Malaysia website design blog
It’s bad enough that when you’re helping create a new brand identity for a client it’s hardwork, imagine the insanity you need to put yourself through trying to come up with your own brand identity.
And you can’t technically escape this unless you plan to work your employee butt of your whole life and later live on your EPF. There’s bound to be a miniscule jerk in your brain thinking ‘what if I was running my own business?’
Though I first signed up with Bank Simpanan Nasional (their website is too horrid to visit) when I was rather young, I signed up with Maybank while I was doing my internship for a company in the vicinity. The whole reason of doing it was because it was just an easier method to get your paycheque.
One of the reasons I found that most Malaysia companies don’t value their website is due to the poor integration or planning of their site architecture. And what’s a site architecture?
I just finished reading one of Adsense latest case study about how Tim from AskTheBuilder.com managed to boost his already $10,000 monthly AdSense revenue to a whopping $30,000 revenue.
It was very interesting learning about Tim’s history and his journey of making it happen in a year since 2004.
Recently I was telling you that I found a book by John Lenker titled Train of Thoughts
. The published book talks about assessing your website from a more general point of view. As you know, designing a professional website nowadays isn’t just about the conceptual design but more than that.
Currently, it requires more analytical thinking than slapping physical beauty onto a website. I’ve spoken a bit on this analytical data in User Experience Design. While planning out a website fo a new client, something hit me and I started sketching my analysis of ‘Web Experience in a Bubble’.
I’m sure everyone remembers when they were building a website, most of you liked to have an Under Construction icon with a text saying just that. Well, practicing that is a really bad thing because as much as the sign means something to you labeled undercontstruction.jpg, it might not mean anything for the new user of your website.
Adding to the error most of us have done and maybe still do, we tend to be lazy and leave the page with just those two words. However, there have been new approaches to deal with the lack in communication when there’s a webpage like this nowadays. I’d like to share with you what I’ve found working and not really working.
Those were the fine words used by John of Addicted to New. John is a developer and released this great tutorial roughly 3 months ago.
He took his readers through the development process of a project with one of his buddies. (I think) As you know, other than design process of coming up with a template, even before programming begins there’s a need to skeletize the layout.
Jakob Nielsen of Useit.com recently posted his yearly Web Design Mistakes that created an uproar. BusinessLogs stood up to Jakob‘s annual findings along with some others who defended their views from the field.
But soon after, Jakob then posted his Top Ten Design Mistakes of weblog usability. This time he decided to reveal obvious usability secrets of maintaining a good weblog.
However, note that as much as Jakob is as much a guru in usability, Steve Krug is also considered one because usability at times is mere common sense. ;)
I’m very aware that though this has been asked repeatedly numerous times either by forum members whom are interested in website design or plan to study a course that circles around this subject, the question of what and how to become a creative designer or website designer is asked.
But let me first clarify one thing that might have not been mentioned by me before. There are different requirements when you’re seeking employment and going solo in the field. The difference isn’t as wide a gap like the Grand Canyon per se but in terms of skills and knowledge, it could be considered that.
In my previous entry, I decided to release some of the design or layouts that I came up with for the upcoming revamp. The number of feedback was needless to say quite humiliating, but at least I know now how much a huge head creates a wrong impact.
The discussion we’re going to have today is about determining the difference between a design and a layout. I’d like to find the border that actually tells us when it’s called a design or a layout.
But just so you know in advance, this discussion might end up being very subjective and personal preference.
I’d just like to be clear right here first, there is NO ‘perfect’ design for any website or weblog. If there was such a thing, many clients wouldn’t actually need to revamp their websites anymore.
With that cleared out from the atmosphere allow me to express gratitude to whoever that have been reading my blog. I understand there are the read and too shy to comment readers, the ones who use feeders, and the highly appreciated visitors who’ve dropped in and commented on my articles. I thank you for visiting me from time to time.
I’d also like to explain that designs are a subjective matter, therefore what I say here might be based on my own personal opinions. But I still hope a thing or two might be learnt later.