Un Chapiteau Parapluie Website

This is a nice looking site submitted to the HTML5 Designs area of my site by a reader. I like how it looks and the HTML that creates it.

Read More: Un Chapiteau Parapluie

What inspires you? Do you have a favorite site you visit for inspiration? Or are there just designs that you think are particularly good? Are there people you like to read on social media for inspiration?

Screen shot by J Kyrnin courtesy Un Chapiteau Parapluie

Today in my newsletter I said some things that may have seemed controversial to some people. If you haven't read it you can read it here. In brief, I believe that most designers are perfectionists, and they can often let that perfectionism get in the way of moving a site forward. I believe several things:

• Web designers should strive for perfection, but relax and enjoy what happens to their creation when it is used.
• Most web designers work on commercial sites or they create sites for commercial purposes (i.e. they are paid to build them), and they need to recognize that there are more factors involved in building a website than just aesthetics.
• A pixel-perfect design that is delivered late can be worse than a less perfect design delivered on time.

These thoughts struck a nerve with at least one reader who responded to my newsletter with:

Is Roxana right? Am I an idiot for suggesting that there comes a point where worrying if a button is 2 pixels too far left or 3 pixels too far down is overkill? Am I an idiot for pointing out that sometimes the business needs take precedence over the aesthetics of one designer or an entire design team? Is it idiotic to assume that a site that functions correctly can be aesthetically pleasing, even if the designers still want to futz with it?

Share your thoughts in the comments below. I would like to talk more about this. I think it can open up an interesting discussion on where aesthetics and pragmatism collide. But if all you can do is call me names, please do that via email, as Roxana did. I would like to keep the public discussion civil. Thanks! :-)

Speedy web pages is one of those things that seem to go in and out of fashion. But the reality is that good web designers are always conscious of how fast their pages load. Because customers will always notice when a page is slow. And sad to say, customers are not forgiving. If a page loads slowly most customers will leave even if the page has previously been fast.

Learn to speed up your pages: Speeding Up Your Web Pages

• How to Speed Up Web Pages
• Even Small Speed Gains are Important
• HTML Frames and Website Optimization (Speed)

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Quoting prices is one of the things that many freelancers have trouble with. There's the fear that they aren't charging what they are worth. Then another fear that they are charging too much. Or just not knowing where to even start with prices. What do you think, is quoting prices hard?

• Things to Consider When Setting Your Prices
• What Pricing Structure Should I Use?
• How to Set a Price for Web Design Work

Website of Minimal Monkey

Here is an example of a minimalist design that could be used in a similar way on blogs or article directories. This is a simple site, but it's got a bunch of fun features hidden under the surface.

Read More: Minimal Monkey

What inspires you? Do you have a favorite site you visit for inspiration? Or are there just designs that you think are particularly good? Are there people you like to read on social media for inspiration?

• Where Do You Go For Inspiration or a Fresh Perspective?
• HTML5 Designs
• Show Off Your Favorite Web Page Design
• What Design Scares You? - Examples of Bad Web Design
• What Web Design Are You Working On Right Now?
• Favorite Favicons
• Iframe and CSS Designs
• Who do you follow for Web design on Twitter?
• Do You Need Help with Your Web Page Design?
• What are Some Great Ideas for Web Page Content?
• What design techniques do you hate?

Screen shot by J Kyrnin courtesy Minimal Monkey

One of the main reasons I value CSS so much (outside of all the things you can do with it) is because once I have a style that I like for some portion of my page, I can package that style up and put it on any other portion of my page or the entire site. While you can use many different CSS selectors to affect your pages, the CSS class and ID selectors let you move your styles almost anywhere.

For example, say I have a paragraph where the background color is red. I could set the style like this:

But then my style only applies to that paragraph. If I pull out the style and put it in a style sheet (either an external style sheet or an internal style sheet) I can then use it in any paragraph I want. I can even use it in DIV elements or any other place I want to have a red background. Learn more about how in the full article.

