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"Characteristics of a Good Website"

E-commerce existence really burst in the world of business. And internet is the tool they provide to stay and to be competitive in this area and one of the factor they really on is their web area. Web designing is one of the aspect that help progress the one’s business. Online business done by companies is one of the factors that the companies save their resources and gain profit those are the things that the company are really working now. It is there new way of interaction between clients or consumers and producers. In order customer will always buy in their store, there are qualities of their product that the customers really like and as a producer you always stick to those qualities. Like any other, in terms of products customers really like affordable products but it has a standard quality or expensive but suite to the product because it will last long. Just like any other ways to give clients or customers the satisfaction they want and the impression producers pursue in online shopping having a good characteristics or qualities of your web page is important.

From wekipidea.com, a web site is a collection of information about a particular topic or subject. Designing a web site is defined as the arrangement and creation of web pages that in turn make up a web site. A web page consists of information for which the web site is developed. A web site might be compared to a book, where each page of the book is a web page.

There are many aspects (design concerns) in this process, and due to the rapid development of the Internet, new aspects may emerge. For non-commercial web sites, the goals may vary depending on the desired exposure and response.

To an article where anyone can give their suggestion on what is highly recommended to apply in your web area that customer likes and people can rate the given perspective from different people the most chosen best quality of the page is “That the user is always right. Read that book (The User is Always Right). Makes things make sense and accessible to all. Have links labeled clearly and go where they say they are going.”

Having clearly stated links or directions where the user can clearly understand is a very big point to the site user will not having a difficulty to search and to know what your site all about. Also the reaction or feedbacks or even suggestion coming from the customer is very important that the producer will take. Customer really knows what they want and they don’t.

Having a good web page it will help the companies’ success. Then is a well-done designed website or web page? “It is a website that combines in it all the ingredients like it is user friendly, search friendly, and presents a theme in an impressive way. A successful web site is a site that converts most of its visitors into customers.” There are several characteristics that to be taken into action by those having their web site.

Content

Having sense and quality content fill-in to your website which can provide users with the information they are looking for. Content also allows you to establish yourself as an expert in your field. When your website visitors are looking to make a purchase they will feel more comfortable with your products and services if you have built their trust and confidence through what you have written on your website.
Keyword-filled content is also crucial for getting high search engine rankings. Most internet users trust search engines to help them find what they are looking for. Taking the time to create high quality content can have huge payoffs through increased search engine rankings.

Before beginning on a website design, define objectives and site purpose. A ood design takes into account the site purpose and works towards it. The site content should be up-to-date and reflect the main goals of your site.

In the content all the information about the site and the company are stated. Also, the purpose or the objective of the website can be clearly seen and understand. The content that is in the page should focus on the company really offered to their customer the services they provided any other information that not really defined their purpose will not necessary to be in the site.

The content said to be “the substance, and information on the site should be relevant to the site and should target the area of the public that the website is concerned with.”

Simple and Attractive Design

Usually customers like attractive page with all the color and picture which is very lively but simple that suite to the customer’s eyes. ”The design of a good website should be simple, yet professional. The design should not take away or distract from the content. Websites with excessive use of Flash and moving images can be very distracting. Use design to help you get your message to visitors, not to distract them from the message. Colors should not be hard on the eyes, and text should be easy to read.”
“While creating a web design, always remember that first impression is the last impression. A good website layout and attractive graphics will attract a lot of visitors to your site. But, once the visitor is there, he needs much more than just a good design to hold him on.”

The appearance of the site also should also be: the graphics and text should include a single style that flows throughout, to show consistency. The style should be professional, appealing and relevant.

Easy navigation

When scrolling down and exploring to site customers can really understand and can easily find the navigation they want. If the customers can have difficulty in finding the navigation it will not make up the mood of the customers and they will not feel to explore the site again.

“Navigation and links provide opportunities to incorporate design elements in to the website; however, navigation schemes should not be so elaborate that the user has trouble knowing where to click to move to another page. The average visitor’s attention span is a matter of seconds, and if it is hard to find what he or she is looking for, you will loose that visitor very quickly. Links to your most important pages should be easily found on every page. A good rule of thumb is that every page should be accessible in two clicks from your home page (this may not be possible with larger sites).”

Unique

Website that contains a concept that there is no match to other site and that is new to people’s eyes. “The most successful websites will stand out from the crowd. There are a number of was that you can make your website stand out: better design, high quality articles, a blog, a newsletter, some type of resource or tool. Find something that would be appealing to your target market.”

