A wireframe or mockup tool is a must have tool for every web designer and developer. These tools have their importance in web designing and development world. It is good to use them because it saves your time and efforts, a mockup or wireframe can give you the whole idea about how your web will look and work. Combination of your own creativity and client’s requirement into a blank canvas, allows you to effectively plan the visual arrangements of the site’s contents. Well, a good and reliable wireframing application will cost you for sure and cost can starts from 150$ to 5000$. So, are you going to buy or what? and I definitely heard a big NO out there. So, my friends here comes the solution to the problem, I am listing some good web apps and tools for you in my article and you can use these mockup and wireframe apps and tools for FREE.

You are welcome if you want to share more useful web apps that our readers/viewers may like. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at  smashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter and follow us on Google Buzz as well.

MockFlow

MockFlow helps to design interactive UI mockups for Desktop Software, Rich Internet Apps and Web sites. MockFlow is Hybrid, so you can design seamlessly from anywhere & even with No net-connection. You can get your visual concept ready in minutes, it is faster than drawing/coding wireframes, you can share your UI design with your clients, team chat, track project activities and you can export your Mockup to image, PDF or PowerPoint Presentation.

Jumpchart

Jumpstart is a simple online collaborative wireframe designed to make planing websites simple, fast and more efficient. With a Jumpchart preview, -clients just get it and it’s not an abstract concept, it works just like the website will. It is great for Web Developers, Information Architects, Website Owners, and Copywriters. Now you can also export your mockup to HTML and WordPress WXR format! Besides WordPress – which is one of the most widely used Content Management Systems in the world.

PencilProject

PencilProject is a free and fairly powerful Firefox add on tool for making diagrams and GUI prototyping. Its an open-source tool which is very popular among designers and developers. It has many built-in stencils for diagramming and prototyping webs and options like multi-page documents, adding external objects, inter-page linking, on screen text editing and exporting to HTML, PNG, Openoffice.org document, Word document and PDF makes this addon very necessary for designer and developer.

WebSite Wireframe Tool

You can build the wireframe in minutes with this particular tool, and if desired, a link to view the wireframe can be sent through email, instant message, or even the phone. The attraction to this tool is the simplicity of usage, lending itself to speed, both in wireframe creation, as well as being able to quickly share the results without having to send anything more than a web address. It is free to register and use, and works in modern web browsers including Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.

Lumzy

Lumzy is a quick Mockup creation and Prototyping tool for software designers and developers. As a Mockup tool, you can use it to create a rough sketch of how the final website or application will look like while prototyping extends this by adding event based functionalities. Its totally FREE and its function like send on the go, make it public, collaboration and chat, and quick drag and drop will attract you to use it. And by the way you can export your Mockup to jpeg, PNG and PDF files.

DUB – DENIM

DENIM is a system that helps web site designers in the early stages of design. DENIM supports sketching input, allows design at different refinement levels, and unifies the levels through zooming. It allows designers to quickly sketch an interface using an electronic pad and stylus. Its now available for Windows, Unix, and Mac OS X. You can download it from here.

fluidIA

fluidIA is an emerging agile design tool for prototyping rich user interfaces. It provides support for truly rapid prototyping and changes of interface representations, expression of rich interactions, and collaboration.

Prototype Composer

Prototype Composer is a completely new way of gathering requirements. Prototype Composer makes it possible to see how an application will look and function before any code is ever written. Instead of endless text documents, Prototype Composer makes it easy for business users and business analysts to collaborate on requirements by building simple, high-fidelity prototypes that simulate a working application.

iPhone Mockup

This simple web app allows you to create your own iPhone app mockups, share your mockup with other people, and the changes you make will be synced to everyone who has the mockup’s URL. This app is currently in Alpha and offers no password protection so, you better be careful about the privacy of what you creates.

Please let me know if there are more apps which should be listed. Thanks.

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Running a business today is not as straightforward as it once used to be. This is primarily because one needs to maintain records of every transaction that has occurred. Because there are many transaction and of different types, organizing and managing them becomes difficult. To help business owners in this area, there are a number of options available. WorkingPoint is one of those options.

WorkingPoint is a web service that manages transactional records for its users. You start by creating an account on the site. During your signup, you specify a domain name that will generate a unique login page.

The URL will be of the form https://domainName.workingpoint.com/home. You can add other users to your account that can view and add transactional details. The following options are what you get each time you login; you can choose to disable them on startup.

This is how your WorkingPoint dashboard will look like:

You can import your history of transaction through your bank account or credit card online. You can then sort your transactions, classify them, and observe how your dashboard reflects the changes. Contacts can also be added to your WorkingPoint account. You can add clients or business contacts with ease.

Overall, the site is a great convenience to its users. As one satisfied customer puts it, “Best $10 I could ever spend on the internet. I love your product because it allows me to focus on my business and not the business of doing business.”
The site has a paid plan as well as a free one. It would be advisable to test the free service before signing up for the paid one.

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They say the first bite is taken with the eye. If so, these appetizing restaurant websites succeed in whetting our appetites, inviting us to a savoury next bite. In these designs, color scheme and introductory copy show vastly different aspects of the restaurant experience. Moody warm tones create atmosphere, vibrant greens underscore freshness, and earthy colors communicate a relaxed, friendly attitude.

Because customers are increasingly using mobile browsers to make decisions on the spot, restaurant websites are doing a better job of communicating core information quickly. Similarly, full Flash websites with no mobile alternatives are seeing some decline. Especially interesting is how these businesses are improving their online menus by replacing PDF-only downloads with Web-optimized alternatives that are more readable and easier to navigate.

Want to increase your website’s conversion rate? Want more subscribers, opt-ins, members, customers? How about doing less work while you’re at it?

Too good to be true? Nope.

It’s possible if you apply the 80-20 rule: focus on the 20% that will bring you 80% of the results.

By doing an 80-20 optimization of your website — whittling your pages down to the 20% of things that produces 80% of the results — you’ll not only have a simpler site that’ll convert better, but you’ll have less work in developing and managing it since there’ll be fewer elements to think about.

Okay, so the above claim about less work was only partly true — you’ll have to do a bit more work upfront, but the benefit is less work and more rewards afterwards.

80-20 Whut?

The 80-20 rule is another term for the Pareto principle.

While dropping the term "Pareto principle" will make you sound smart and hip to your friends — not to mention increasing your conversion factor with the opposite sex — we’ll go with the simple and self-explanatory "80-20 rule."

So what the heck is this 80-20 rule? It means that 80% of all outcomes come from 20% of the causes.

Business management thinker Joseph M. Juran suggested the principle and named it after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto who observed in 1906 that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. Juran developed the principle after observing that 20% of the pea pods in his garden contained 80% of the peas.

The 80-20 rule is also a common rule of thumb in business, i.e. 80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients.

The 80-20 Rule Can be Applied to Your Website

The 80-20 rule applies to anything. Personal tasks, business, software, whatever.

The 80-20 rule can even be applied your website.

Hey, websites — that’s the topic of this article. What a coincidence!

Applied in designing and running a website, we can interpret the 80-20 rule to say that 20% of things on your site would give you 80% of your desired results. What this means is that you should focus on that 20% and really perfect it, instead of spreading yourself thin.

Ruthlessly get rid of the other 80% of things as they’re non-essential details that only give you 20% of the results (the return of investment for that other 80% is low).

Some examples:

• Sidebar widgets that aren’t being used
• Social media buttons (how many users do you think click on the Digg button on the article out of the thousands that visit it?)
• A list of the latest blog posts on the sidebar (users can go to the front page, it’s redundant)
• Main menu links that aren’t being viewed much such as FAQ and Help pages (move them somewhere else)

After taking things out, perfect and focus on what’s left.

Why Care About 80-20?

Yeah, yeah, so the 80-20 rule is all fine and dandy, you might say.

"But what’s in it for me?" you might ask. "Why should I care about 80-20-ing my website? What are the benefits?"

All valid questions.