Read the full article: Using Style Classes and IDs

• Use Multiple CSS Classes on a Single Element
• When Should You Change an ID to a Class Attribute
• What is the Point of Having an ID and a Class Attribute When They Act the Same?

Freelance web design is one of those jobs that can be very tough. You need to be part sales person, part marketing expert, plus a great designer, developer, and people person. You have to compete with lots of other designers, design firms, and customers doing it themselves. Now there are companies that will help small businesses create their websites themselves as well as template companies that let site owners choose a look for their site and install it.

All this can be very disheartening to hear, especially if you’re considering moving into freelance web design. But I think that all this competition is good. It improves the quality of every site that is built from the free templates all the way through the giant sites created by professional design firms or in-house designers. Plus, just because there is competition doesn’t mean there isn’t room for freelancers. Find out what you can do as a freelance web designer even in the face of stiff competition.

Read the article: Is the Web Design Industry Dead?

• Where to Find the Best Freelance Web Design Clients
• What Do You Wish You Knew About Freelancing Before You Started?
• Is the Customer Really Always Right?
• What Traits Make a Good Freelance Web Designer

XML is a web language that many people don't really understand. But before you ask What is XML? or Should I learn XML? you should take a look at the language itself and see if it's something that might interest you. XML is a lot like HTML (in fact, XHTML is HTML written in XML format), but can still be confusing.

Read more: Examining XML

• XML Tutorials
• Free XML Class
• Who Uses XML?
• Beginning XML

Image © J Kyrnin–Licensed to About.com

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Yesterday, I got asked “I want to know the best place to host my website.......” and honestly, I don't know the answer to that as there are so many different factors that can make a good host. Personally, when I'm looking for a good hosting provider I look for a couple of things:

• Do they have good support options and respond in a timely fashion?
  Pricing is Important, But Support is a Deal Breaker
• Do they have a good uptime guarantee?
  What is Uptime in Web Hosting
• Do they provide enough space for my needs?
• Do they cost a reasonable amount, but not too much?
  How to Find Cheap Web Hosting

What do you look for first in web hosting? Why is that the most important thing for you? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

Dragonvale Wizards’ Challenge Main Page

Here’s an example of a web application for iPad (or Chrome) that is, at its heart, a simple multiple-choice quiz. But it’s set up with scoring, leader boards and other features of gaming applications.

Read More: Dragonvale Wizards’ Challenge

What inspires you? Do you have a favorite site you visit for inspiration? Or are there just designs that you think are particularly good? Are there people you like to read on social media for inspiration?

• Where Do You Go For Inspiration or a Fresh Perspective?
• HTML5 Designs
• Show Off Your Favorite Web Page Design
• What Design Scares You? - Examples of Bad Web Design
• What Web Design Are You Working On Right Now?
• Favorite Favicons
• Iframe and CSS Designs
• Who do you follow for Web design on Twitter?
• Do You Need Help with Your Web Page Design?
• What are Some Great Ideas for Web Page Content?
• What design techniques do you hate?

Screen shot by J Kyrnin courtesy Dragonvale Wizards’ Challenge

One of the most popular forms of content on some websites are online quizzes. You see them on Facebook all the time. Things like “What Game of Thrones character are you?” or “Find your favorite HTML tag.” But while these quizzes can be tempting, especially if you are paid for advertising page views. But even though quizzes can generate a ton of extra page views, they can end up hurting your site in the long run.

Learn the pros and cons of quizzes: Online Quizzes—Pros and Cons

Poll: Do you create quizzes for your readers? Will you continue to do so after you've read this article? Post your thoughts to the comments.

Image courtesy Stock Xchng lm913

One of the great things about HTML and web design is that it’s something almost anyone can do. And learning HTML can help kids (and adults) learn programming and other aspects of writing and development.

