by Mike Rohde

As a kid, I spent hours drawing and sketching ideas that popped into my head.

I used drawing as a primary language for capturing thoughts, exploring ideas, and then sharing those ideas. Teachers and mentors encouraged me, helping to sustain sketching as a key skill throughout school and into my professional career. Good fortune has ignited my passion to become a sketch advocate, helping others rediscover sketching as a powerful problem-solving and communication tool.

I’m excited to share why sketching can be so beneficial, show samples of sketches, and provide helpful resources. My goal is to encourage you—whether you’re a designer, front-end developer, coder, writer or whatever you may be—to add sketching to your toolkit.

But I can’t sketch—I’m not an artist!

When I suggest sketching as a visual thinking tool, I often I hear “I’m not an artist” or “I can’t draw.” While I understand the hesitation, I’m here to tell you that the artistic quality of your sketches is not the point. The real goal of sketching is functional. It’s about generating ideas, solving problems, and communicating ideas more effectively with others.

When you feel inadequate in your sketching, pause and reconsider your perspective. Don’t worry how well you draw. Instead, think of your sketching as visual thinking, which works regardless of your drawing quality. Ugly gets the job done just fine.

Website Development – What Needs to Be Done and How Much Does It Cost
Today’s businesses require letterhead and envelopes, business cards, ads in the Yellow Pages, Justdial and web pages as part of their business stationary. Even if you have the smallest of businesses with a limited clientele, a website is part of your professional arsenal to attract and keep clients.
People new to the Internet or web pages tend to see them as complicated or expensive. They are neither, unless you choose to allow them to be. They are, in their simplest form, a billboard on the information highway, advertising your wares and expertise for all to see – if they can find you.
Like a billboard, potential clients must travel down that particular road to see the signs. To ensure a successful website, make sure your website address is featured on all of your business cards, letterhead, classified ads, shop signs, yellow pages listings or ads, emails, and any advertising.
The cost of a website should be a natural inclusion in your financial accounting as a business expense for advertising or stationary. The initial set up costs may be high, but add these to the long term expense of the site to make the figures more reasonable.
The process of creating a website is three fold. Let’s look at the various areas you need to focus on to develop your own website.

Website Development
Most companies think of websites as promotional tools for their business. Today, websites are an arm of your business, representative of your company’s customer service efforts and policy. They serve the public needs, not your needs. Developing a website today means understanding how people use websites to gather information and make decisions, and maximizing that criteria with the resources, services, and products you offer.
Putting the user first, your website design and development needs to be organized way so people can easily access the information they require to help them make a decision or be informed. What information do they need to have, what do they want, and how can you best provide it.

Another important part of website development is targeting your audience. In order to make your website work, you need to help people find it. This includes search engine submission, concentration on keyword writing and content, and providing content worth linking to, letting others direct users to your site. Most of all, the content must have value, so a lot of focus needs to be on the writing, writing style, spelling and grammar, and creating clear, easy to understand content. The better the quality of content the more likely people are to find the site and stick around.

Website Design & Search Engine Optimization
Designing a website is the creative side of the process and involves the expertise of the site owner, marketing and advertising departments, artists, photographers, writers, technical writers, programmers, and code experts. This list of experts can be a whole team or one person. Either way, it is a team effort to combine all these skills and talents to complete an interesting and professional website.

Website design requires clear direction from the research within the website development plans. Focusing on the user’s access to the information, a solid navigation menu is critical, helping the user find the information they need.
Website design and layout needs to combine navigation and content with graphics and photographs that help guide the user and showcase products and services. Website designers are constantly battling between new technologies and their creative desires and bandwidth, seeking a compromise between the three. It’s not an easy task, and requires good coding and design skills, so this isn’t part of developing your website that should be cheap. It is the largest part of your website budget.

Along with the design comes the writing. Search engines can’t find you if there is no text to search. Quality written content is critical to a successful website, rich with keywords and website style writing. While the look of the site is critical to its visual success, what it has to say is more important. Content matters, so make sure that it is well written.

Website Maintenance
After the development and design, someone must maintain the site. This can be as simple as looking at it once a week to see that it is still there and working, or more intensive such as adding frequent updated information or content regularly. In general, a small site (1-10 pages) may require 2-20 hours a month to maintain properly. If designed well to begin with, a small site can be ignored for months on end, except for the occasional check-in.