First, here’s how it benefits your website visitors:

• Your visitors experience a lean, mean and simple site
• Less distraction and clicking away from the main goal or call-to-action
• Faster page response times
• The stuff that’s left will be higher quality because you can concentrate on them and perfect them

And, even better, here’s how it benefits you:

• Higher conversion rate: more subscribers, opt-ins, members, customers
• A higher percentage will go to your primary call-to-action
• Less work to do and more time to do it since you’re only doing that 20% which actually matters
• Easier design and management work — less elements to deal with

5 Steps to 80-20 Your Website

1. Figure out what’s your main goal and/or call-to-action (the 20%).
2. Round up all the rest of the things and elements on your site that don’t pertain to your main goal/call-to-action (the 80%).
3. Toss out the unneeded elements from your site; easier said than done, but it’s a critical step.
4. Determine if your changes are effective; use split testing.
5. Tweak and perfect your site’s design and interface so that the remaining 20% are prominent and emphasized.

Think 80-20 Is Bullshitake? Here’s Proof It Works

80-20 rule proponent and analytics wizard Tim Ferriss has a website optimization case study of how an 80-20-optimized website received a 20%+ higher conversion rate.

The best part? Only a few simple changes were needed to be made.

It was just a matter of reducing the homepage such that it only contained 20% of the elements that produced 80% of the results. The rest were tossed out.

These are the essential 20%:

• Clean call-to-action button
• Simple value statement
• Clear media credibility indicators

The Case Study: Daily Burn

The homepage originally looked like this.

Not bad, right? Nice, simple design.

But can you tell why it wasn’t optimized?

Go ahead, look. I’ll wait.

Back? Okay, so there’s actually a bunch of unnecessary elements on that homepage that didn’t fit with the main objective of the page; the 80%.

The things that don’t relate to the main call-to-action, which converts visitors by getting them to register:

• A number tracker of how many calories burned
• User activity list
• Latest blog posts
• A bunch of junk in the footer
• Menu navigation at the top

So the website was 80-20-optimized by trimming the unimportant 80% of the elements from the homepage.

The simplified homepage now looks like this.

What a huge improvement.

80% of the items were removed, leaving only the 20% of items that function to increase the conversion rate:

• The value statement and description
• The call-to-action button
• Media credibility indicators

So how did they know that the conversion rate increased? Two separate tests were done, split testing the simplified home page against the original (50% of visitors were sent to one design, 50% to the other).

In the first test, there was a 21.1% increase in the conversion rate. In the second test, a 19.8% increase.

So, there was a 20% increase in the conversion rate just from 80-20-ing their website. As you’ve seen, pretty simple stuff was done — no heavy overhaul needed.

But they didn’t stop there — they freakin’ 80-20′ed even more. It’s how it should be done.

They came up with 2 more variations of a new design that was even simpler.

Variation B

Variation C

And sure enough, both were an improvement over the new simplified design, with variation B being the clear winner.

Why?

There are 2 big changes:

• Value statement was made even more clear
• Much more noteworthy: one signup button instead of both the signup and tour button (so now instead of 2 options, a visitor has only one option)

By using the 80-20 rule to simplify their homepage, these folks optimized their site and increased the conversion rate.

So yeah. The 80-20 rule. It really works in improving a website’s effectiveness.

80-20 Your Website to Increase Conversions

If you want to increase your website’s conversion rate — and set yourself up to do less work while you’re at it — then you absolutely need to 80-20 your website.

You’ve now hopefully seen that the 80-20 rule applied to your website isn’t bullshitake but something that’ll actually help you.

Look at what 20% of things on your site would give you 80% of your desired results: more subscribers, opt-ins, members, customers. Then only have those elements on your site, while getting rid of the rest of the 80% of elements.

By using the 80-20 rule to optimize your website, you’ll be well on your way to increasing your site’s effectiveness.

Now go out there and destroy that unnecessary 80% from your website, soldier.

Related Content

• Creating a Timeless User Experience
• Reductionism in Web Design
• Five Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Expand Your Design Business
• Related categories: Web Design and Content Strategy

About the Author

Oleg Mokhov is the world’s most mobile electronic musician and co-founder of the royalty free music store Soundtrackster. He was born in Russia, but raised in the US. Follow him on Twitter as @olegmokhov.

  

Today we are glad to release iCandies Icon Set, a set with 60 high quality icons in 64×64px, 48×48px and 32×32px, available in .EPS, .AI and .PNG. The set is designed by the talented folks from IconEden on a sole purpose of giving your projects a sleek and geeky style or provide crisp, attractive icons for your modern and fashionable-looking interfaces. All the icons in this pack — 60 icons in total — are designed in Round Rectangle shape.

You can use the set for all of your projects for free and without any restrictions. You can freely use it for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. The set may not be resold, sublicensed or rented. Please link to this article if you want to spread the word.

This is a post in which we want to say a big Thank You to the SmashingApps’ fastest growing community for regularly visiting our blog. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at SmashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and be the one of 600k+ subscribers. But how can we forget to say a Great Thanks to our valued sponsors who helped us to make this blog possible in reach of everyone in the month of August, 2010 as well.

Do you want to get noticed? Advertise with us and feel the difference!

Smashing Apps always welcome new sponsors for our large and diversified visitor base from more than 188 countries. They are designers, developers, internet marketers, bloggers, IT entrepreneurs, etc. You will get noticed by the thousands of visitors every day. Moreover, a monthly recognition post to thank you as our valued sponsors. Are you really interested? Click here to contact us or see advertisement section for more information on advertising details.

Our valued sponsors were:

AN Hosting hosts more blogs than anyone else, hosting tens of thousands of independent blogs. With plenty of disk space, huge data transfer and the ability to host 20 sites on one account. You will get relax with them. We are thankful to them for hosting our website and to make us free of tension.

Wix.com is a Flash website builder, built to create a simple way for everybody to build and design Flash website. Create a  free website like whether it’s business or personal, music or art. Wix’s Flash website builder is simple to use with a “drag and drop” builder and is the complete solution to publish & promote your  Flash website like a pro.

FireHost Advanced Web Security protects companies of all sizes with levels of security not found in 99% of hosting companies. We take security seriously and specialize in protecting online retailers, healthcare organizations, and high-traffic websites with mission critical applications, data and information assets.

uTest is the world’s largest marketplace for software testing services – 25,000+ QA professionals from more than 150 countries.

Site24x7 is a hosted website monitoring service that helps webmasters ensure their websites are up and running at peak performance. The Site24x7 servers send out HTTP or HTTPS requests to your website at regular intervals of time and alerts you if it is down.

TrackJumper is simple bug tracking software designed for freelancers and small software development teams. Designed with fanatical attention to simplicity, TrackJumper does not have any complex functionality.

ThemeForest is a website from where you can buy and sell site templates and themes to skin popular CMS products like WordPress Drupal and Joomla. Files are priced from just five dollars, based on the complexity, quality and use of the file. Anyone is free to signup for an account and begin trading or purchasing files.

FreshBooks is an online invoicing and time tracking service that saves you time and makes you look professional.

Premier Survey is the users’ choice for free online survey management. This system, a powerful self-service application developed on the concept of Software As A Service (SAAS) is designed to minimize cost and maximize ease of use.

We are also thankful to those advertisers who purchased favicon ads.

Do you want us to say Thank You in this special way? So help us to help you!

You will just need to take a look at our advertisement section on how you can start advertising at  SmashingApps to grow and spread more or contact us for more information and details related to

• direct marketing
• sponsored giveaways and contest for Smashing Apps readers
• releasing a free font, a WordPress-theme, some wallpapers, an icon-set or anything else

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In celebrating the merits of free software and the excitement over this radical networked production method, an important truth is left unspoken. Networked collaboration shines in the low levels of network protocols, server software and memory allocation, but user interface has consistently been a point of failure. How come the networked collaboration that transformed code production and encyclopedia-writing fails to translate to graphic and interface design?

The following is an investigation into the difficulties of extending the open-source collaboration model from coding to its next logical step: interface design. While we'll dive deep into the practical difference between these two professional fields, the article might also serve as a note of caution to think before rushing to declare the rise of "open-source architecture," "open-source university," "open-source democracy" and so on.

