deciding on whether to use Flash or not,
ask yourself one question…

Is my site content based, or artistically based?

If the function of the site you’re creating is about informing your visitors, or selling your content then leave Flash alone. Or if you do use it, make it minimal. Your wanting people to access your site faster so the content of your site draws them in.

“All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” - Pablo Picasso

Picasso’s quote is a simple one,  but one that is a complex problem that is becomes more difficult to solve as we grow older. As the world unfolds before our eyes, so does the wonder and majesty of what’s around us. Once the magic is gone, you’ll find that it’s harder to think outside of the box.

If you’re involved in web design, it’s important that you keep that ‘outside the box’ mentality. Creativity is one of the essential skill sets you’ll need as you grow in your design. It can be hard though. You’re more than likely juggling finances, your site’s SEO, research. It can be overwhelming to try and be creative with so much mental baggage going on.

Unlike most aspects of web design, creativity can be the hardest or easiest problem to tackle. Most of it depends on how much time you’re willing to dedicate to the creative process. The next step being what are you doing to help the creative juices flow.

Getting the creative side of your mind going isn’t like the intellectual portion. You can’t just exercise your brain and make it become creative. There’s almost an invisible force that’s at work when one is hit with a creative idea. The overall key to getting yourself ready is to free your mind.

Try meditating, or if the silence makes your think even harder try and play with your kids. If you don’t have kids then get lost in an activity where your mind is free to wander. One exercise that helps me is to open up Photoshop and just create something. I make myself not to think of anything in particular and let the tools, and brushes speak for themselves.

Next time you come across the need for a creative idea, don’t force it. Let your mind be nurtured, and I’ll gurantee you’ll be happy with the outcome.