For good search engine optimization (SEO), you need to really consider how page rank in search engines plays a critical role in how people find your site when they search. Part of the criteria is how often the site and the content and links are updated. So frequent additions and updates to your site will help keep your site at the top of the search engine results.
Links need to be checked for dead ends, responses to comments and feedback checked and action taken, the site and database backed up, and a whole variety of common website maintenance tasks. You can do this yourself, or hire someone called a webmaster to maintain and monitor your site on a regular basis.

How Much Does a Website Cost?
The more time you spend preparing for your website design and development, researching demographics, identifying your audience and collecting the information needed for the website, the less time and money you have to pay a developer and designer to research this information for you. The developer and designer will go through the information with you, but the better prepared you are, the faster and easier the process is for everyone. If you have money to splurge, hire them to do this research and preparation for you, as they will know what to look for as they prepare your site.
A lot of information is required before sitting in front of the computer and laying out the first page, though many people start with the design of a page before getting to its content. What goes INTO a web page is more important than how it looks, at least to start. The prettiest web page is worthless without good content that keeps the viewer there after the first blush of “wow” is over.

For your information, the average price for development of a basic website (5-10 pages) is between INR 50,000 – 70,000. The diverse range is based upon how many professionals are involved, their expertise and reputation, the length of project time, the complexity and sophistication of the development and design, and the inclusion of animation, interaction, e-commerce or advertising.
On average, it can take 40 to 60 hours to design a one to five page website, even for a professional. Expect longer hours for more pages, dependent upon their complexity and content. Hourly rates range from INR 1000 – 1300 per hour. Different regions offer more or less than the average rate.
The bottom line? If you pay less than INR 30,000 to produce a web page, you are probably getting someone inexperienced or less than qualified, which could result in problems in the future with the design or less promotional coverage. A well-designed website must meet certain standards and requirements established by professional organizations, including meeting the country or state accessibility laws for the handicapped, which means you need to go with an experienced web developer and designer, or spend hours learning these rules and regulations yourself.

Domain name and website hosts fees are typically not included in the website design and development. Domain name fees are for one year, though they may be discounted if purchased for more than one year’s service. Web site host “rents” space on their computers to host your website. The come in all shapes and sizes, offering various products, storage sizes, email accounts, and services.
Plan your website budget to include the initial set up fee spread across the length of time you expect the site to remain basically as it is. Typically, a website requires only minor changes and updates to its development and design for at least three years, sometimes five if the page is very simple. The website design and development industry is still evolving, so changes to the underlying structure might be required within the three to five year life of the site to keep up with technological advances.
Benefits of having a website

Do you think having a website is an avoidable cost? Although the Internet no longer remains a “new” technology there are still many business owners who are averse to the idea of having a business website either because they are not comfortable with the new medium or they simply deem it unnecessary. Now, we are not suggesting that the guy selling pani puri at the street corner should definitely have a business websites (well, why not?), but if there is business somewhere and you cannot do it simply because you don’t have a website then we will say that you are missing a big opportunity by not having a website.
Having a business website immediately propels your visibility and reach to a higher level. All of a sudden you are accessible to your customers and clients 24×7. Both old and new customers find you approachable and progressive.

We at Solutions Infini mean to proselytize you but here is a list of 12 benefits of having a website, whether business or personal.

1. Instant visual representation
Just imagine what thrust your business would get if people from all over the globe could visually see the products or service options you have to offer. All information pertaining to your business can be put on your website so that your prospective customers and clients can view it at their own convenience and without you having to be there each time something needs to be explained.

2. Keep your business open all the time
When you decide to offer business through your website, it is like a store or an office whose doors are never closed; people can come in and review your products and services at their convenience. In between if they want to do business with you and if your website is automated enough they can do even that. This way you can run your business non-stop without having to put in the extra hours.

3. New customers and clients can find you through search engines
Once you have accumulated a decent amount of information on your website people begin to find you on the search engines for the keywords and expressions relevant to your website. For instance if you sell perfumed candles and if someone searches for “sandalwood aroma candles” and if you have information on “sandalwood aroma candles” then there is a great possibility that people will find you on various search engines, come to your website, and place orders for sandalwood aroma candles.

4. Easier and cheaper advertising
Publishing on your website doesn’t cost you extra unless you are paying for every new page you create. Once you have set up the basic website structure you can keep adding new pages without incurring extra cost.
You can also complement your advertising efforts with your website. There are two ways of doing this. Whenever you publish your advertisement you can include your URL so that the information that you cannot include in the advertisement can be easily viewed on your website. Once your online traffic has gained momentum you can even run advertisements directly on your website. The best way of doing this is developing an online community so that lots of traffic builds up.