Fresh

Updating your site is very appropriate to do. Information extend and broaden as time goes by. Their will many things added and there are taken or being removed. Through that “Having a website that changes or is updated frequently will encourage repeat visitors. Repeat visitors will be more loyal and more likely to buy. There are a few different options for keeping your site fresh:

“5.1 Update the site and add content occasionally - This will require you to either pay a designer or do the work yourself.”

“5.2 Use a blog - With a blog you can add content to your website from any computer with an internet connection. All you’ll have to do is login and type. No special software or skills are required.”

“5.3 RSS feeds - With RSS feeds you can add news headlines, weather, stock tickers, etc. to your website. Additionally, you can add content from most blogs to your site with RSS. The benefit of RSS feeds is that once in place they will automatically update.”

Optimized

“A successful website will be search engine-friendly. Optimization includes things like using page titles and meta tags for all of your pages. Using headers and alt tags for images can also help optimization and accessibility. Even a website that is strong in other areas but weak in optimization may be hard for users to find.”

Usability

A website should be easy and intuitive to use. Navigation should be easily accessed on every page: the general rule is that 2 clicks or less should get you to any page of the site. Complex navigation structure will frustrate your visitors and they will leave your site immediately if they cannot find what they are looking for.

Knowing the Audience

Who are the intended audience? Older people might have trouble seeing contrasts in certain colours, children might need larger navigation buttons, the overall design and atmosphere will depend on your intended audience.

Defining the audience is a key step in the website planning process. The audience is the group of people who are expected to visit your website – the market being targeted. These people will be viewing the website for a specific reason and it is important to know exactly what they are looking for when they visit the site. A clearly defined purpose or goal of the site as well as an understanding of what visitors want to do or feel when they come to your site will help to identify the target audience. Upon considering who is most likely to need or use the content, a list of characteristics common to the users such as:Audience Characteristics, Information Preferences, Computer Specifications, and Web Experience.

Taking into account the characteristics of the audience will allow an effective website to be created that will deliver the desired content to the target audience.

The structure of the page or site is very important also like the following:

Colour scheme. Some colours look awful together. This isn't a decision to make lightly. Look at a colour wheel and read about how it works, this will become invaluable when it comes to choosing the right colours.

Text. Don't make it too small. Don't make it hard to read against the background (for example, bright red text on a dark blue background - people actually do this! Ack!).

Black text on white background is usually best, but not neccasary.

And for crying out loud, don't use some fancy, hard to read font that most computers don't have anyway as the main body of text. That is seriously just evil.

Use a sans serif font as your main text (headings you don't neccasarily have to), Verdana is especially made for viewing on the computer.

Layout. Usually made up of a heading banner, a horizontal or vertical navigation bar, the content part, and the footer. However, more artistic Flash sites might stray completely from this. It's up to you.
Just make sure that it is easy to navigate and looks appealing. A good way to get inspiration is to look at a website that sells web templates. Don't copy them, but you can get great ideas from them.

The layout should be consistent on every page of the website.

Using tables for your design layout is rather outdated now. It may be useful in some cases, but not generally.

It is now CSS. With CSS, you can have the written content and the layout completely separate from each other and it is so much more flexible and easier to use than tables.
Dreamweaver makes using CSS especially easy.

Accessability. Each image should be fixed so that text appears when the cursor hovers over it. This should explain what the image is of. This is mainly used for people with a disability.

The whole site should be easy to naviagate through and not confuse people with cryptic navigation bar names or a cluttered, muddled up page.

If your navigation bar is made with Flash, then you might consider having the navigation again in the footer for people that can't view Flash.

Every computer uses different browsers and different versions of these browsers (Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, Navigator, etc) and different screen resolutions. Test your website to make sure it works in various browsers and screen sizes.

References:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080227002750AACN1qr
http://www.webreference.com/greatsite.html
http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/design/characteristics-of-a-good-website/
http://seo-kolkata.blogspot.com/2007/07/web-content-writing-characteristics-of.html
http://ezinearticles.com/?7-Characteristics-Of-A-Great-Webpage&id=155509
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_design

"Next to Technology"

People can discover and create things almost everyday just like technology. As we can see technology today are fast changing. As the time goes by the previous discoveries and creations of a machine or a gadgets can improvise easily by people and there are a lot to exist and follow. Just like buying a memory stick when you buy a stick which contains 1GB memory, after a few days when you come again in a store you can pick up a memory device higher than what you bought the other days which cost the same. Just like how technologies change today. Its existence is emerging and its development is rapidly changing. Scientist and people who can introduce machines with their own creation can easily think of something more of what today being introduced. And without any doubt people really tend to follow and fond of technology. People are into what’s new and what’s not. Every time there are new gadgets introduced, people want for that and searching more.

