It is so true that it isn’t in the tool but in the hands which use those tools. A bad workman WILL blame his tools. So do not really think about the tools too much before really conquering the design and design standards naivety in you. No doubt, understanding the workflow of a design tool like Dreamweaver can work wonders and is required for authoring your website; criticisms mushroom if you do not pay heed to some points and avoid design mistakes.

Not only amateurs but experienced designers too can sometime make a few mistakes that can tarnish the usability and usefulness of a website. Let’s take a look at them.

1. PDF Files for Online Reading – Think from users’ perspective. Would you like to have your flow of surfing the website being broken? Not at all! Moreover, the standard browser commands don’t function the same way for PDF files as they do for an HTML page which makes the surfing more frustrating. Because the PDF file is not a web page, it does not show the navigation bars. This makes impossible for the user to directly hover to any other pages on the website. In short, PDF files are optimized for printing and are quite repulsive as far as reading and navigation are concerned.

2. Not Changing the Color of Visited Links – The implications of not implementing the minute details can be adverse. In case of sites with number of pages, users tend to identify their navigational pattern by recognizing the color of links. Read more…

Twitter has changed the meaning of social networking and seems to be the most popular way to connect with people today. From celebrity Ashton Kutcher’s challenge to Oprah to reach one million friends first (Ashton won) to a U.S. State Department official contacting the co-founder of Twitter to delay upgrading the Twitter system so as not to interrupt election dialogue in Iran, everyone has become a die hard fan of this micro-blogging platform.  More and more news agencies are using Twitter to keep their audience up-to-date, and local businesses are also jumping on the Twitter bandwagon as an immediate way to connect with their customers as well.

The scope of this micro-blogging platform seems to be quite advantageous for marketers, advertisers and companies to further their causes such as market their products, services, search for new ventures and find business partners. But the question is how to find the targeted segment? You may often come across messages like, “Get 10,000 followers for just $19.95” or you may blindly follow someone and in return he/she will follow you i.e. reciprocity. But believe me, 1000 followers that are related to your segment are far better than 10,000 followers that come from everywhere. Read more…