5. Highly enhanced public relations
You might not know that hundreds of or even thousands of your customers and clients might be using the Internet for all their information and research needs. Millions of views are exchanged on the World Wide Web. If some disparaging news regarding your organization gets circulated you can easily counter it, or at least present your own side of the story, through your website. High-value content and regular interaction with your visitors makes sure that you have a dedicated community of evangelists who would like to protect your brand and reputation even at the cost of putting in extra effort.
The more you interact through your website the more solid your reputation grows.

6. Reach distant markets
At Solutions Infini, a Bangalore based web design company, we get web design projects from all over the world and from very high-profiled clients. This becomes possible because our website is easily accessible to everybody who has an Internet connection. If you provide a service that can be delivered via the Internet or if you have a product that can be easily dispatched after taking an online order then you should definitely tap into this vast online market and promote your business in different parts of the world.

7. Create extra income streams
You can start new business ventures from scratch if you run them through your website. Unlike starting business ventures in the brick-n-mortar world the Internet ventures require very little startup income and they can be initiated in a matter of few days, or even few hours. In order to start a new business all you have to do is, have a great idea or product ready, register a domain suitable to your business, obtain a web hosting account, design the website or get it designed and hurray! You are ready to go.

8. Interact with your customers and clients regularly and obtain their feedback
Compared to telephonic conversations it is a lot easier to interact with your customers and clients through e-mails, blog posts and regular updates on your website. You can also host a forum where your customers and clients can leave feedback and exchange ideas regarding your service. This will improve your goodwill and reputation a lot and will also nurture a sense of trust and transparency. Getting good feedback to your website can be extremely critical to your further product development and service improvement efforts. You won’t have to wait for months and even years to know how your products and services are being received by your consumers.

9. Conduct low-cost market research
Since it hardly costs your visitors any money to participate in quizzes and polls on your website you can use these marvelous tools to conduct low-cost market research and launch new products and services or make improvements to existing products and services.

10. Save on office space
If you manage most of your business operations through your website then you hardly need office space. There are many online store companies that conduct millions of dollars of transactions online every month and still don’t need a place to stock their inventory. Some online companies don’t even have regular staff; all they do is take orders from the website and then forward those orders to the original manufacturers and suppliers. All they have to do is maintain and promote a website and this can be done from your basement too.

11. Establish your brand
Many artists, authors and consultants establish and promote their brands through their websites and blogs. They make use of their authority and knowledge to create a fan following. Numerous bloggers and webmasters have got great book writing contracts through their websites.

12. A website opens a slew of new opportunities
There is a complete new world out there on the World Wide Web. Millions of people access the Internet for leisure, communication, education and business every day. It is a huge business, marketing and promotion potential for your organization.

Online-Payment has dramatically increased in popularity and each day more customers think about their convenience in paying their bills. Online Payment is popular, because it is generally easy and convenient. Based on these principals, Solutions Infini has decided to “go with the flow” and offer this function to their clients too. So please make the best use of it. To Make your Payments online please click here.

Benefits of Making an Payment Online :

• Customer convenience – You save the extra step of writing and sending a check or depositing the money in bank.
• Immediate authorization – With automation, you know immediately if an Internet payment is valid. No waiting for checks to clear.
• You will save time – You don’t need to line up in queues to obtain cash, set up direct debits themselves or go to the effort of mailing cheques. By completing just one form, the amount will debited of your account or your credit card and will save you considerable time and hassle… with more time to enjoy doing other things.
• You will save money – Paying “Online” will reduce bank float to as little as 1-2 days. It also will reduce the level of human error in the accounting department. At last there is no lost or stolen check to worry about.
• You will be safe – There is a lot of ambiguity in the minds of users when it comes to financial transactions online. We are working together with Direc Pay – one of the safest online-banking in India. Their guidelines of safety are strict and therefore they can provide a 100% safety on all bank-transmissions.
• You save trees – More and more trees are being cut to produce paper which is used in making checks and envelopes.  SAVE TREES and spread Greenery in the Environment.

A Website is not a luxury choice for your business,  it’s a marketing tool which represents your company’s competency and ethics. Why compromise that tool and risk that important source with unprofessional look?

Regular Website Vs Professional Website

1. Professional Website Designers go through various process in-order to understand your products and services and help to reach your prospective clients in a user-friendly environment.

2. Professionally designed Website attract online visitors and inspire them to explore more about the Company.

3. You gain your visitors and clients trust through representing your company in professional way.

4. Professional website stays fresh for at least 2-3 years which saves your investment in-terms of re-designing every year.