As we can simply distinguish from the existence of internet in early 20s and the computer after that many devices are introduce and came in. We can observe that technology in actual fact are becoming higher and fast changing. The commoditization of technology is almost every where, from the appliances in the house, through infrastructure, communication, transportation, engineering, science, software and hardware facilities. And as we can notice we can easily predict that the innovation of technology will come to change the society and it will go to take place in different factor in the society.

What are next to the technology being introduced today? Well, being an individual living in this society we are aware of the things that is happening around us and we can see make out a glimpse that we can see more when we are talking about technology that inventor can show more or will show more what we have right now. And some predictions came into mind, that there are a lot to happen and exist in the next coming years. From a page, “Future Technology: Our Predictions for 2009” (Claudine Beaumont), several predictions came out that will be held in the near future. And these are the following:

An end to wires

While technology isn't sufficiently advanced quite yet to do away with the plug, 2009 will see a growing number of wireless devices hit the shops. And we don't just mean wireless in terms of internet connectivity – although we do expect more gadgets, including digital cameras, to be Wi-Fi enabled. We mean wire-less – look out for televisions that use "connectivity hubs" for hooking up all your games consoles and DVD players rather than having a tangle of cables emerging from the television itself. Several manufacturers touted these ostensibly wire-less solutions towards the end of last year, and 2009 should see the technology becoming cheaper and more widespread.

It will mean that when you wall-mount your super-thin 50in plasma screen television, the only protrusion will be a power plug – you can hide all your other peripherals in a nearby cupboard, connected to a hub, and the TV will be able to communicate with them wirelessly. This will be crucial if internet piped straight to the television is going to become a reality.

Meaningful convergence

For several years now, manufacturers have been turning out clever, multi-tasking gadgets that can fulfil more than one role, such as cameras that double as camcorders, sat navs that can also be used for in-car audio, and mobile phones you can store your music collection on and use to surf the net. This year, that convergence will become more meaningful – the technology will be sufficiently well developed that people will actively choose to use their gadgets for more than one task. At the tail end of 2008, we saw the first mobile phones with eight-megapixel digital cameras; this year, expect to see that technology improved upon, so that issues with slow shutter speeds and clunky focus start to be resolved, and consumers will perhaps start to consider buying phones with great cameras built in, rather than opting for a stand-alone digital snapper. It looks like Nokia's new touch-screen N97 handset could be an early pace setter, with a sophisticated camera and up to 48GB of storage for music and photos - that puts the capacity of Apple's iPhone and iPod touch range in the shade.

Better touch-screens

Speaking of touch-screens...an analyst remarked at the beginning of last year that 2008 would be "the year of the cr*p touch-screen", as countless manufacturers jumped on Apple's bandwagon. Well, this year should see touch-screen technology reach a point of maturation, with touch-screen interfaces on even the cheapest gadgets becoming more responsive, intuitive and stable. That's going to be crucial, because smartphones will once again rule the roost this year – we'll see more handsets running Google's Android operating system, and will be interesting to see where Apple goes with its iPhone range. Watch out, too, for an increased use of gesture-recognition technology on many devices, similar to that used by the Nintendo Wii to detect the movement of its motion-sensitive controllers, and the iPhone's accelerometer, which can detect which way it's being held.

Video streaming

In 2008, we saw the first signs of a move towards internet-based television and video streaming services. The Apple TV allowed consumers to download television programmes and movies to the set-top box like device, while Microsoft launched video downloads for its Xbox 360 games console, and even LoveFilm allowed customers to watch films via the web. The BBC iPlayer, which is just over a year old, has probably done the most for the public's perception of web-based video streaming, encouraging even those suspicious of new technology to experiments with its services. This year, an increasing number of internet-enabled set-top boxes and televisions will come to market, letting consumers hook them up directly to the web, so, in time, there will be no need to go via a computer, as web content will be piped straight to the TV.

