A Brief History of the Parallax Technique

In the 1940s, 2D video game developers started using the Parallax technique for creating an illusion of depth in graphics. The technique found immense recognition with the rise of the arcade games in the 1980s. Instead of showing a single plane, this technique split up the background and the foreground. The images in the background would move at a slower pace than the images in the foreground. It is a lot like working in layers which come together and give an imitation of the 3D effect.

Do you remember playing Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros.3? Well, it was one of the first arcade games to use this technique.

Parallax Scrolling in Web Design

In the past couple of years, expectations of users visiting a website have climbed up a great deal. Now viewers don’t just look for information, they want to be entertained as well. In short, a memorable browsing experience is what they look for. The Parallax Scrolling technique allows the background and foreground elements to slide below and above each other at different velocities. As a viewer scrolls up or down, he is captivated by the animation-like effects created by an illusion of depth. With each scroll pops in a new layer of information, but in a more engaging way.

This innovative and creative web design technique is highly effective in storytelling – letting viewers know more about you and your services through animated objects and characters moving around the pages as viewers scroll up or down. As a result, the browsing experience tends to become more engrossing and interactive.

Tips for Parallax Success

Parallax effects are easy to implement, as they are done mainly through HTML5 tags. However, it should be kept in mind that whatever is easy to use can also be easily used poorly. In order to do things in the proper way and get the most out this technique, here are some useful tips to help you get started on the right track:

#1. Use Multiple Slides: Be it colorful or clear panels, use multiple slides to convey your message. Each scroll should bring out a new “segment” which will have its own information to present. One-by-one appearance of the slides not only prevents the viewers from getting overloaded with information, but also creates an element of surprise.

#2. Keep a Running Theme: The theme or visual elements found in the first slide must have a connection with the ones which are following it. A theme which runs throughout is effective in keeping the message compact as well as guiding the visitors towards the bottom.

#3. Have Interactive Elements: Every web design focuses on building engagement, and Parallax Scrolling allows ample scope to get things rolling. Little things, like mouseover animation tricks or clicking on an animated object to reveal valuable data, make viewers want to interact with the company on a more personal level.

#4. End with a Call to Action: A story always has an ending. And the impact of the story depends on how it ended. Parallax Scrolling design will take viewers at the bottom of your website, and this is the place from where you can generate leads. Leave a strong and catchy call to action to make a favorable lasting impression on the minds of the viewers.

Conclusion

Parallax Scrolling is fun and entertaining. It can be used to present a lot of information, but without making the viewers ever lose interest. After all, it has made scrolling pleasurable and exciting again.

One word of caution though! Use this technique if your customer base is more into using PCs. The websites using Parallax design tend to load slower in mobile devices. If your customer base has a lot of mobile users, it is better to go with responsive web design techniques.

So, which design should you follow to convey your message in the clearest possible way? Before you look for the answer, you need to know what flat design and skeuomorphism is all about.

What is Flat UI Design?

It is a graphic style which avoids all forms of abstract decorative elements. Visual effects like gradients, reliefs, bevels, drop shadows and embossing which are used to “lift” the image off the screen are completely denounced. The focus is on flat and minimal graphic approach. The idea in flat design is to create a design which relies on concise content, crisp typography, and clear shapes and colors – in order to bring out a clean and refreshing look.

Flat design is not an emerging concept though. It was in existence a few years ago. Since the release of Windows 8, it is making a popular comeback. Windows 8 is a perfect example of being completely flat. Sticking to the basic two-dimensional layout, its approach to the viewers is as honest as it can be. While Windows 8 is a new entrant, Facebook and Google have been employing this trend for years.

What is Skeuomorphism?

The concept of skeuomorphic UI designs has close resemblance with Aristotle’s theory of Mimesis or ‘imitation’. It is a graphic style which tries to recreate and mimic real-life objects in a digital environment. Simply put, the effects used to bring about a three-dimensional layout make viewers observe an element in a website just the way it is in reality.