There are a lot of free icon sets out there for you to use. In this collection, we rounded up a few icon sets from all over the web that you can use in your design projects.

The hundreds of featured icons here are diverse in their styles: glossy, hand-drawn, realistic, textured are among the design themes you’ll find. I hope you find a handful of icon sets that you’ll bookmark, download, and use!

Note: You should read the license of each icon set before using them. Some of the icon sets featured here are available only for personal use.

If you want to discover more free icons, check out our other collections:

• 40 Beautiful Free Icon Sets
• 30 High-Quality Icon Sets for E-Commerce Designs
• 40+ Stylish and Trendy Icon Sets
• Freebie Icons category on Six Revisions

In addition, here our our collections of icon design tutorials in case you want to learn how to make icons yourself:

• 50 Excellent Icon Design Tutorials
• 50 Wonderful Icon Design Tutorials

1. Icons Pack "Web Cartoon"

40 icons – 48×48px – PNG format.

2. Near

15 icons – 170×130px – PNG format.

3. Adobe icons

5 icons – 32×32–512×512px – PNG format.

4. Blue icons

5 icons – 256×256px – PNG format.

5. So sweet

6 icons – 100×100px – ICO format.

6. Project Icons

165 icons – 32×32px (some 48px) – PNG, ICO, ICNS formats.

7. Toolbar Icon Set

35 icons – 32×32px – PNG, ICO, ICNS formats.

8. Sport balls set

6 icons -500×500px – PNG format.

9. Fruit Pack

8 icons – 16×16–48×48px – PNG, ICO, and ICNS formats.

10. 32px Mantra v2

39 icons – 32×32px – PNG format.

11. PixeloPhilia2

44 icons – 32×32px – PNG format.

12. Drinks

8 icons – 64×64-128×128px – PNG format.

13. Classy Folder Icons

29 icons (and 6 color themes) – 16×16-512×512px – PNG and ICO formats.

14. Gifts icons pack 2

3 icons – 64×64-128×128px – PNG, ICO, and ICNS format.

15. Falcon 32px

21 icons – 32×32px – PNG format.

16. Abobe CS5 Master Collection Icons

24 icons - 128×128px – PNG format.

17. Icecream icon set

6 icons – 64×64–256×256px – PNG, ICO, and ICNS formats.

18. 12 Creative Wooden Social Networking Icons

12 icons – 16×16–256×256px – PNG format.

19. Kitchen icons

34 icons – 128×128px – PNG format.

20. Folders: A Free Icon Set

9 icons - 256×256-512×512px – PNG format.

21. Gifts icons pack 1

3 icons - 64×64-128×128px – PNG and ICO formats.

22. Social and Web Icons

57 icons – 64×64px – PNG format.

23. Lovely website icons pack 1

8 icons – various dimensions – PNG format.

24. Lovely website icons pack 2

8 icons – various dimensions – PNG format.

25. Currency Stock Icons

4 icons – 64×64-512×512px – PNG format.

26. Artcore Icons Nr. 1

9 icons – 512×512px – PNG format.

27. Artcore Icons Nr. 2

7 icons – 512×512px – PNG format.

28. Mini Icon Set

22 icons – 16×16-48×48px – ICO, ICNS, and iContainer format.

29. General Vector Icons

8 icons – 32×32px – PNG and AI formats.

30. Sinem Final Version

26 icons – 512×512px – PNG, ICNS, and iContainer formats.

31. Burnt Wood: A Social Media Icon Set

12 icons – 420×420px – PNG format.

32. Gentle Romantic icons

5 icons – 512×512px – PNG format.

33. Very Emotional Emoticons

40 icons - 32×32-128×128px – PNG format.

34. Incredibly Detailed 3D Icon Set

30 icons – 128×128px – PNG format.

35. 60+ Detailed Vector Icons

60+ icons – 32×32-96×96px – PNG format.

36. “Where Are My Money” Icon Set

6 icons – 256×256px – PNG format.

37. Twitter Icons TweetMyWeb

10 icons – various dimensions – PNG format.

38. Fliraneo icon pack

5 icons – various sizes – PNG format.

39. WooFunction: 178 Amazing Web Design Icons

178 icons – 32×32px – PNG format.

40. Free Set of 25 Icons from TurboMilk

25 icons – 16×16-64×64px – PNG format.

41. Basic set

42 icons – 16×16-64×64 – PNG format.

42. Basic Set 2

42 icons – 16×16-64×64 – PNG format.

43. Office Supplies

9 icons -512×512px – PNG format.

44. Morning Pleasure

16 icons – 256×256px – PNG, ICO, and ICNS format.

45. Social Buzz Icon Pack

12 icons – various dimensions – PNG format.

46. 3D Social Media Icon Pack

20 icons – 64×64px – PNG format.

47. NIXUS Icon Pack

60 icons – 32×32-64×64px – PNG format.

48. Vibrant Stickers Web Icon Pack

15 icons – 256×256px – PNG format.

49. Browsers – Navigateurs

10 icons – 256×256px – PNG, ICO, and ICNS format.

50. Mobile Icon Set

10 icons – 32×32-128×128px – PNG format.

Related Content

• 35 Professional Clean Fonts For Your Designs
• 30 Creative and Unique Free Fonts
• Social Sketches: Exclusive Free Hand-Sketched Icon Set
• Related categories: Resources and Web Design

About the Author

Tomas Laurinavičius is interested in web design, graphic design and web development, based in Lithuania. He’s also the founder of Iniwoo, a site about photoshop, web design, wordpress and inspiration. If you’d like to connect with him, you can follow him on Twitter.

When there are many department involved in a company, then handling customer complaints can become quite complex. Recording a complaint, then forwarding it to the right department, and checking its status now and then can become very complicated. The best way to go about the issue is through a ticket based system. By assigning each complaint a unique ticket, you can assign it to the right person, and check the issue’s status easily.

Many website operate a ticket based complaints and contact system. If you run such a website then you can surely take advantage of osTicket, a widely-used open source support ticket system.

osTicket is a complete and feature-rich open source support ticket system that easily fits into your website. It can seamlessly integrate inquiries created via email, phone and web-based forms into a simple easy-to-use multi-user web interface.

All that osTicket requires is PHP 4.3 or later and MySQL 4.4 or later. You can follow the installation guide available on osTicket’s website, follow the instructions on it, and set it up.

If you are thinking about going for a paid solution for your web complaints and issue handling, think again. “osTicket is an attractive alternative to higher-cost and complex customer support systems; simple, lightweight, reliable, open source, web-based and easy to setup and use.” It makes the entire process easier for the customer as well as the employees.

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It takes plenty of resources to bring you articles about design and development free of charge. Without our sponsors, we wouldn’t be able to bring you top-notch content that you can enjoy and learn from.

Thankfully, we’re able to do all of this with the help of our sponsors who support our community — companies that also create amazing products and provide excellent services to web professionals like us.

We’d like to thank our site sponsors between July 1, 2010 – August 30, 2010 and talk a little bit about what they do.

As readers, you can support Six Revisions by checking them out and seeing if they have products and services that you can take advantage of.

1. Site5 Web Hosting

Site5 is a web hosting provider catering to the needs of web designers. They have several plans starting from shared hosting at $4.95 a month to dedicated servers at $165 a month. If you are on another web host and would like to move to Site5, they offer a free website migration service handled by their expert migration admins. Only a few hosts can reconcile excellent uptime, features, and support with dirt-cheap prices — Site5 is one of them.

2. FreshBooks

FreshBooks is a web-based application for sending, managing, and tracking your invoices. It has a wonderful interface that makes it a cinch to produce invoices that you send to your clients. They have over 1 million users and were able to conduct $1 billion woorth of transactions in just 4 months — a testament to the excellence of the app.

3. Stackable.com

Stackable is a relatively new VPS provider aimed at web application developers. For only $35 a month, you get 1TB of bandwidth, 256MB RAM, a DNS manager, and more. What’s great about Stackable is their 1-click scalability: At no cost, you can scale your VPS up if you’re expecting a lot of traffic (bursting it up to 16GB), or scale it down during idle times. Stackable can be your development and staging server to test new features before deployment, or it can be your production server. Stackable has a nice knowledge base filled with helpful tutorials and reference for VPS administration.