Higher definition

According to industry analysts Screen Digest, 41 per cent of British households own at least one HD-ready television. But just under 10 per cent are connected to a high-definition television service, such as Freesat or Sky HD. Expect that disparity to narrow in 2009, as more and more broadcasters and services start to really take advantage of the high levels of "high-definition preparedness" in the UK with products that leverage this untapped potential. Anthony Rose, the head of the BBC's iPlayer service, has hinted that some BBC shows available on the catch-up TV platform might be streamed in high-definition in the coming year. Freeview is also expected to go high-def in 2009, although viewers will need to buy a new HD-ready Freeview set-top box to receive the service. And the advent of faster broadband connections, such as Virgin Media's 50 megabits per second service, and potentially BT's 100 megabits per second service, also means that high-definition movie downloads are likely to become more commonplace, as an infrastructure builds up around the service to support its timely delivery.

Social networking

If 2007 was the year of Facebook, then 2008 was surely the year of Twitter, the microblogging service that prompts users to write messages in 140 characters or fewer. Once the preserve of nerds, Twitter soon broke into the mainstream, and is used by everyone from President-Elect Barack Obama to national wit Stephen Fry and even troubled pop star Britney Spears. But will 2009 hold for social-networking? Well, from a purely business perspective, sites such as Facebook and Twitter are going to have to come up with a way of making money. It's unlikely they will start users directly for what, up until now, has been a free service, so instead brace yourself for targeted advertising popping up on your favourite social networking websites. What users will be hoping for this year is great inter-operability between social-networking platforms. Many web users have Facebook, MySpace and Twitter profiles, and use services such as FriendFeed to aggregate their social feeds and pull everything into a single, usable interface. Expect projects such as Facebook Connect, which allows users to share their information with third-party member websites, and OpenSocial, which allows applications to work across multiple platforms, to really come into their own. People don't want to rebuild their social networks on every new site they join; they want this data to be portable and work on any system.

Gathering clouds

Similarly "cloud computing", the idea of software and services that live on servers "in the cloud" rather than individual computer hard drives, is going to be a mainstay of 2009. Companies such as Microsoft have already announced plans to put more of their products "in the cloud", and we could even see the likes of Apple ramping up its cloud-based services through the Mobile Me portal. Google is perhaps best-placed to make cloud computing its own, as it already offers myriad services online. The growing number of portable, internet-enabled gadgets that can connect effortlessly to the web will also help to drive the cloud revolution, with people increasingly expecting to access their crucial data, software and information wherever they are.

Since technology becoming to change some of the standard application of things, today human’s community is becoming evolving into a virtual community or a virtual world. Which interaction can be done virtually. Just like the existence of Second Life Campuses which students can go to school without personally interacting with their professors and classmates they interact through them virtually with their own avatar. In what the traditional classroom or campus can offer may be in virtual campuses also. And the existence of virtual came into several community and purposes. Like they used it for training of employees or soldiers, for the employee, training them in this way will help reduce the cost and reduce the use of resources in the company. “In America it is being used as an instrument or their way to recruit potential soldiers, while companies like Forterra Systems are working with military groups to develop training simulations.” Also, “Virtual worlds can serve as forums for political expression and debate. While real-world political issues can crop up in gaming, social, and educational worlds, there are a few cases in which completely separate virtual worlds have been built for the purpose of political debate or even experiments in various types of self-governing online communities. A great example of a virtual world with a political focus is AgoraXchange.” And the most common purpose of the virtual world is socializing with other people by several chat rooms or through while you are in a game.

The product of technology today are very smart, easily get you in a work faster, it’s becoming smaller and very useful and for that people really like and cannot live with out any interaction to technology in a day. I think that people are ready to embrace and adopt the changes shown nowadays and someday the fully change of the world where technology and people maybe possible. The society is really into it right now. There are maybe some fear running around in some corner an in an individual, I admit it that I feel that way specially when time comes that technology and human are at same status in the environment but maybe as what we scrutinize to the situation between the continuous innovation of technology and every human they have a positive outlook of it. People really benefit from it, technology given a lot satisfaction to the people who make use of it. It entertain them from all the gadgets given and introduce, technology help broaden the horizon of business through e-commerce, technology help to expand the one’s knowledge through existing computing. We are really fond of technology but if we don’t want to fully embrace it technology can’t force us to do so. It is our own will to acknowledge and take through it. Anyway, we have the option to use it wisely and properly if we are concern to the society we are living.

References:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/4031097/Future-technology-our-predictions-for-2009.html
http://www.futureforall.org/vr/virtualreality.htm
http://news.cnet.com/Riding-the-next-technology-wave/2008-7351_3-5085423.html\
http://www.whatsnextnetwork.com/technology/