Apple was the first to introduce skeuomorphism in its iOS, and this trend went on to be the most popular and heavily borrowed over the past few years. One of the best examples of this design is the famous iOS app, Apple iBook. When the app is opened, the layout makes the user feel that he/she is standing in front of a real bookshelf. The shelves look like they are really made of wood. Users can access the books and magazines in the shelf and flip through the pages just like the way they would do in real life.

A Comparison between the Two

Both flat and skeuomorphic UI designs come with their distinct types of pros and cons. Let us first look at some of the pros and cons of flat design:

Pros of Flat Design

• Minimal needs for illustration.
• Content is straightforward, and thus has more clarity.
• Absence of visual effects improves the page-load time.

Cons of Flat Design

• The simplicity might appear to be average.
• Absence of gloss on action objects, like buttons, tends to make things unclear.
• Inability to understand relationships between objects due to the absence of texture and illustration style.

It’s now time to look at some of the pros and cons of skeuomorphic design:

Pros of Skeuomorphic Design

• Resembling its real-life counterpart, an app with skeuomorphic design can instantly make users understand its purpose.
• Unlimited scope to play with creativity.
• The polished and glossy appeal is much more attractive.

Cons of Skeuomorphic Design

• The process is complicated and takes a lot of time to design.
• Heavy focus on embellishments can bring questions about utility.
• Too much dependence on visual effects slows down the page-load time.

Conclusion

While Apple’s iOS heavily relies on skeuomorphic design, Google’s Android believes in the flat design philosophy. And both of them are the leading smartphone giants. So, it can not actually be said which design is better. Companies have reaped great rewards by using each of them.

In other words, the decision is yours to make. Measure the pros and cons, and choose the design which will be an exact answer to what your customers want to see. Whichever design you go with, you are sure to succeed if the design is used effectively.

However, designers often goof up the logo designing processes with amateurish mistakes. Herein, we will discuss about some of the typical mistakes that every designer should seek to avoid.

Typographic Chaos

Poorly formatted typography can break a design. The logo should be simple yet clearly convey the intended message. Most of the times, the text in the logo cannot be easily read at all sizes. Kerning between the lines is not clear and concise. The text often blends into the color of the background and fails to stand out. Moreover, overdoing the design by using more than two typefaces is also responsible in making the logo look extremely cluttered and chaotic.

Too Much Depended on Colors &Special Effects

Most logos stand out only because there has been an eye-catching use of colors and special effects. If this is the case, then the logo is not a strong logo. Use of embossing and drop shadows are common layer styles used to gloss up a logo. Do not go with this process; make sure the logo looks great both in grayscale and color, and its concept should be enough to make it stand on its own.

Using Visual Cliches

The first ideas which come to mind should be the first ones to be discarded. These are the ideas which you have somewhere seen before, and can therefore never define your uniqueness. For example, whenever we hear the word “idea”, the very first image which comes to our mind is a light bulb. Be sure that these visual clichés have been used elsewhere, and is far from being memorable. Instead, use your creativity and come up with an image which is original and defines your business.

Using Raster Images

Another mistake while designing a logo is the use of raster or bitmap (composed of pixels) images instead of vector (composed of paths) images. While vector images are mathematically designed and is visually consistent at any resolution or size, raster images limit a designer to size and scale factors. As the clarity of raster images will get hindered when scaled to a desired size, they cannot be easily applied to other media.

Going for a Monogram

You’ll find that there are numerous companies whose logos are monograms of their initials. For example, the logo of Steve’s Flower Shop would become ‘SFS’. This might sound or look attractive initially, but it is real hard to convey the intended message or build credibility with just the initials. Remember that even giants like IBM, FedEx and HP didn’t start out using the initials – they started using it after getting years and years of exposure.

Logo designing trends are ever-evolving and opting for something out-of-the-box is never a crime! Just remember that whatever the design of the logo maybe, it should have a distinctiveness which reveals what your company really stands for and attests your business objectives.

In this blog post, we will discuss a few of the most useful set of tools which works best in crafting responsive lay out.

