Navneet Panchariya - Web Designer | UI Designer | Front End Developer

Getting your website mobile-ready is attracting a lot of attention of late. Just yesterday Google rolled out a hefty algorithm change that will put an increased emphasis on mobile-usability as a key ranking factor. Most businesses are starting to realize that more customers are visiting them on the web via their mobile devices yet few are acting on that potent piece of information. In a recent study of the top 10000 websites, fewer than 19% were utilizing responsive design, and for the top 100 websites that number is a puny 12%. Some of the largest companies in the world are serving up a very poor user experience to about half the users hitting their site. People don't have the patience to scroll over, expand the screen and try to determine what the meat of the page is on those tiny smartphone screens. They are just going to click the back button and try out your competitor. For the companies who get it, this is a huge opportunity to add value to their customer experi...

The internet was abuzz for a long time, and the debate continues. To code or not to code? It remains a charged topic with strongly opinionated advocates on both sides. Let's put it to rest. It's 2015. Web design has come a long way. We have ridiculously specialized roles now (like "User Experience Analyst"); it's no longer one designer plowing through the full development stack on their own. We have better tools and efficient best practices. Let's examine both sides of the argument: Why you don't need to code With the right tool, a designer simply doesn't need to know how to code to build a beautiful, functional, and responsive website. What's more, most designers simply don't want to code. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's called specialization. In the past, there was nothing designers could do to get around the necessary development work (if not by them, then by someone else). It was a necessary nuisance....

It's almost incomprehensible to build a website that isn't responsive. The technique has developed to the point that most designers no longer say, 'responsive web design,' we say, 'web design,' and mean exactly the same thing. Naturally, opinions differ on how to implement responsive techniques; many sites that claim to be responsive aren't; most sites that intend to be responsive are only superficially so; there are even a few fixed-width devotees clinging on in the face of all reason. But broadly speaking a responsive approach is the default option for all websites. To understand where responsive design is going, we need only to look at where it came from... Necessity is the mother of invention The rise of responsive web design goes hand in glove with the expansion of the mobile web. Even if developing an m. site, the exponential growth of mobile devices and the accompanying variety of screen sizes makes responsive design the clear ch...

Web design is as much a science as it is an art form. While half of the job is based on sound coding and design know-how, the other half is based on just having an intuitive sense of what looks good and what doesn't. Any web designer worth his salt will develop a strong core of fundamentals to make himself stand out from the rest of the pack. So how do you develop these fundamentals? They won't just appear overnight. Sure, there is no substitute for experience, but a strong education - whether formal or not - also helps tremendously. It's also highly advisable to keep challenging yourself and push beyond the limits of your comfort zone. That will mean the difference between struggling to find and keep clients and actually having clients come find you. Here are the absolute fundamentals that all good web designers should possess if they want to reach sublime levels. They don't all involve technical, computer know-how. 1) Be familiar with the entire desig...