WebD » General

Why Hire A Good Web Design Team

Akshay — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 18:01:51 +0000

Web design is, contrary to some belief, an art form. It takes years of training, both off and on the job, and a lot of clients and prototypes to get to the level of quality a design company can label as their output. No five-minute fixes, no standard templates – each site needs to be unique, entertaining in its design, and useable without being patronisingly simple. This is a balance that takes professionals a long time and a lot of hard work to achieve, and it’s why your site is only safe in the hands of the best.

When someone first visits your site, the design is what’s really going to matter, in the same way a book cover will convince someone whether or not to pick it up off the shelf and read the blurb. Instantly, it’s a visual issue, and some websites can be really difficult to interpret, or just look plain unattractive. While functionality is a big deal, a company that puts a lot of focus on aesthetic and hooking visitors the moment the page loads – which should happen quickly, too, as slow sites are no good to anyone.

Clean code, custom designs and a close working relationship with the client is important to a good design team, and every design should be a consensus between what the client wanted to achieve, and what the company was able to grant them in terms of the finished site. You could be a new webmaster looking for his first step into site ownership, or someone who’s seen the clean designs of Facebook, Google, Amazon and partypoker and wants to have that same level of quality sitting proudly on their domain.

Lastly, it’s important to take into account the cost – sure, you can save money, but is it really worth it when a truly amazing site could pay for itself in ad revenue and loyal users who love the design and usability? Food for thought, certainly.

Themeforest author quiz answer key

Akshay — Tue, 24 May 2011 14:09:02 +0000

I spent a while trying to complete the Themeforest.net author quiz, but while doing so I landed up compiling an answer key. Posting it here – just in case someone needs it:

If you’d like to use an asset within your file that someone else created and you’re unsure whether you’re allowed to, what should you do? – Ask a lawyer or the asset’s license holder
Who decides how files are priced? – The ThemeForest staff
Who is responsible for copyright violations in submitted files? – The author
What will happen if your submission does not validate (excluding browser-specific CSS)? – It will be rejected
Who is responsible for testing files to make sure there are no errors? – The author
Who is responsible for copyright violations in submitted files? – The author
Which of the following would be an appropriate file title? – CoPilot – WordPress and Tumblog Theme OR 20 Tiled Wood Textures
What should you do if another author has copied one of your files? – Contact Envato support
Your file must work properly in which browsers? – All major browsers
What will happen if your submission does not include documentation? – The item will be rejected
What is most likely to happen if your file is visually unappealing? – It will get rejected
What is most likely to happen if you copy someone else’s design, regardless of where you found it? - You will be banned
When am I required to provide a help file? - When selling an Add-On, or any time a file requires advanced editing or contains an asset which requires attribution
Who is responsible for copyright violations in submitted files? - The author
If you’d like to use an asset within your file that someone else created and you’re unsure whether you’re allowed to, what should you do? - Ask a lawyer or the asset’s license holder
When is it acceptable to upload a file type that’s on the files-we-don’t-need list? - When the file quality is especially high

Note: This may not be valid if Themeforest.net changes their author quiz. Last checked validity May 24, 2011
Edit – March 13, 2012: Added additional questions – thanks to Luki’s comment

Embeddable Google Document Viewer

Akshay — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 09:00:38 +0000

Google Docs offers an undocumented feature that lets you embed PDF files and PowerPoint presentations in a web page. The files don’t have to be uploaded to Google Docs, but they need to be available online.

Here’s the code I used to embed the PDF file:

http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf&embedded=true" style="width:600px; height:500px;" frameborder="0">

but you should replace the bold URL with your own address. As I mentioned, the document viewer works for PDF and PPT files.

Some other sites that offer similar features: Zoho Viewer, PdfMeNot.

Commitement to Open Source

Akshay — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:53:36 +0000

Since the time I started writing code in bits and pieces, I always dreamed of creating at-least one major open source project. Although the Open Source conceptually still revolves more around GNU/Linux or like operating system, I personally feel that any piece of code released with its complete source code for general public usage can be broadly categorized as Open Source. For me, it simply gives me pride of being usable to someone whom you don’t even know. Its a blissful feeling to check your mail after days work to find appreciation notes, comments and suggestions on some plugin or widget you have developed.

This post is a small thanks giving note to all those you downloaded my WordPress plugins – Flash Photo Gallery and WP Web Scraper. In all these have received about 6,000 downloads in just about 5 months! Thanks for all your comments, suggestions, bug notifications and Donations!

Hello world!

Akshay — Tue, 12 May 2009 07:52:26 +0000

So. I’m officially here. In the blogosphere. Finally.

I struggled with what would be my first official post. It should be prolific after all this time, right? Grand in nature. Broad in scope. So, I struggled. And then I realized it’s just like walking into a room full of people you’ve never met – I’ll introduce myself to you. It seems like the most polite thing to do, right?

First an introduction for the unfamiliar. Web design and development (Web.D) is what I have been doing for a while now. Am sure most of you are not aware of this layer of me, but what the heck… some of you might not even be knowing me. So lets start from the scratch. I am Akshay Raje, a self thought freelance web designer and developer. I love travel and am a great movie buff too. Apart from the above, I try to spend the rest available time with my wife and also try to squeeze out of whatever time’s left for the Gym.

That’s it. That’s the gist of who I am, but this blog isn’t about me. It’s about what I love to do. And I love to code for creative satisfaction. Mankind by nature has always been seeking ways and means to channel creativity. These channels range from Fine Arts to Applied Sciences. For me, coding is the simplest available way to draw creative satisfaction from tangible achievements. Web technologies has obviously been a natural choice in this pursuit due to the high amount of exposure, visibility and thereby tangibility.

I have worked on a wide range of projects including cross browser HTML and CSS implementation of web design, Flash web sites, WordPress powered blog setups with custom theme development, WordPress as a Content Management System (CMS) for websites, PHP-MySQL powered web applications, AJAX powered web applications, Web-scrapping and Feed parsing applications. I have also done a couple of WordPress Plugins and some Google Gadgets too. Read more of this on the Projects page.

This blog is all about my projects and experiments with web technologies. At times I may digress but that won’t be a dominating part of this blog. I am keen to hear from you, anytime and all the time. Constructive criticism is welcome, slander is not. Basically, please don’t say something here that you wouldn’t say to me in person. So, there you have it. My little introduction to the blogosphere. If you have questions or comments, please ask. I’m all ears.