5. Leading companies have outstanding websites, because they see the potential.

1. Be consistent in your layout

When you are consistent in your layout, this makes navigation easier. This is especially important for people with disabilities because when navigation is easier, they have less difficulties to access your site.

2. Avoid using tables for layout

Many designers use tables for layout, while others consider this a bad practice. We are not going to argue if design with or without tables is better because each of them has its pros and cons but as far as web accessibility is concerned, tables are bad. Tables are non-linear and this creates a lot of problems for the devices that parse the page.

3. Don’t Use Deprecated Tags

Deprecated tags might not always be suppirted by all web browsers, thus not guaranteeing that your site is displayed correctly. Much like any language on Earth, HTML is evolving. With W3C leading the front, web development is going towards full separation between presentation and style:HTML formatting tags vs. CSS.

Deprecated tags are simply HMTL tags that are in the risk group of going obsolete. They shoud therefore not be used. Here is an extensive list of deprecated HTML tags.

4. Think Navigation

When you design for visually impaired individuals, a clear, visible and understandable navigation path is very important. The structure and names of each included navigation link is thus as important as the design.

Make sure you spend some considerable time figuring out what content your visitors are looking for and then via the navigation make it super easy to reach it. Use larger font sizes for the menu items and place your link menus clearly visible. Also skip flash to not only confuse the visually impaired, but to limit search engine indexing as well.

5. Write Simple

It is a known fact that the same text is more difficult to comprehend when you are listening to it than when you are reading it. For the visually impaired and audio dependent, the written language is thus vital. Avoid using long sentences and paragraphs and words that are difficult to understand.

6. Use relative font sizes

Relative font sizes give users more control over the size of the text they will display in their browsers which is why you should use relative font sizes whenever you can.

7. Use Sitemaps

Sitemaps are a necessity in any case but when web accessibility is concerned, they are vital. Sitemaps ease navigation incredibly and you must always include them in your sites

8. Consider Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts ease navigation without the mouse.

9. Use textual descriptions for nontext elements

Any non-text element except spacer images and design graphics should have textual descriptions. This could be done in the <alt> tag or with a caption.

10. Use high contrast color combinations

High contrast color combinations are easier to read even by people without any visual impairment, so there is no reason to put for example light gray text on a white background.

11. Don’t use colors to convey information

It is not only the color blind who won’t be able to read pages where color is used to convey information. Use colors as decoration, not as a way to communicate with the user.

12. Don’t use flickering effects

It is not only ads and animations where your head spins because of all the flickering effects. Flickering is not only bad for people with visual disabilities but it is also irritating for many others, so there is no reason to use it in your designs.

13. Death to Frames

Frames are so last century! Even if frames were not a web accessibility sin, there is no point in using them. In case you absolutely have to use frames, provide an alternative noframes version for the modern user as well as for the impaired.

14. Use simple numbering for lists

Similarly to tables, long lists should be broken down in smaller chunks. You need to be especially careful with nested lists – nested lists 5 levels and deeper are difficult to follow even by academicians, not to mention by people with visual limitations.

15. Avoid using automatic redirects

Automatic redirects are disscussable because when you use them, it is quite possible that the user might have not finished reading the text and when he or she is redirected, this makes it more difficult for him or her to follow. Also, for slideshows, presentations, and similar stuff, don’t use automatic forwarding to the next slide.

16. Scripts and noscript versions

It is true that scripts can add a lot of functionality to a page but when due to various disabilities users can’t take advantage of this advanced functionality, scripts make no sense. Additionally, in many situations scripts simply can’t be executed and this is why you absolutely must take care that the noscript version of your pages has the same functionality as the scripted one.

17. Add a Skip-to-Main-Content link

For site visitors who do not navigate via the mouse but the keyboard primarily, a link to help them jump to your page’s main content is often appreciated.

18. Put the main content near the top

The top of the page is a crowded space because all important stuff (and ads) go there but since users with disabilities might not be able and/or willing to scroll down to see what’s there on the page, it is even more important to put the most important things near the top of the page.

19. Label form elements

When form elements have labels, this makes them more user-friendly but for users with disabilities this is more than friendly – it is vital.

20. Validate your pages against the W3C requirements

This is the blog developed and moderated by Solutions Infini Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Here we deal with the latest trends in Web Designing & Developing. And will also come up with some beautiful Tutorials which will help u readers.

So you can start posting your comments, blogs, tutorials and help yourselves and others grow……

So wishing you all the best……