4. MailChimp

MailChimp is a web application for dealing with email marketing campaigns. Used by over 400,000 people, the application is loaded with useful features such as social media integration, a slick backend for managing your email campaigns, and even mobile apps for when you’re on the go. Developers get access to their robust API for creating apps and tools that leverage MailChimp’s web service.

5. Bigstock

Bigstock is a user-friendly marketplace for high-quality stock images. Started in 2004, they quickly grew to become one of the Web’s leading stock photo sites. Bigstock has over 5 million royalty-free photos organized in 27 intuitive categories. You can purchase stock photos for as low as $1 each. The way it works is you buy Bigstock credits to download only the stock photos you need, which starts from $15 for 5 credits.

6. Verio

Used by over 250,000 companies in 146 countries, Verio is one of the largest hosting providers for sites, applications and SaaS. They were named the Best Hosting Company of 2008 by HostingReviews.com. They have many hosting services such as small business website hosting, Microsoft Exchange email hosting, domain name registration and management services, dedicated servers on Linux or Windows, and more.

7. Shutterstock

Shutterstock is one of the biggest stock image sites with over 12 million royalty-free photos. They have monthly subscription plans or the option for on-demand subscriptions to their images (such as 5 high-resolution photos for $49). They have over 240,000 photographers contributing stock photos to their marketplace, and they add close to 80,000 new photos per week!

8. Top 25 Web Hosts

TopHosts.com is a complete web hosting resource, providing site owners tools and information about the hosting industry. Founded in 1997, TopHosts.com has been around for a quite a while! They provide a forum as a venue to bring people together to discuss web hosting, as well as a Top 25 Web Hosts list that highlights top-notch hosting providers in various categories (such as Best Customer Support and Best Shared Host).

9. SiteGrinder 3

SiteGrinder 3 is a website development platform plugin for Photoshop. For web designers that have difficultly in coding and deploying websites, SiteGrinder 3 is a tool you may want to check out. You can expand SiteGrinder 3 through addons, including a Commerce add-on for building e-commerce-enabled websites.

10. PSD to HTML

PSD to HTML offers Photoshop file to HTML/CSS template conversions for web designers wanting to focus on just design and have someone else deal with all the coding. Their packages are reasonably priced, starting from $149. And we all know how much of a pain making HTML email templates are. Why subject yourself to all that frustration when you can have PSD to HTML code it up for you?

11. Formstack

Formstack is a hosted web form app for developing contact forms, surveys, and more. What’s so great about Formstack is that they have integrated solutions for accepting payments, which makes the service awesome for receiving online payments, donations and managing event registrations. They have a slick form builder that can get you up and running in minutes, theming and embedding features so that you can seamlessly integrate your web forms into your existing site, the ability to brand the app so that you can provide it as a service to your own clients, and more.

12. ThemeForest

ThemeForest is one of the web’s leading marketplaces for site templates and CMS themes. They offer close to 3,000 site templates and themes (starting from $1 each) for static HTML sites, HTML emails, WordPress, Joomla, Magento, and more. They also have a tumblr blog that covers topics in web design and web development.

13. Site24×7

Site24×7 is an application for monitoring your website and web servers. It logs, records, and watches out for website uptime issues, website performance issues, DNS records, and much more. Site24×7 has an iPhone version so that you can keep yourself clued in to the status of your web properties even when you’re located remotely. Developers will gain access to their API for creating custom tools and apps that utilize Site24×7’s service.

14. WORKetc

Worketc is an all-in-one app solution for project-based work. It’s a customer relationship management (CRM) system, it can handle your billings, sales, support, and can manage your project and timelines. If you’re sick and tired of juggling a myriad of apps to run your business, Worketc gives you an integrated solution.

15. eConnect

eConnect is a web-based application for creating, managing, and sending email campaigns. It has an intuitive interface that gives you features such as reporting and analytics, the ability to create subscription web forms, and an API for making your own tools and apps. It has possible integration with other applications and services such as Salesforce. To get started, you can request for a personalized live demo of their product.

16. Concept Feedback

Concept Feedback is a community for getting and providing professional feedback for your designs. Filled with excellent and engaging game mechanics, Concept Feedback makes gathering constructive and useful critiques on your work really fun. It’s free to sign up and participate, and if you want a bit more than the average user, there are premium services available.

17. Intervals

Intervals aims to simplify and streamline project management by creating an all-in-one web-based solution for management duties that have traditionally required multiple apps. Intervals have plans starting at a reasonably priced $20/month and signing up and trying out the service doesn’t need a credit card, making it convenient and risk-free to give them a whirl.

18. SkyLedger

SkyLedger is a user-friendly bookkeeping web app geared towards small and medium-sized businesses. SkyLedger takes pride in its "dead simple" user interface, which makes signing up and immediately getting started literally a 1-minute affair. Take a tour of the app or sign up for free.

19. B2Bee

B2Bee is a web-based app for invoicing, expense tracking, and profit reporting built with freelancers, contractors, entrepreneurs, and other service providers in mind. The company is colorful — they contribute a part of your subscription fee to research aimed at saving the bees and post interesting videos and informative blog posts. Sign up for your 30-day free trial.

20. Sensational Jobs

Sensational Jobs is a new job board for web professionals that’s quickly shaping up to becoming an industry leader. It has great features such as live search and an easy-to-use interface that job seekers and employers will love. Don’t forget to check out their Six Revisions giveaway for a chance to win an Apple Trackpad as well as to learn more about them.

21. CU3ER

CU3ER is a slick Flash 3D image slider that’s sure to impress your viewers. It has loads of features such as unique slide transitions, a JavaScript API for developers to be able to customize CU3ER, various user interface options for the end-user, and more. What’s more is that you can use CU3ER for free (and they have premium versions for those that need more features).

Related Content

• Website Features That You Can Easily Offload
• 10 Android Apps Every Web Designer Should Know About
• 10 iPhone Apps Every Web Designer Should Know About
• Related categories: Site News and Resources

About the Author

Jacob Gube is the Founder and Chief Editor of Six Revisions. He’s also a web developer/designer who specializes in front-end development (JavaScript, HTML, CSS) and also a book author. If you’d like to connect with him, head on over to the contact page and follow him on Twitter: @sixrevisions.

Icons can be useful to furnish users with unforgettable images and examples if used properly, and this is the reason why Icon sets always come in handy. You will find the huge collection of recently released icon sets which are believed to assist you in bettering your designs on websites as well as on web applications.

In this post, we have also gathered some useful icon sets for your inspiration. If you like them, you can use them in your next design project. The icon sets that we have provided below may become valuable and useful in corporate designs, portfolios, blogs, and magazines as well as in Web-applications. Feel free to suggest and share more icon sets in the comments section below.

Pos Machine Icons

ADOBE CS5 PREMIUM ICONS

Android 2.2 Official Icons

Daft Punk Helmets v2.0

New exclusive icon set: Copenhagen

Apple Mug Icons and Extras

Hel?

Detailed 3D Icon Set

Alias Badges

Applications Icons and Extras

Briefcase

Camera Sony Alpha 380

Social Buzz Icon Pack

Mixed Icons Pack

Payment Method Icon Set

Umbrella

The ‘Square’ Social Media Icon Set

E-Commerce Icon Set

Sketchy Social Media Icons Freebie

IronMan Icon Pack

Cute Blogging Icon Set

Freebie Fiesta – Twitter Bird & Egg

The Ultimate Free Web Designer’s Icon Set (750 icons, incl. PSD sources)

NIXUS Icon Pack

Great Web Button Set

Designer Icons – Professionally Hand-Crafted Free Icon Set

FontLab Studio Icons OS X

Glass icons

The ‘Free Style’ Social Media Icon Set

Mobile Icon Set

Ball

Picasso: A Free Social Media Icon Set

Isometrica (Volume 1): A Free Social Media Icon Set

Free Social Media Icons: Tricons

Content Management System Icon Set

Cartoon Icons

This is ART Icons

Free Computer Part Icon Set

Oxe Icons Set

El Bandito

Women’s Day Icons

‘The’ Lens

CalorieQuick Icons

PixeloPhilia 32PX Icon Set

Free Web Design Icon Set By Iconshock

OLED social icons

FriendFeed

Once

Touchscreen Icons

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Desktop wallpapers can serve as an excellent source of inspiration. However, if you use some specific wallpaper for a long period of time, it becomes harder to draw inspiration out of it. That’s why we have decided to supply you with smashing wallpapers over 12 months. And to make them a little bit more distinctive from the usual crowd, we’ve decided to embed calendars for the upcoming month. So if you need to look up some date, isn’t it better to show off a nice wallpaper with a nice calendar instead of launching some default time application?

