Web Design Tips and Tricks

You Too Can Have an Amazing Website

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It is a well-known fact that a successful business depends greatly on how it is marketed. With an ever increasing dependence on the web, the use of a professional website is not only a necessity, but a priority. Although it is a common thought that only large businesses can have top-notch websites, with the tools available today what seemed impractical can now be a reality. Best of all, designing an extraordinary website can be done without hiring expensive web developers to create your site from scratch. Usually the first comment I get from my customers is, “I have the idea, but not the tools.” In this article, I will recommend which tools are the most helpful and where to find these tools so that you too can have an amazing website.

So you say, “I have the idea, but not the tools. What are these tools and where do I get them?” Let me answer that question with a question. Have you ever heard of web site templates? If not, they’re your answer to a professional website at a very reasonable price, usually around $60 to $70. A website template is a ready-made website design created for you to use as the foundation for quick and high-quality web development. There are thousands of templates available online so you are virtually guaranteed to find something that suits your design and format needs. It can be as easy as simply adding your text to the template or rearranging photos along with your text to produce the outcome you have been searching for.

Finding web site templates is easy, but be aware of the differences in template providers you will come across. Performing a Google or Yahoo search with the phrase “web site templates” will yield several vendor choices and not all of them offer the quality you demand. They all promise the best templates around, but that is obviously not the case. So, how do you find the right template vendor? First, visit some of the sites you come across and examine their templates. You will know you are on the right track if you answer “Yes” to the question, “Am I impressed with these templates?” Always trust your taste.

Next, explore how many templates the vendor offers and how often their database is updated. As a rule of thumb, the more they have the better they are. This helps assure you that your choice will be more unique than otherwise. If you choose a template from a vendor who only offers a few select quality templates then the chances are that a great deal of other customers have chosen that same template. You certainly don’t want a website that is practically identical to dozens of others online. You will also want a vendor who updates their site on a regular basis. Weekly updates are good, but daily updates are even better. This guarantees that they will have fresh templates on a regular basis for you to choose from.

Finally, you want to make sure that your template is editable. This means that your template will come with the appropriate files (PSD, HTML, SWF, and FLA) that will allow you to make the necessary changes to your template. Ask you vendor before making your selection. Most templates come with these files, but it is better to be safe than sorry. You should be able to download your selection immediately or your vendor will provide a link to do so.

Great! Now you have a really impressive template and can’t wait to make the changes that will get you a completed website that blows away your competition. Well, you’re halfway there. You have one more important choice to make. Who will do the editing? You will either have someone internally run with the project or you can hire someone and outsource the job. If you decide to handle things internally make sure you have the necessary software to edit your files and someone who is somewhat familiar with how to do the editing. This is what your template vendor probably didn’t tell you. Certainly it isn’t as easy as purchasing a template and plugging in text. If it were then there wouldn’t be a market for web design and development companies. If you’re confident about handling it yourself then great, but be careful. You might find yourself investing a lot of time and money trying to get your desired results.

Your alternate choice, hiring a development firm, will almost certainly get your site looking and functioning the way you want it, but for a fee, of course. It is easy to find a development firm to handle your needs and you can find several online. Simply search with the keyphrase “web site design”. Call or email a few of them explaining your situation and needs and ask for a quote to perform the editing for you. Depending on the amount of editing you will require you should receive price quotes in the $500 -$1500 range. This is a very reasonable price to pay for a professional website. Most likely, you will be glad you did.

This post was originally published on May 13th, 2004. As others are writing about the topic, I thought bringing it out of the archives would be worthwhile.

A little recap

The idea of placing multiple states of buttons and other elements that are used in background images took its roots, I believe, from Pixy's Fast Rollovers. The CSS Zen Master extended this to another purpose in CSS Sprites: Image Slicing’s Kiss of Death. Didier Hilhorst came up with a nice application of this method, and I worked it backwards in Responsible CSS - Recycle your background images.

The idea behind the 'sprites' method can obviously be extended to any html element, and there are tangible benefits for doing this, just as long as the designer does his or her usual homework.

Benfits of using the 'sprites' method

What are the possible the benefits of using this method? Essentially it lies in faster download times for your web content.

Readers of Andy Kings book, Speed Up Your Site: Web Site Optimization will notice that this method reduces http requests and makes more efficient use of the data packets used to transfer files to the users computer, and that that is a good thing.

Packet size and http requests

From Web Page Design and Download Time, by Jing Zhi of Keynote Systems (seen here - pdf), cited in Andy's book:

The basic performance principle is therefore to make fewer requests and transmit fewer packets. From this principle, we can derive two basic design rules for wellperforming Web pages. First, reduce the overall size of the page, thereby reducing the number of bytes (and packets) to be transferred over the Internet. Second, limit the number of embedded objects on the page, such as images, each of which must be requested and transferred separately from server to browser.

They also found that it was the number of packets and not necessarily the overall size of the page that was important. If a packet could hold 1460 bytes (the figure given in the article) and your object was 1600 bytes, it would require two packets. They found that this object would transfer at the same speed as another object that was greater in size but still fit in two packets.

Potential payoff

The potential payoff for using this method versus individual images, then, is a faster download time due to reduced number of packets and fewer http requests.

Reducing http requests is easy. One file instead of two or three etc. is simple. But packet requests? That depends...

An example

The number of packets sent will depend on the size of the file and the users internet connection.

As an example, lets look at the fiftyfoureleven.com logo at the top of the page. When this design was first being coded, that link consisted of two 3.34kb images, one for the link state and one for the hover state. Now, by using one image that contains both states and simply bumping it back and forth depending on the hover state, that has been reduced to one 5.35 kb image. Right there is a savings of 1.33 kb. Good news.

Now, for arguments sake lets say that a packet can hold 1460 bytes (packet size for connections greater than 128kb/s = 1500 bytes -40bytes for tcp/ip headers). The two image method used 6 packets, 3 for each image (3.34/1.46, rounded up). The single image method uses 4 packets (5.34/1.46, rounded up).

Things are looking good.

How to optimize

In his alistapart article, Dave refers to the image that holds all of the sprites as his 'master image'. The key to benefitting from this method is to ensure that the file size of your master image isn't a bloated equivalent versus the sum of its pieces.

Conclusion

Great benefits can be realized when combining a master image from slices that fall well below the size of one packet, as that unused packet space goes wasted.

After doing a little more research, it seems that packet size can vary depending on the connection rate. That being said, it may be rather difficult to come up with a firm rule here. To play it smart and safe, try and:

• build master images that are smaller then the sum of their collective slices (by combining images of similar colors, for example) or
• rather than use a different distinct image for a certain element, reuse one that you already plan on using elsewhere.

This isn't exactly groundbreaking advice, however having seen the results acheived with the logo on this page, it can be seen that using the sprite method versus individual images at minimum does reduce http requests and even further it can reduce file size which in turn can reduce the number of packets sent.

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