Web Design Trends

Electronic commerce transactions have reached record sales over the last twelve months. The implications? Companies are realising of the potential of e-commerce, and investing heavily in their web presence, while the end user becomes more demanding of the on-line services provided.

Creating a user's trust goes way beyond assuring the user's security and privacy. Results point to six marketplace fundamentals for building and maintaining trust in cyberspace: Brand, navigation, fulfillment, presentation, technology and seals of approval. (Studio Archetype - http://www.cmdesigns.com/headlines/etrust_frameset.html)

Brand
Businesses are realising that their on-line image is as powerful as their off-line shops, and attention to detail in the Internet makes the difference between potential clients and hard sales.

Established companies, brands and corporate identities instill a sense of trust in potential and existing clients. The corporate colours, logo and attitude on-line bring familiarity, and when the sites' image is tied with the off-line advertising campaigns (TV, radio and print) thanks to the increased multimedia capabilities of browsers, it increases the web site's credibility. A web site's presence then becomes more polished, professional, reflecting the company's public image.

Navigation
The ease of finding what the user seeks is one of the key elements of web site functionality. Web sites are growing larger and more complex, often with more than four levels of information to look through. In order to assist the visitor in every way, customer service is becoming a new field of expertise: Information Architecture.

Professional Web Design companies are now using new tools to define the content of the web site, ridding it from clutter and unnecessary information and defining the hierarchy of information even before designing the 'look and feel' of the site. The Needs Analysis and Functional Solutions documents are just that - the definition of modules of information, their importance, and the way they will be presented to the visitor.

To ease the visitor's search for information, specialised sections of the site are now being develope: Help buttons, Site maps, Search facilities, on-line enquiry forms, they all serve this purpose. If a visitor can find the information easily, he or she will be more inclined to use the site for further reference.

Fulfillment
A satisfied customer is one likely to come back to the Web Site. The process users experience from when they begin a purchase until they receive a shipment is important in developing client loyalty. Once the client has purchased a product, the company's on-line service administration will keep the client updated on the status of the purchase, and pay attention to the client follow-ups.

Internet transactions should be integrated with off-line transactions. Functional web sites now include self-administration facilities, databases, secure-document publication, and offer an easy-to-use, fully integrated interface to new and existing services, with ample room for further development. The results? The visitors feel they are being looked after - and the administration of business becomes more streamlined, easier to monitor, flexible and more effective.

Presentation
How the site communicates meaningful information. New authoring tools and increased bandwidth are allowing designers to be much more flexible in the way they present the information, therefore being able to target it to their audiences with increased accuracy. Web pages are becoming vibrant, more interactive and professional - graphics on the web are easily compared to the best of the print world.

Web pages can do things that print can't. Frames are now commonly accepted in the Internet, and its usage has become finely tuned to present the user with added functionality. (re. navigation) Javascript, Flash and other third-party products now allow sound and imagery to enhance any site. Much of this is currently supported - and much more will be possible with the inclusion of DHTML (Dynamic HTML), which will allow seamless combination between all presentation tools.

Technology
Web visitors now have high expectations of what a web site can offer. Where before programming and presentation have been developing separately, recent sites are combining the strengths of both fields to great effect - databases are now presented with colour and graphics, on-line catalogs are friendly and with the familiar colours of the company. The Internet is heading towards a complete integration of technologies.

Web technology changes continuously - and so do web sites. Web sites are using ASP's or CFM's (Cold Fusion) to access databases, making use of SSI (Server Side Includes), CGI's (Common Gateway Interface), Javascript and other programming languages to produce interactive and automated web sites.

This techology allows high levels of customisation (for each user), consistency throughout the site, active and animated pages, and greater control over self-administration. Why toil over text (or graphics) changes in each of a 3,000 page-strong site, when you can just alter the template file and be done with it? Web sites can now be updated through the web browser using remotely access administration, rather than having to do the changes on site and manually upload them.

Seals of Approval
There are symbols that represent companies that assure the safety of Web sites. A web site then becomes, for the company that comissions it, a vehicle for alliances with established bodies - such as banks, software security companies, even the on-line presence of magazines and/or newspapers.

"Verisign" certificate indicates the use of Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol, data encryption, public-private key pairs, firewalls and filtering routers.

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Web design trends

Web Authoring Tools
Despite the fact that HTML isn't a page-layout language, the vast majority of Web authors want greater page layout control. WYSIWYG editors that create icreasingly complex pages, and the implementation of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), will finally give us logical layout control. Simultaneously, Dynamic HTML is adding native animation and application development to the browser's capabilities.

http://www.zdnet.com/products/content/zdim/0302/265748.html

Personalising your web site

Personalization (sometimes called customization) generally refers to making a Web site more responsive to the unique and individual needs of each user. It gives users more control over their web experience. (Sites like Firefly, BroadVision, Net Perceptions, sixdegrees)

Personalisation can be accomplished in a number of ways, some of which require the user's active involvement (typically through filling out a form or following a decision-tree set of questions). Other approaches operate behind the scenes, without relying on user input--by using cookies, for example, or by looking at an IP address and serving up content based on the user's browser.

The purpose of personalisation? Encouraging repeat visits, user loyalty, and a healthier bottom line, which translates in more sales and new customers.

Builder.com - personalizing your web site. (http://www.builder.com/Business/Personal/)