This post features 75 free desktop wallpapers, created by designers across the globe. Both versions with a calendar and without a calendar can be downloaded for free.

Please notice:

• all images can be clicked and lead to the preview of the wallpaper;
• you can feature your work in our magazine by taking part in our desktop wallpaper calendar series. We are regularly looking for creative designers and artists to be featured on Smashing Magazine. Are you one of them?

So what wallpapers have we received for September 2010?

Judging what’s best for an audience is never far from the web designer’s mind. The ability to predict whether a web design will soar like an eagle or sink like the Titanic is among the most subjective and complex measurements you will encounter.

While resources that explain best practices exist, and your visitors contacting you about serious issues and offering you feedback relating to your site will occur if you have the proper mechanisms in place — it’s ultimately your responsibility to be proactive and research, investigate, and determine the what, why and how to ensure widespread usability.

Designing by Numbers

Before we examine the types of statistical information you should be looking at — and the relevance they have to your web design projects — we first need to go over the 3 single-word questions that relate directly to all the design decisions you will make.

These 3 questions are ultimately at the heart of your research, analytics and motivation behind designing by the numbers.

What, why, and how is a simple design process that:

1. Defines what the issue is
2. Proves why it is an issue
3. Determines how to fix the issue with the optimal solution (if it is an issue)

What?

Of all the questions that may enter the mind of a web designer, "What?" is probably the word that relates to the task at hand. The process of understanding relevance and the usefulness of information explicitly relates to the decisions we undertake.

• What do site users need?
• What things frustrate site users?
• What can I do in this design to accomplish the site’s objectives?
• What’s wrong with the site?
• What’s right about the site?
• What can be made better?

Asking "What?" will yield to a lot of information that will help you make optimal design decisions.

What your audience requires is a fundamental principle of designing by numbers. Get Satisfaction is a feedback tool you can use to help you design by the numbers.

Why?

Next on the list of list of determining factors is the question of "Why?"

Because making changes or implementations beyond what you initially set out to achieve may cost time, money or resources — the ability to back up your ideas with hard data and facts will be enough to even make the bean-counting bosses go weak at the knees and take your professional guidance and ideas more seriously.

• Why are people not using the comments?
• Why is the community participation on the site low?
• Why are users having trouble finding what they need?
• Why do we need to support Internet Explorer 6?

Knowing what needs to be done is one thing — knowing the justification to why it needs to be done is another.

Reasons for why cross-browser support should be implemented can easily be seen when you calculate the percentages of users that use certain browsers.

How?

The last single-word question is "How?" which makes sense in that once you know what needs doing and why it’s required, the method of actualizing the "What" is important.

• How should I go about increasing user engagement?
• How can this design improve community participation?
• How can I fix the issue of users not finding the product they need?
• How can I create a design that works in Internet Explorer 6?

Statistical/Gathering Methods

When determining the best course of action for your visitors, there are 3 essential statistic types that will come into play in helping to answer the "what" question. (We shall come to the "how" and the "why" later on, so don’t worry!)

Each of these data gathering techniques have their own benefits and pitfalls so there isn’t ultimately a perfect solution.

However, designers wanting a well-rounded experience would be better off using a mixture of all 3 as they not only give you a range of quantitative results (raw numbers) but also qualitative research (such as open-ended responses and feedback).

On-Site Data

On-site data are the kind of information you obtain from website analytics software and monitoring user activity on your website.

While this type of data is often ideal in that they relate directly to your visitors, it often takes a while for activity on a new website to build up — and as such, depending on these alone may leave you in the dark as to your visitor’s basic primary needs upon launching the service.

In sites with limited or no traffic, or sites that are still in development — analytics software fails because there is no (or limited) data sources; you’re pretty much in the dark.

Most websites have some kind of visitor tracking mechanism installed, such as Google Analytics.

Third-Party/Generalized Data

Independent data are often the most useful to new websites, usually produced by large firms who provide demographic services like Net Applications or W3Counter.

These third-party data-gathering sites offer a glimpse at the general population, and by that, it will include useful details such as the browsers and devices they use, their country of origin, and so forth.

On-Site data gathering methods is going to be more accurate and will reflect your particular situation much better — for example, a web development blog will have a different audience than a cooking blog) — but accounting for independent statistics can aid you by providing a baseline to work from, especially if you have no user base.

There are plenty of statistics on the web, you just need to look! The figure above shows statistics from A List Apart’s survey of web designers.

Social Data

Socially-sourced data are a relatively new concept that has come out of the rise of networking sites like Facebook or Twitter, where people can promote or discuss your creation through an external site.

While there are still a large number of people who aren’t interested in the "social" aspect of social networking, the importance of leveraging these statistics of what visitors like, dislike and their comments attributing to such information can actually be more useful (in different ways) to the conventional number-based statistics from analytics packages.

Social networking can provide you with useful feedback to work with.

Designers Demographics

Now that we have covered the "what", we need to examine the "why" (and by association) the need to focus our attention on all the pretty percentages, pie charts and graphics that appear everywhere.

Ensuring your visitors can use and enjoy their experience with your web design is important and determining how we can provide that experience will all be down to using the statistics methods above and then narrowing the focus down onto what is most relevant for your audience.

While pretty numbers may seem impressive on their own, they’re not worth anything if they don’t speak to your niche, so successful sourcing of your data is critical.

Review websites are notorious for having subjective criteria of questionable validity.

If you’ve exhausted local statistics and have a general idea of the visitors you’re getting (and perhaps where they found you), and if you’ve gone further afield to seek out related demographics relating to research on an area which affects your niche, its worth going beyond the number crunching and seeking out "intelligent hits" that may help guide your decision making. Asking your community (or perhaps your competitions if you don’t have one!) what would enhance the experience can be great, just don’t try to please (or annoy) everyone and only implement what will benefit your users!

Getting to know your visitors can simply be a matter of knowing how to communicate.

With all of this information in regards to what you’re investigating the "why" (as in why changes need to be made) will become quite apparent. While it may seem natural, it’s quite easy to become so fixated on the number of visitors or re-tweets we get, that we actually ignore the most important thing a statistics package (or some solid research) can tell us – that our visitors will have their own specific set of needs and requirements that need addressing. As a final point on the matter of "why", if we don’t actively seek out ways to improve ourselves, we can’t hope to gain new customers.

Visitors may have JavaScript disabled which could leave them excluded from statistics.

A Quick Measurement

The next thing to take into account is how to filter the information once you’ve collected it (which meets the "how" element). Having lots of statistics and ideas may help, but filtering the stream of data will be critical to making sense of the best route to take in fixing a common problem or deciding the next step. The simplest way to prioritize your data is to follow the below, the higher up on the list the item is, the better and more potentially useful and reliable your research will be. Once the best information is extracted, you can refer to the numbers when making decisions for the design.

Determining the quality of your information is a mission critical part of the process.

Importance of Location:

• Local
• Independent
• Social

Importance of Type:

• Statistics
• Research

Importance of Reliability:

• Proven
• Trends
• Unproven

Importance of Margin:

• Significant
• Proportionate
• Insignificant

Note: Using the above, a locally sourced bunch of statistics that are proven (by a significant margin) to be the best course of action would ultimately be the peak of what you can gather. Though as your research will lead to talking with customers, individual needs should be accounted for as well.