Gridset

Image Source : design-milk.com

Gridset started as an internal tool and its transformation into a full-time product is a true success story. Gridset is designed in such a way that it can produce any kind of grid that is required – starting from columnar regular grids to fixed, compound, fluid, asymmetrical and responsive grids. Gridset is well-known for being very fast to allow designers in creating responsive prototypes and equip them with all the necessary tools and measurements in order to merge with the existing markup.

Bootstrap

Image Source : fiverr.com

Created as a strong front-end body which makes responsive web designing easier and faster, Bootstrap works on a 12-column responsive grid system and emphasizes a number of styles, components, variables and JavaScript plug-ins. Although the link styles, typography and the global display are all set, designers can customize them according to their preferences at any point of time.

Responsive Design Testing Tool

Image Source : webapptesting.com

Designers need to keep a constant watch on how a responsive website is getting displayed across various screen sizes of mobiles and tablets. The Responsive Design Testing Tool from Matt Kersley makes it possible to see how a webpage is getting displayed on differently-sized screens– that too in just a single view. The options are available for small phones (240 x 320), iPhones (320 x 480), small tablets (480 x 640), iPad Landscape (1024 x 768), and iPad Portrait (768 x 1024).

FitText

Image Source : elmastudio.de

It is often seen that the entire layout of a webpage gets broken and the headlines look ugly even if the text snugly fits the screen. FitText, a jQuery plug-in, automatically updates the font size resulting in non-broken layouts and scalable headlines. Designers also get access to a wide range of options like tuning the text by setting the level of scaling and the max-min sizes. However, it should be taken into account that FitText should not be used for paragraph texts; it is built only for the headlines.

Responsive Tables

Image Source : drweb.de

Data tables are usually large and contain complex amounts of data. Managing them in responsive design can be problematic as the tables should not get zoomed in too much or get too small to read in order to make sense. Responsive Tables combines CSS and JavaScript to make tables fit in mobiles and tablets without hampering the responsive layout. Responsive Tables pins the first column to the left side of the table and therefore making it easy to scroll the other columns under it.

FlevNav

Image Source : jquer.in

Easy navigation is an integral part of responsive design. Mobile and tablet users should find it equally simple to navigate through a website as they find in computers and laptops. FlevNav, another jQuery plug-in, is a mobile-first concept which uses JavaScript and media queries in order to develop a menu with drop-downs. It consists of multiple nested sub-menus which makes it easy to navigate in touchscreens.

However these are just my picks. There are certainly many more tools which you find to be very helpful in responsive design. So, do not forget to share your views.

WordPress is an indomitable force, ruling the web. What are the probable reasons that are responsible for such phenomenal popularity of this Content Management System? Let us try and find out.

No FTP software or HTML required

Image Source : smallbiztrends.com

HTML editing software like Dreamweaver or Adobe Contribute is not required while working in WordPress. This means that one can easily upload documents, images and video galleries, create a blog post or a new page, format text and a lot more without the need of FTP or HTML software.

Plug-ins extend Functionality

Image Source : ablackwebdesign.com

WordPress plug-ins are extremely smooth, thorough and are very easy to install. They allow the addition of sliders, maps, photo galleries and forums with greater functionality. The “hooks” present in the code also give developers the access to add their code without having to edit the core.

Innumerable options with Themes

Image Source : bitcoinmagazine.com

We’ve been highly successful in creating sites using the pre-existing themes and customizing them. But we have also had clients who look beyond the default themes available with WordPress. Being open source, WordPress allows buying or downloading free themes from other sources in order to be used for a website.

SEO Friendly

Image Source : binkd.com

Search Engine Optimization is one thing you must not miss when building a website. And I have always felt that the simple layouts, the easy linking, and the permalinks in WordPress make it naturally more desirable to Google. Even Matt Cutts has testified that the use of WordPress helps a website get better results.

Built-in Blog enhances Interaction with Visitors

Image Source : interactioninstitute.org

WordPress started as a blog service. Therefore, it is a built-in feature. This gives you the choice to either create your website as a full-fledged blog or go for a corporate website which has a blog section along with the traditional pages. The blog articles in your website will attract a larger audience. As they comment on your blog posts and you respond with a reply, it will create a positive buzz for your website.

