User talk:Beermohamed

Design the content, not the page

Good modern web designs put less energy into designing the page background - the canvas and permanent page features - and rather focus on designing the content itself.

This reflects the principle of drawing the viewer's attention to the content. (Also echoes Phil Brisk's article "Dont' decorate, communicate!")


We see the effects in:

Freer, less boxed-in page layouts Softer, simpler, receding page "furniture" Strong colour and 3D effects used to draw attention to the content itself, including the main branding The focus is on making the site's subject look good, rather than making the web designer look good (which is better for the designer in the long-term!) To take away... What designers should learn from this trend is that it's not enough to design a blank page, to be stuffed with content later. As I've written elsewhere, content is our problem. As designers, we're communicators (not decorators) and site content carries the majority of our message.


Why center-align?

I like center-aligning, and have been tending to use it on my designs for a while.

When the content sits in the centre of the screen, it feels up-front and confident.

It also gives a sense of simplicity and balance, which reflects the move towards clean, more Zen, design.

The most common centered designs are either fixed-width (i.e. master width in pixels or percent) or sometimes zoom-width (i.e. master width in ems, e.g. Forecast Advisor). The benefit of restricting the width of the content (particularly with zoom-width, which resizes as the font size changes) is that the line-length is prevented from getting too long on larger screens. (Very long lines of text are less efficient.)

However it's also possible to have a liquid layout with a center-orientation, as the Alternative Energy Store site shows.

On this site, just centering the logo brings the friendly, forward-facing feel of the centered site, while getting a lot of content visible on the screen.


3D effects, used sparingly

Every single one of the hotties uses gradients subtly, either to give bars a slight roundedness, to create a soft feeling of space in the background, or to make an icon stand out with embossing and subtle drop-shadows.

Reflections & fades are very prevalent. Drop-shadows are still used, but with care.


Welcome to AboutUs.org!

Hello, my name is Kristina.

I'm excited that you've joined AboutUs.org, a community of people collaborating and editing to build this wiki. Welcome! Let me know if you have any questions along the way - I'd love to hear from you! You can contact me in a variety of ways, the best being to leave a message on my talk page via the "talk" link in my signature below. You may also join the AboutUs WebIRC to chat or ask a question, and below are some links that I have found useful...

Welcome to the community!
KristinaWeis | **talk** 21:13, 23 November 2007 (PST)

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