Variable Considerations

Before rounding up this article, it’s important that we consider the variables which may impact your statistics. While it’s great that there are plenty of studies that may assist you in decision making (like how to build a perfect font stack or what browsers you should support), it’s very important that we highlight the issues that will break down the cold harsh numbers and give you a little more to work with. Without making this article particularly heavy going (which isn’t the intention), the two types of variables you want to consider are mechanical and personal, and both relative to the visitor.

The first of these (mechanical) will directly affect the way in which your visitor interacts with your site, this isn’t as a result of their physical being, but more of their circumstances and equipment. In web design it’s obvious that the device used, the OS installed, the browser used, the scripting or plug-ins available or something else will affect their experience. While these are usually listed as independent statistics in packages, they are often related to each other in that a single user will contribute to a number of these breakdown listings, thereby it may directly affect the results.

Nothing forces greater demands on a website than the range of browsers that exist.

The second and probably one of the more important factors are the personal variables. The reason why these variables are so important is because they will often not appear in statistics packages and require you to undertake independent research to get the numbers or determine the viability of catering to their needs. Such factors include the accessibility level being required, the usability of a site (which won’t be a number) and the findability of information. While harder to pin down, it still makes sense to account for such variables as they directly and quite dramatically affect visitors.

Note: Error Margins also play a part in statistics, research made by a human rather than a computer can be subject to biases, errors and omissions – some of which may go unnoticed. The significance of information can also fluctuate depending on the audience who visit the site at any given time.

Research Matters

While this article is not a comprehensive guide to research and statistics (there are entire books on the subject), the importance of knowing your visitors is showcased. When you come to build a site or implement a new feature, it’s important that you do your homework to avoid falling into a pitfall that could have otherwise been foreseen earlier. Taking the time to understand how products like Google Analytics work, what their weaknesses are and how to get a well rounded overview and an intimate knowledge of your visitors gives you the best possible chance of hosting a great experience.

It’s also worth noting that while this article does indeed focus on the numbers and opinions that lead to decision making, it’s very important not to forget the individual as a person who visits your realm (no person should be directly treated as a statistic, they are all just as important to the full equation as each other) and while numbers are great for measurements, opinions often lead to the most amount of innovation. With this article highlighting the benefits of research and accounting for more than a personalised view of a site, hopefully you will go on to target a loyal audience in the future!

Related Content

• How to Increase Conversions on any Website in 45 Minutes
• 15 Tools for Monitoring a Website’s Popularity
• How to Navigate Design by Committee
• Related categories: Web Design and User Interface

About the Author

Alexander Dawson is a freelance web designer, author and recreational software developer specializing in web standards, accessibility and UX design. As well as running a business called HiTechy and writing, he spends time on Twitter, SitePoint’s forums and other places, helping those in need.

As our community grows, it is imperative that we preserve the things that got us here; namely, keeping Drupal a fun, welcoming, challenging, and fair place to play. The new Drupal Code of Conduct (DCOC) states our shared ideals with respect to conduct. Think of this as coding standards for people. It is an expression of our ideals, not a rulebook. It is a way to communicate our existing values to the entire community.

Our friends at Ubuntu have blazed a brilliant trail in this area. They use Drupal as their CMS, and in turn we have embraced their Code of Conduct. This code of conduct is essentially identical to that used by Ubuntu, except that the name of the project has been changed, and the conflict resolution process has been removed since we don't have one.

The DCOC has been under discussion for several months on groups.drupal.org and discussed further at Drupalcon Conpenhagen. Folks who are interested in talking more about the DCOC should do so in the Drupal.org Policies group.

The short version:

1. Be considerate
2. Be respectful
3. When we disagree, we consult others.
4. When we are unsure, we ask for help.
5. Step down considerately.

read more

With the incredible competition in the online marketplace, it has become obvious that more importance should be put on site’s credibility. Generating more leads becomes possible when customers feel comfortable and secure while shopping online with your web store. So it is highly recommended to apply the proven basics of the retail success.

To run a successful ecommerce website, you need to make your web store as attractive as possible and display your product range to the best advantage.

You may incorporate an online catalogue that provides detailed information on each product and make it easy for the online shopper to make a purchase. Perhaps it would be nice to have organized categories and use thumbnails to give faster load time. Just let the visitors learn about your product, win your customers’ interest before they will actually shop online.

Note that for a fail-safe eCommerce project it is highly recommended that the retailer is physically present in the web store having a real name instead of pseudonym, putting a personal picture and being ready to communicate with customers, explain the process of placing the order and proceeding with it. Simply let your customers feel that they know at least something about you to be certain that someone will take care of them.

Additionally, you should give clear and accessible information about your company, your contact information, customer service. It’s highly preferable to present these options as links on your eCommerce website’s main navigation menu. What’s also important here is to provide the answers to the commonly asked questions using FAQs, for instance. Your customers will feel comfortable with a fully developed customer service policy. They will also feel secure in your store if there is SSL on your online payment pages, some visible signs that your site is secure and online payment systems are safe. Plus you can show credibility signs like 3rd party trust logos, security audits of your website, accreditation logos included in strategic points on your site, etc. The above-mentioned factors are actually the prime concern of every potential online shopper.

Do you know that the visitors are sure to give up shopping with eCommerce websites that have large sections under construction or offer coming soon banners, stores that never offer any new content, littered with dead links, hosted by providers that provide slow or inconsistent services? Be sure, all this will kill online shopping and a business eventually. It is extremely important that you, as a solid online retailer, could afford to professionally maintain your eCommerce website, otherwise the visitors will leave you.

To make your eCommerce website a high converting machine that not only has top-quality look, but also builds tremendous credibility, you may apply to Template Monster that’s having this killing promo currently – their eCommerce Templates are 20% off starting August 25th. Out of such product categories as osCommerce, Magento, PrestaShop, Zen Cart, VirtueMart, and CRE Loaded Templates, online retailers can pick any design and purchase it with a guaranteed discount. Every eCommerce Template developed by Template Monster expert designers has a professional-looking, fully functional design that will build exceptional credibility with potential online shoppers. So make the click that matters! Follow this source to get a professional eCommerce design at a 20% discount and make your eCommerce site visitors actually shop with your new shiny store.

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The subtitles for a movie serve an important purpose. If your hearing is impaired or if you do not speak the language used in a movie, reading the subtitles can greatly help in keeping up with what goes on in every scene. If you have rented a DVD, chances are that it includes subtitles. But if you have downloaded a movie it might not have subtitles accompanying it.

To get subtitles for movies and TV shows, there are a number of free tools available online. These tools help you obtain subtitles and, in some cases, let you add subtitles of your own. Check out the list of 5 such tools that we have gathered below.

Subs.to

Subs.to lets you search for subtitles for movies. You can choose your desired language of subtitles. Supported languages include Farsi, Hebrew, Slovenian, and many more. Most of the subtitles include file format and FPS (frames per second) with them.

DivxSubtitles

DivxSubtitles is another online database for subtitles for movies. The site offers better search options that include language, file format, date of upload, number of CDs, minimum quality, and name of movie.

TVsubtitles

Movie subtitles are not that hard to find online. What are hard to find are subtitles for television shows. Through TVsubtitles you can look for subtitles for most popular TV shows. Subtitles can be found in a variety of languages including English, French, Polish, Italian, Romanian, and many others.

SubtitleSync

SubtitleSync lets you search for movies and TV subtitles. Additionally it offers online apps for synchronizing, splitting, and merging your subtitle files. If the only subtitles file you can find is out of sync, then these online tools can be of great help.

Aegisub

Aegisub is an advanced subtitles tools. The tool is installable and comes in version for Windows, Mac OS, and Unix. You can use Aegisub to create subtitles and position them exactly where you want in your video. You can also edit the font style and size using this program. Existing subtitle files can also be modified.

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A few years ago, you might not have pointed out during a meeting with a potential client that you maintained a blog. Over time, though, blogs have evolved from the being a personal hobby to a serious work tool. In fact, today, web designers are supposed to know much more than just how to design and build websites. Customer's expectations have increased, and unless you are in position to choose your favourite clients, meeting them requires hard work.