Image Source : scorpiocms.com

Responsive web design allows a website to expand, contract and rearrange its lay out as per the screen size. There is no need for a website to create different URLs and HTMLs for different devices. This design mechanism makes the pages of a website flexible and optimally fit on anything as per the resolution and the screen space of the device.

With the increase in mobile sales in the recent years, the demand of mobile-friendly websites are on an all time high which, in fact, has acted as an added baggage on the SEO experts. The arrival of responsive web design has not only diminished this pressure, but has also emerged as one of the most SEO-friendly marketing strategies today.

#1. Preferred by Google: Regardless of the device in use, responsive web design have one URL and the same HTML. This makes it easier for Google to crawl, index and organize the contents. Having multiple versions of the same site makes the job difficult for Google.

#2. Lesser Bounce Rate: Users find it easier to access websites with responsive web design. With the improvement in usability, responsive web design has decreased the rate of bounces. It has not only created a stronger mobile presence, but has also succeeded in protecting the search engine rankings of the websites.

#3. Better Traffic with one URL: A single URL is less confusing and less disorienting for site visitors. The design and management of different URLs for different devices also becomes tedious for the SEO experts. A single URL means that there is one set of links to build, and no harassing redirects which add to server load, maintenance hassle and site speed. As a result, there is a better flow of traffic.

Websites that have responsive design are preferred by Google, since it enhances user-experience. With mobile SEO ushering in to the scene, responsive designs will play a huge role in making the websites SEO friendly.

Have you heard the news? StatFuse.com has officially launched on February unleashing one of the most highly anticipated websites of 2012 to the public! StatFuse is an absolutely free website allowing students to get into a college of their dreams using an array of tools that this FREE site offers.

StatFuse.com allows high school students to essentially know whether or not they will be getting accepted into colleges all around the nation before they even submit their applications! StatFuse offers a tool known as the “Chanculator” & it’s definitely more than just a cool name. The chanculator allows students to enter their academic profile, family history, life outside of school, and basically anything else a normal college application would ask and then provides the student with an INSTANT percentage which reflects their chances of getting into that given school.

Not only that, but they offer a ton of other features that really help high school students out. You can fill out application decisions directly from their website, find out what colleges fit your needs best, get information about college tuitions, organize your hectic high school lives, and even find out what colleges/majors make you the most money! This website is an absolute life saver for anybody in high school….kinda makes me wish I was back in high school just so I could use this magnificent product!

I guarantee you guys that this is something you will not regret spending time on. Check this website out, they are absolutely free (for a limited time I hear) and see what they can do for you! It’s really an opportunity of a lifetime for any high school student who takes their college education seriously.

Got a crazy idea for a design on your website but not sure how the people will react? Well, everyone tells you throughout your life that it is OKAY to take a chance. The way the web works now a days is that you don’t have to do something “good” or even “sensible” to draw media attention. You see videos of little girls with dancing eyebrows picking up millions of views in just a few nights because it’s something “interesting” to them.

Creating a website with something out of the ordinary is never a bad thing. Even if it ends up being a complete fail (the design), your products and company is still put on the limelight if it can generate the proper media attention. Our San Diego Web Design company has been approached by many risk takers who have wanted to design and develop a website that is unique from the rest.

What exactly is a dare devil design is a common question people like to ask? There is no exact answer to this question. The best answer that we can provide for a dare devil design is a website that doesn’t follow the usual routine, layout, design, and setup. It does things that a website has never seen before either to better showcase/illustrate their companies views or just for the hell of it.

A dare devil design can be a big risk for many companies depending on their market. For any big firm in an industry where professionalism is highly hailed, it would not be recommended to make a dare devil design. However, if your industry is one in which creativity is extremely smiled upon, then why not take a shot at a dare devil design? Worst case you are generating hype for your company and website….and well that can’t be all that bad.

