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

While there are no rigid rules when it comes to web design, there do exist certain metrics that can distinguish a bad design from a good one, and even more so, a good design from a great one. Yet, there indeed are many practices that you can implement in order to ensure that your web design endeavors rank among the good ones - clean typography, proper usage of colors, responsive and minimal design, and so on. The question is: how do you take your good design to the next level? How does a good web design become a great web design? As a designer, you are not just competing against the others in the industry - instead, you are also attempting to outdo your own past works. Naturally, now that you are already knowledgeable about typography and colors and other design aspects, it is time you moved on to ideas that can transform your good design into a great one. And in this article, I shall be discussing those very ideas! Overview: Your Side of the Story As a designer, yo...

Web design trends come and go every year, and it's important for designers and business owners to keep up with them in order to stay up-to-date and avoid having an outdated website. Although minor trends pop up all the time, we'll only talk about major trends in this article: simplicity, storytelling, and responsive design. When reading about the following Web design trends, think about it in terms of user experience rather than the actual style of design. Style of design is fairly irrelevant because it is quite subjective and there's no right or wrong answer there. Simplicity You would think the meaning of simplicity is pretty obvious, but many people are probably thinking of the wrong idea. I'm not saying that websites need to be simple or plain, but they need to follow best usability practices in order to make the user experience as seamless as possible. Simplicity means to avoid cluttering your website or adding useless information that your user...

Web design projects are becoming more varied and complex with each year that passes. And one trend which looks set to explode in the next 18 months is global brands rolling out their existing corporate websites to new markets across the World. This globalization mindset is here to stay and as a result web design agencies can expect more website localisation projects and will have to ensure design is catered for an international audience. The demand for localized content has grown exponentially over the last 5 years as internet users surfing habits continue to evolve and become more sophisticated. Rewind the clock back a few years and the majority of corporate pages on the web were written in English however as we head into 2014 consumers want to be served compelling content, written in their own native language. With 2.3 billion web users Worldwide, recent stats show you can reach 90% of those users with just 13 languages. These changing conditions are prompting brands to e...

This year has brought powerful new UI concepts, open source projects, and new hacks/tricks for web designers and developers. Those who are interested in what makes good web design have probably noticed the steady improvements. Looking back even one decade to 2003 you'll find the Internet and the WWW have come a long way. In this article I want to reflect back back over 2013 at some of the more popular web design trends. Some have been going on for years, but I noticed a peak this year with more designers accepting and even improving upon these techniques. Dynamic Web Forms This has been one of my favorite topics worth discussing because of the incredible advancements with jQuery plugins. I like to demo many JS libraries, yet jQuery is still my personal choice for any new project. I recently found a very handy resource which collects jQuery form plugins to improve user experience. There are other plugins on there too, but the growing category has me giddy every t...

If you have a smartphone, a tablet or a regular computer, chances are you have used an app at some point. We can't get enough of them. They make life easier and quicker. Apps help you remember things, help you find and see things and just all around help you be an awesome(r) person. There's so many to choose from, whether you want a mobile app or a web-based app. Maybe you want something for your Android phone, or perhaps something to boot up on your MacBook Pro. Either way, chances are the app is doing something amazing to help you or create some fun in your life. Apps are increasingly popular and it's becoming easier for people to create them. In making these apps, part of the marketing and promotional technique is to create a website that introduces viewers to the app. The intro to the app typically tells you what it is and why you need it, much like any product. However, there are some differences and tips available for making sure your app (or the site you...

Remember the good old days? You know which days I'm talking about; the days not so long ago when we used to design websites to fixed widths. Looking back now they seem like such a simpler time; a happier time; a time when I could recite every font that was available to use online without a second thought. The truth is that Responsive Web Design changed everything. The world was flat and now it's round, I was blind and now I see, the web was pixels and now it's percentages. With the introduction of RWD, it is vital that we as designers evolve our workflow to better suit the demands of the new web. Many of us have voiced our frustrations on how Photoshop's fixed pixel approach is unsuitable for designing the fluid layouts needed for a responsive website but no useful alternatives have been offered. The web design world is desperate for a bespoke software that is built from the ground up with RWD in mind. Products like Adobe Reflow are a great start, as it shows th...

Within the past couple of weeks, I handed in my notice, after spending over fifteen years working in-house as a designer of websites and magazines for a publishing company. This wasn't a quick or easy decision; but the time feels right to strike out and apply everything I've learnt both through the job - and in spite of it - to working for myself as a freelancer. In the months, even years, that I spent thinking about this change, a lot of thoughts went through my mind about what makes a good freelancer, and what makes a not so good one. If you're thinking about making a similar change, these are a few questions that I felt I needed to ask of myself. It's best to reflect on this stuff before you take the plunge. Is freelancing really for you? This sounds like an obvious question, but do you want to be a freelancer? Spend a little time thinking about whether you really, really want to do it. Not liking your day job, wanting more control over your destiny, ...