Hence, it's important to keep learning about the variety of design-related fields every single day — be it marketing, psychology, business, copywriting, publishing or blogging. This article doesn't cover "traditional" web design discipline as we know it, but goes a bit beyond it, exploring various writing, blogging and online publishing strategies. Apart from that, we present some useful writing style guides that may help you educate your clients on their copy for their upcoming project.

  

A few years ago, you might not have pointed out during a meeting with a potential client that you maintained a blog. Over time, though, blogs have evolved from the being a personal hobby to a serious work tool. In fact, today, web designers are supposed to know much more than just how to design and build websites. Customer's expectations have increased, and unless you are in position to choose your favourite clients, meeting them requires hard work.

Hence, it's important to keep learning about the variety of design-related fields every single day — be it marketing, psychology, business, copywriting, publishing or blogging. This article doesn't cover "traditional" web design discipline as we know it, but goes a bit beyond it, exploring various writing, blogging and online publishing strategies. Apart from that, we present some useful writing style guides that may help you educate your clients on their copy for their upcoming project.

With high pressure from clients and crazy development schedules for web designers, it is easy to forget to spend the proper amount of time crafting a design.

In the interest of speeding things up, it’s tempting to skip over small details. This is an easy pitfall to which to succumb, but in the end, it can hurt your overall career.

This article will share methods and simple tools for building better portfolio pieces, having happier clients, and imbuing your work with more value.

Professional Pride and Value

If you do not take pride in your job, strive to build better value, and feel rewarded in your work, this article is not for you. The first step to being a better craftsman is care for your work no matter what it is.

Regardless of whether or not the subject is close to your heart, as a designer you should always be proud of your work. It is true that clients, deadlines, and projects will occasionally force you to make decisions that you do not agree with, but part of being a valuable and effective professional is genuine care for your work and your clients.

Love your craft and it will pay off. Real value starts at the core of how you handle your work in your practices, presentation, and approach.

Naming and Organization

Many designers do not think of file naming, organization, or conventions as a craftsmanship issue.

A common practice among particularly zealous designers is to jump right in and start designing, throwing caution and a naming structure to the wind.

This may seem fine at first, especially for small projects, but this approach will quickly turn your files and presentation into an inescapable rabble of confusing lists and vague labels. Clearly, this is not the beginning of a world-class design.

Properly labeled files and organized project structures will not only make you more efficient, they will also make you appear more professional.

You may be thinking that naming and organization is an internal issue. Think again. If you are working for a larger client, you will eventually have to send the files off to the client, a developer, or another party. People are always pleasantly surprised to find clearly named and organized files, a sensible layer structure and easy-to-understand internal documentation. This can be a brilliant opportunity to make a strong and distinct impression on your clients. Every little bit counts.

Sweat the Small Stuff

It is easy to tell yourself that the little details and meticulous little changes are lower priority and the overall layout or function is all that is important.

Before you go any further, think of any product that is successful; especially products designed to last: large appliances, cars, computers, clothing, etc. Chances are that the difference between a top-notch version and a cheap one are not in one dramatically different aspect, but rather in the sum of their parts.

Quality is in the Details

You have probably heard the old adage, "You get what you pay for." There are really no exceptions to this.

For instance, think of something pretty simple like jeans. Some cost $10.00 and some can get into the hundreds of dollars.

What are the differences? A good pair of jeans will have better fabric, more solid stitching, finely tuned details, durability, and an overall better fit.

These are subtle differences, but they add up to a substantially different experience. You might save a few bucks by going with a cheap pair of jeans, but at the end of the day, they will fade quicker, rip easier, wear out faster, and probably look more baggy and unkempt. Quality counts.

Do you want to be a premium developer or a discount outlet?

My point is simple: Sometimes the smallest differences are the most important.

I know you aren’t designing jeans, but a website is still important to design with purpose.

A website should achieve an objective, speak subtle cues, offer better conversion, help the client be more professional, and last long enough to be a worthwhile investment.

This kind of value is not achieved by rushing through a layout, cutting corners, leaving elements unlabeled, or leaving open ends.

What Details You Should Sweat

The benefit of paying attention to small details is clear, but what does this mean for a website designer? Here are a couple of common elements that have a high probability of being overlooked in most web design.

Using Guides and Purposeful Alignment

First, don’t eyeball it. Guides are an essential tool for carefully calculating alignment, flushing text and images, and checking your measurements.

Use guides to make alignments and ensure that your elements are cleanly and evenly laid out. Ctrl/Cmd + R to bring up the ruler in Photoshop, then click and drag from the top or side rulers to create the guide, then drag to place.

Alternatively, you can use View > New Guide from the Photoshop’s application menu for even more pixel-perfect accuracy.

Now that you have guides in place, make sure to use them correctly.

Symmetry is one of the only standards of beauty that is agreed upon across all cultures. Symmetry can also mean consistency. When your design is planned, consistent and not arbitrary — it will feel more complete and solid.

When you start designing, be sure to create gutters, margins, and spacing setups to lay out elements clearly.

Take the extra time to find a relative unit of measurement (such as the X-height of the logo’s typeface) and make sure that the spacings and alignments consistently use that unit.

Great alignment doesn’t happen by accident; it’s well-thought out and purposeful.

Another advantage of spending time on alignment and using sensible guides is that you will have less discrepancies from the mock-up stage to when it is handed off to the developer.

Don’t expect your web developers to fill in your blanks. Many developers use the site mock-up to create exact spacing and styles.

Send it off with all the right alignments, placements, and layout elements. Your client, your developer, and your budget will thank you.

Render and Identify Browser Type

It doesn’t matter if you are using @font-face, Typekit, or good ol’ fashioned browser-safe typefaces. Your designs should reflect which elements are to be rendered from the browser and which will need to be converted to images as CSS background text image replacement.

It is true that Photoshop cannot render type exactly how it appears in the browser, but it can get close enough.

Also, keep in mind that various browsers and operating systems will anti-alias text in slightly different ways. In the example below, I am using Windows 7 with Firefox 3.6.

Remember, your clients are not artists and will usually take a mock-up at face value, so it is important to effectively communicate what fonts will actually look like and how they will work within the context of the web medium.

Further, your designs should act as a guide for the developer. A good practice is to place the size, color hex-value, weight, and font in the placeholder copy. This helps the developer know exactly what colors and fonts to use at a glance, without having to check the PSD file or ask the designer.

What does this mean? Simply put, if you intend for an element to render from HTML/CSS, turn off the anti-aliasing.

If you change the kern or leading, make sure you use values that are easily measurable to CSS letter-spacing and line-height.

Use solid round font sizes when designing. A font rendered at, for example, 13.73px will not translate as cleanly as it could for the web.

Bottom line: don’t create any guesswork for the developer and the client.

Design with Real Content

Design is about problem-solving.

Designing without content is like trying to come up with a solution without knowing what the problem is.

You should begin every web design with as much information as possible. You can’t begin a project unless you know your client’s goals and intended points of conversion.

When in doubt, always push for more information.

Ideally, your client will supply you with a final draft of the content that needs to go online. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. You may find yourself working with no assets from your client.

So what should you do when you have no imagery or copy? Make it up!

If you haven’t been provided with any images to work off of, don’t just use any old placeholder. Instead, find a free stock image that supports your design.

If you don’t have any official copy, do your best to emulate it. As a rule of thumb, you should have enough information to fill out all the main headers.

Never use Lorem Ipsum for headers. It is a design element, not a replacement for copy. Lorem Ipsum is useful for conveying the size and shape of a block of text or a long list, but it does not say anything of the content that will eventually be there.

Having real content empowers you to create the best approximation of the final site possible, saving you countless days of revisions.

In the absence of real content, an educated approximation will make it easier for your client to give you useful and constructive feedback rather than frustrating, time-consuming revisions.

Your website design means nothing without relevant content and copy.

Designs that can live without their content are called templates because they are generally designed to give generic results and fit a wide range of simple needs.

Your clients probably aren’t hiring you for a template. They want a custom design, which means they want relevant content and copy.

