Mistakes of a Freelance Web Designer and How to Avoid Them

Working as a freelance web designer can be tough. It is true that we are our own boss and we manage our own time. You are your own assistant, accountant, scheduler and it can be tiring. Sometimes, it seems easier to be employed in a company and work from nine to five. As a freelanceweb designer, you can and will make mistakes along the way. It’s better to know what you need to avoid and how to avoid these mistakes before you even encounter it.

Struggling to find clients

Freelance web designer’s biggest frustration is finding clients. They constantly chase clients to hire them which should not be the case. You can offer complimentary services to your previous clients or clients you already have. By offering these services, you are increasing your income, and you are not chasing clients. Word of mouth will be your biggest ally to gain clients. Make sure that you do your best and your clients will definitely promote your work to others.

Doing everything by yourself

You are your own company when you are a freelance web designer. You find clients, attend meetings, answer the phone, and prepare documents, answering email and so on. This should not be the case. You can hire someone to do these things for you. You can hire a virtual assistant. You can set a margin for the salary. This way, you can meet with your clients and find new prospects. There will be less stress on your end.

Failure to communicate

Clients would like to know what improvement can be made totheir website, how long a maintenance or tweak in their website will take. They don’t want to be guessing and left hanging. Respect your client and let them know everything they need to know. Always loop them in whatever you do.

Spend time on Testing the website

Regardless of whether you are very proud with your work, you need to put it in a ‘test phase’ just like all websites. It may be time consuming but it will definitely save you the trouble of having to having to fix the problems when the site is already launched. It’s best to make sure that the design and code of the site are both flawless.

You do too much

Some designers literally do too much that it complicates the work more rather than making it problem free. If a problem occurs, it is better to address it using basic clarity solutions. 

7 Guidelines on User Interface Design on Websites

If you are a web designer, most likely you are also a user interface designer. This is applicable whether you are a graphic designer, freelance web designer or full time web designer. Web pages these days are very easy to navigate but with new technology, web designers need to create a more dynamic and customized web experience.

User Interface Design focuses on the user or customer’s experience with the product. It’s goal should be making the user’s interaction as easy, simple and efficient as possible.

There are 7 things that you need to remember about designing a user interface website.

1.       Everything should be clear – Every user will avoid or gear away from elements or icons they don’t know. It is human nature that people will ignore things they are not familiar with. When designing a website, stay away from things that will make people ask what that thing does or people will most likely ignore because no one will bother finding out.

2.       Preferred action – Each user would feelcomfortable if they know and understand what to do next in a certain website. Everything should be clear and the next step that the user is supposed to do next should be obvious. The website will be a flop or will receive assistance requests if the users are not familiar with how to navigate the page.

3.       Context – Users expect to see elements or icons that they use close to each other. If not close, then, they should be somewhere visible on the page.

4.       Default settings – Default settings can be and will be very powerful.  All default values of the website you are designing should be as useful and practical as possible. Most people don’t change the default settings of their phone, TV even their fridge.

5.       Guide for the action – Users don’t usually do something unless they are asked to. If you designed a pop-up question every now and then, then that’s the only time the user will follow your instruction or answer your question. If you want the users to do something, then ask them to do it.

6.       Feedback – Users want to be in control of the page they are navigating. Create elements that will make users in control and in return they will use the product or program again.

7.       Ease – Make your website less complicated and more engaging. Show the users the step by step process of whatever it is that you would want them to do in your website. Remember that users hate boring, hard and overwhelming things in a website.

Slow Responsive Web Design Sites Are Bad for Business

Responsive web design not about making sites for mobile devices, it’s about adapting layouts to viewport sizes. Responsive web design means that you don’t have separate mobile, tablet, and PC versions of your site. Slow responsive web design sites are bad for business. Your customers have web performance expectations no matter what device or network they are using.

Website Design Image Trends To Look Out For

As a web designer, choosing pictures for your website can be difficult, since there’s a lot to choose from. You can’t just pick what you fancy, right? Therefore you have to be strategic because everything that you decide to put on your website will determine its value. Having said that, here are some trends that may help you decide.

Monochromatic Visuals

If you don’t want your website to look over the top, then as a web designer, the clean and smooth look of monochromatic visuals may fly for you. It’s also a good way to lead your site visitors to your website’s content hierarchy since the photos are inviting yet not too flashy to the point that it distracts them altogether. This trend, contrary to other’s beliefs, isn’t restricted in black and white combination alone. This simply focus on a specific colors instead of rich combinations, so other shades and colors are fine.

Clever Infographics

They say that a single photo speaks a thousand words. Therefore what better way to please the eyes of visitor and convey a message to them than clever infographics?  Besides, people are more likely to be hooked with infographics than a block of texts. Plus, it’s strategic because it combines the power of both visual and textual information.

Hero Images

Though the reason for the term can’t be explained yet. You may look at it as large image the stands alone to represent the website and strive for its victory. Sounds like a hero right? So, instead of trying to jam sliders and text in one page that may or may not point to the sites objective, why not use hero image that do that with much less noise.

Real Images

Stock images may look good, but not when you’re trying to relate to your target market. If you want to gain trust from users and create sense of familiarity with them, you’re better off with real images. Why? Because they’re more believable than those pretty stock models.

Photo Manipulation

Now, don’t be worried about real images look a little too dull. Because you can tweak them a little bit to achieve your desired effect. Dream-like, blurry, vintage-style versions of real photos can now be done using filters andeffects. 

Vector Graphics

The difference of vector graphics to regular images is that the first are based on strokes while the latter are based on pixels. Now you’re wondering the advantage of vector graphics? Well, as a graphic designer who wants distinct visuals, better image quality and faster loading website, then vector graphics is your new best friend. Aside from that, it also works especially well for background images, header and footer.

Web designing is definitely no joke. You have to pay attention to the most intricate detail while trying to ace the bigger picture. But for a web designer who is passionate about what he does, it’ll help to try to see them as little bumps on the road to success. Besides, there are always some tips like these that will help you along the way. 

The Anatomy of a Web Designer

Based on a survey of 500 web designers, this presentation shows the attitudes towards the web design industry on a wonderful medical journal themed design. Find out about web designers attitudes towards money, the future of web design and competition speculative work with our "anatomy of a web designer"

10 Inspiring Ecommerce Website Designs

The most dominant sense that people rely to and value would be their sense of sight. We are 90% visual beings wherein what we see affects what we do, what we feel, and what we are.

This is the reason why an ecommerce website designer takes designing seriously. Because they know that if the website don’t appeal to visitors within seconds of seeing it then the chances of those visitors buying or availing anything from the site would be very slim.

Though first impression are often wrong, still, it last. Hence, as a general rule, the design has to be visually appealing.

Aspiring ecommerce website designers just have to fully understand and appreciate the wonders of typography, creative navigation options and other aspect, and learn how to combine all of those. When they do, they’ll be able to creative a website that will attract clients and make them stay through the sites personality.

Here are some of the website that may inspire all the designer-minds out there:

1.    Tierra POD

2.    Redmart

3.    Skinny Ties

4.    Satchel Page

5.    Everlane

6.    Bold and Noble

7.    Stacy Adams

8.    Qrowdr

9.    Freepeople

10. Faucet Face

Since the purpose of an ecommerce website is to lure people into buying whatever the site is offering, it is but reasonable to make sure that the site alone is attractive enough. If a designer can’t do that, there’s no telling that the site will prosper.

Why Good Website Design is So Important

So, what are the right choices? We gathered the data to answer that question in this easy-to-follow Presentation. Learn which parts of your website design impact users the most so you can properly plan, prioritize, and optimize your site.

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