Overall, a dare devil design is something that any opportunist should definitely go after. If they feel that they can somehow benefit or bring their company or services into the lime light without damaging their brand, then it is an easy answer for them. This article was written by Jeet Banerjee.

Wap is surely to come up with more advancement in the technology to ensure that web apps will behave and look more like native apps so that the user gets a feel that it’s actually an app that is running on his phone. Yahoo has just started their journey towards it and have already announced yahoo Cocktails, a set of tools for the developers to build web apps rather than native apps.

Each mobile ecosystem has its own technology stack, its OS and its programming language. Wap is absolutely on the track to remove any hassle associated with the development of native apps. Also, development of native apps requires a different skill set and a development process but Wap (Web based apps) are an only solution to eradicate any obstacle for the development of the same app through the web way.

For organizations across the globe it becomes more sensible and technically more manageable to come up with web based apps rather than native apps. Presence of Wap takes the limitation of being confined to a platform out of question and provides cross platform compatibility.

Predominantly most of the apps available across the app stores of no matter which platform tends to access the internet, so for developers it makes more sense to develop and code web based apps rather than native apps that ends up taking more time. Most of the apps available on the app stores are mainly user for Shopping online, searching the internet and entertainment so why not a Web based app?

Wap for sure is in progress to completely wipe out the native apps from the market. Even though web based apps have been finding it a bit difficult to use the resources of the Mobile phone itself like the camera and Bluetooth, but companies like Yahoo and Mozilla Corporation are almost on the verge of coming up with tools and technologies for the developers concentrating on web based apps for them to develop wap version of apps that can easily access the resources of the phone.

Wap is definitely an infrastructure where data storage as well as data processing happens off-deck (off-deck refers to a function unavailable on the phone). This really means that now it’s possible for things to happen on the web rather than on the phone, just like any other web service you currently enjoy with the PC. That’s the only reason why improved Wapsites are cooler and smarter whereas apps are expensive and takes lot of time to develop.

If you are an innovative genius when it comes to marketing your brand – the above mentioned details on WAP vs. APP should be on your mind. In my opinion, do the perfect research, investigate opportunities and then come up with an answer that suits your business the best.

Heard of that little thing called a cell phone? Oh wait…that was last year, now it’s called the smart phone. Yeah cell phones are evolving quicker than ever and a common fact about technology that everyone should know….”Technology only gets better and better.” The internet started in the 90′s as just a place to put up some information online and today you can find literally find the world through the internet.

With a larger number of users purchasing or adopting smart phones within their lives, the mobile is moving fast. Mobile phones have evolved from just having the ability to talk/text to be your computer on the go. Not only are mobile phones more compact, easy to use, flexible, and allow you to use the internet on the go…..but they are the evolved form of the computer.

Now the fact that mobile phones are growing are great, but how can this help you? Well regardless of what industry you are in, a website for your business is almost entirely a necessity. Now if you have seen the importance of a website, then it’s time you see the importance of going mobile. People who are searching for you from a mobile phone are more prone to not only purchase your product/offering, but to visit your store.

The reasoning behind this above statement is quite simple. When you are using your cell phone, you are usually on the road, at the doctors office, or somewhere outside of home (most of the time). When you are outside on the go, the majority of the times you are searching for something is because you intend to go their or purchase that immediately. Thus, if your mobile presence is even stronger than your web presence, then mobile searchers will easily be able to find you and access your business to their convenience.

For example, if you are the owner of a restaurant….it is almost mandatory for you to go mobile or basically watch your business crumble. With new programs like Siri for the Iphone 4S, mobile phones are being placed on a plateau of importance never seen before. How many people are in your area hungry looking for something to eat? Hundreds and hundreds of people and they are using their mobile phone or mobile secretary Siri to help them decide what they should eat.

Now if you are able to prominently place yourself in the mobile world….then when people are in your area looking for something to eat, they are easily able to find you (based on location) and thus you are generating a much higher rate of business. The leading SEO San Diego company, JB Media Force highly recommends that generating a strong presence on the mobile world is everything for any business that would like to thrive.