Gradients and Texture

I can’t tell you if the website you are working on calls for texture or gradients, but they are essential techniques that the pros use to convey important elements such as dimension and personality.

Texture

Texture is by definition a subtle feature, but it is instrumental in conveying personality. Personality is critical in custom website design.

This is clear for a simple reason: your client chooses to hire you instead of buying a generic solution. A major point you need to communicate to their users is their unique nature or personality. If a user cannot gain a basic understanding of who your client is, then you have failed on some level.

Every business, no matter the size, has culture and interest that they exude via their products, branding, customer support, and other related services.

In general, a texture is a subtle but extremely detailed way to communicate these ideas.

Think of how you feel when you walk into a store. Recall the smell, the cleanliness, the staff’s helpfulness, etc. These are important sensations and associations. Unfortunately, we can’t put all of this onto the web, but we have a number of tools to communicate some key parts of it.

For example, when you walk into a Longhorn Steakhouse (recently re-branded), you see a clean slightly classy atmosphere, decor that is reminiscent of ranches, smoothly polished wood, and the faint aroma of leather.

If you were designing their website, you would start with these cues. For instance, you might use polished and worn wood textures, touches of leather texture with imagery like cowboy boots, ranch clips, and branding irons.

Texture can be a pattern, imagery, an actual tactile texture, or even consistent usage of color, but it is key to starting a conversation with the user.

Here are some fantastic examples of textures in website design.

Wearable Print

KELT

Converse

Le 28Thiers

Creative Spaces

Think Up

Here are a few more excellent examples of using textures in web design.

Gradients

A gradient is basically a subtle shift in color from one value to another. It is a fundamental method of conveying volume and form. In other words, gradients can make elements feel more three dimensional and active so they pop off the screen a bit.

While sometimes flat color is appropriate, most times designers are being lazy instead of being thoughtful.

Keep in mind that gradients should be used to highlight items or create visual hierarchy.

Not everything in your design requires a gradient. Ideal candidates for usage of this technique are call-to-action buttons, action copy or navigation bars.

A good exercise when you have 20 minutes or so is to visit a few CSS gallery websites and pay careful attention to where designers are using gradients or shifts in color to highlight items, make them pop-out more, or convey more depth.

Once you have a few in front of you, sketch them on paper. Keep your eye on how subtle the shift in color or values are, if they go from left to right, or top to bottom, and even where the designer has placed a highlight to communicate light or a reflection.

This will really help you grasp what a gradient is actually achieving when you use it.

Here are some great examples of effective gradients in website design.

Blinksale

relogik.com

FOX Classics

Rockstar Business

Kaleidoscope

Fully Illustrated

Here are a few more sites that use gradients well.

Design with Purpose

You have probably heard this before, but it bears repeating: design details should never be random details. You should always apply design elements, highlights, gradients, and careful alignments to assist the content and build a visual conversation with the user.

That’s easy to say, I know, but what does this mean for a designer in a real situation?

Let me suggest another exercise. Before you actually start your design, grab a notepad, and write down all your basic elements and how they tie to their content. For instance:

• Navigation bar: allows access to major topics
• Buy Product button: takes user to purchase the widget
• RSS icon: takes user to RSS feed
• Search bar: allows users to search the website

Once you have done that, rank them based on importance to your client’s goals.

Now that you know what is most important, start designing.

Once you get to a halfway point in your design stage, go back to your list. Start applying careful details to your priorities. Is the Call Us button the most important? Is the RSS icon placed in the right location? Will people use a Search bar designed this way?

Give your design elements a complementary color, or a high contrast analogous color with a dimensional gradient, a sharp 1px white highlight on top, and a thin but smooth drop shadow.

Move to the next element (say, the navigation bar). Give that a slight gradient to make it pop out and then give it a bright 1px underline to separate it from the content top.

Hopefully, you get the idea.

These are very specific examples, but you should be able to see the thought process.

Design details are powerful tools, not just pretty flourishes.

Smart Mock-Ups

If you have a cool jQuery rollover, hover state, or drop-down menu — don’t explain it — show it.

Not only will this practice help you work through potential design problems before they happen, but it will make your developer and client love working with you.

Imagine that you are building a house, and you get all the plans and the architect has left out all the windows and doors from the plans. You would be pretty annoyed, right?

Not only is that lazy, but now you will have to do all the problem solving, scoping and planning that was the architect’s job.

Not cool.

This is what it is like for a developer who gets a design with no hover states, no drop-down designs, or special element designs.

Furthermore, you just created a grab-bag of guesses that the client has not approved and may hate when the developer figures something out.

Better to do the legwork now and get it wrapped up in a nice neat little package.

Learn Some CSS

There is nothing more annoying for a developer then getting a mock-up ready for coding and finding that 80% of the stuff in it is barely feasible in CSS or is clunky and time-consuming.

Do yourself and everyone a huge favor and learn some CSS. Specifically, learn what CSS can and can’t do — and learn what it does well.

For instance, CSS is ideal for creating reusable and consistent elements, CSS can quickly (and at smaller file sizes) render color, type style, and more.

The newest specifications of CSS is powerful and can replicate many design features that previously required images and allows for new techniques that couldn’t be done before. Learn your weapons before you charge in to battle.

Take the example below. (These are by no means attractive but you will see my point.)

The call-out box on the left uses a browser-rendered typeface with no anti-aliasing, a solid 1-pixel outline and the heading uses a looping header gradient. This would be simple for a developer to code and reuse.

Now, the same theoretical call-out on the right uses an inner glow, a radial gradient on the inside content box, the header typeface is not browser compatible, the rendered Arial has anti-aliasing, the header uses a non-loop-able gradient and a fading divider line, and the whole box has a soft drop-shadow.

It is possible to do a few of these things with CSS3, but in order to keep the same look, developers will usually export the image to a file.

Technically, this works, but an image like that is not reusable, not scalable, not attractive, and requires the developer to export a new image for every box.

Bottom line: know the capabilities of CSS and use them to your advantage.

CSS is semantic, so it’s fairly straightforward. Want to adjust the font size? There’s a font-size property. Want to change the color of something? There’s a color CSS property. It’s not as complex as you would think and the language is very close to plain English.

Understanding what your building blocks can actually do is a powerful asset in building optimized and efficient design.

Remember, the more control you have over the actual implementable design, the better it will be in final practice.

Developers love solving technical problems but not design problems. Keep your job to yourself, and both of you will appreciate it.

Here are some great resources for an introduction to CSS:

• CSS Basics
• HTML Dog
• CSSeasy.com

Presenting Your Designs

This should be obvious, but many designers forget to put the time in to do this. Presenting a design to a client is half the battle.

Why is this important? Because your client will likely be making more emotional judgments than logical ones.

Make sure you treat their brand with love and respect. Put the mock-up into a nice PDF with a cover page or print it out (yes, I know its web resolution, but you can scale up to 300 dpi for this one).

Include a list of your decisions and always use positive language. You are here to lift up your client, so make sure to avoid negative comments.

This is where your underlying structure will really work for you. Take the following example under consideration. Imagine that you had to hire a designer by just seeing their desk. How would you make your decision?

Your clients will judge your level of professionalism and reliability by the way you present your work.

A good presentation exudes expertise, organization, and clear purpose in your designs. When you present the whole package in a clean and attractive way, you will have a happier more attentive client every time.

Conclusion

If you take nothing else away from this article, please remember this: love what you do, and let it shine through.

By respecting yourself, your work and your process, you will build value in yourself as a designer and produce satisfied, referral-happy clients.

Keep in mind that this article is only a primer. The road ahead is long, but if you truly love what you do, it will trickle down into meaningful improvements all across your life.

Related Content

• Drawing the Line: 6 Things You Shouldn’t Tolerate in Projects
• The Art of Distinction in Web Design
• The Key to Successful Collaboration
• Related categories: Project Management and Web Design

About the Author

Shawn Borsky is an interface and brand designer. Shawn runs Anthem Design Group and posts thoughts on branding and design via his blog, The Borsky. You can follow Shawn on Twitter or get in touch with him through his blog.

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