So this month, I teamed up with the About.com Kids’ Learning Activities Guide, Amanda Morin, to create a series of articles to help kids learn HTML. The articles are written by my guest author (and Amanda’s husband) Jon Morin. The three of us believe that these articles will be an excellent resource for kids who want to learn HTML, or who eventually want to understand how to program computers.

Here are the first few articles in the series. I recommend you and your kids follow through them in order, reading through first Amanda’s information article and then the associated HTML article. Then your kids can sit down and start actually writing HTML to view in a web browser. If you have any questions as you go along, don’t hesitate to let me know. You can send me email to webdesign [at] aboutguide [dot] com or post your question to the comments below.

1. Web Writing for Kids: Style and Grammar – HTML for Kids: The Basics
2. Tools for Kids to Learn Programming – HTML For Kids: The Tools and Rules of HTML
3. Using Bold in Writing and Using Italics in Writing – HTML for Kids: All About Tags
4. When to Use Tables and Lists – HTML for Kids: Adding Lists and HTML for Kids: Adding Tables

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Yesterday, I reviewed an HTML5 website that was promoting an iOS application. And I was thinking that it would have been more interesting if the app had been written in HTML5. That would make it possible for people without an iPhone to use the app, and they could still have sold it on the iOS marketplace, plus they could have sold it on the Android marketplaces as well.

But that got me to thinking, maybe they didn't want to create a web application. So I'm asking you, my readers, today what do you think? Do you want to learn to build an HTML5 web application? Why or why not? Feel free to reply in the comments.

Munch 5-a-Day Website

This is a website for an iPhone app. There are some bits that I like a lot and some bits that bore me. What do you think of this website? Would you buy the app if you found this site?

Read the Review: Munch 5-a-Day

What inspires you? Do you have a favorite site you visit for inspiration? Or are there just designs that you think are particularly good? Are there people you like to read on social media for inspiration?

• Where Do You Go For Inspiration or a Fresh Perspective?
• HTML5 Designs
• Show Off Your Favorite Web Page Design
• What Design Scares You? - Examples of Bad Web Design
• What Web Design Are You Working On Right Now?
• Favorite Favicons
• Iframe and CSS Designs
• Who do you follow for Web design on Twitter?
• Do You Need Help with Your Web Page Design?
• What are Some Great Ideas for Web Page Content?
• What design techniques do you hate?

Screen shot by J Kyrnin courtesy Munch 5-a-Day

CERN document that made the WWW open to the world

Twenty years ago today, CERN posted a document that introduced the World Wide Web to the world. They made the software that allowed the web to function free and openly available to the world. I wonder if they had any idea what this would result in, twenty years on.

I learned about the WWW in 1993 around July when I read an article about “hypertext” in Wired magazine. I was living in Tashkent, Uzbekistan at the time, and thought this new way of writing and interacting with the world sounded really interesting. Of course, I didn't have a computer (and only irregular access to email), so it was nothing more than an interesting idea to me.

When I came home I got a job in 1995 at the U.S. nation-wide ISP NETCOM On-Line Communications. I answered phones in technical support on the swing shift for a few months before moving to the email team answering technical questions about our software, NetCruiser. And eventually moving into a technical writing position writing support documents.

I remember when Mosaic started supporting images and color on web pages. It was amazing. We all crowded around the cube where someone had found a page with pictures! It was extremely exciting. Up until then, all we had had was text and links.

Do you remember when you first learned about the WWW? Or is it something that has always been in your life? What do you remember of those early days of the internet? Share your thoughts in the comments. And lift a glass to toast the twentieth birthday of the web!

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There are many things people have tried to make money on websites. One method you might have seen is the "tip jar." This is usually a paypal type link asking people to donate a little or a lot to keep the site running. Have you ever used one on your websites? Does it sound like a good idea to you? In an informal poll among some friends, some felt they were tacky while others didn't mind them at all. What do you think?

Image courtesy Dave Dugdale of Learning DSLR Video - Some Rights Reserved

Kepler’s Tally of Planets - from The New York Times

If you’ve been following my site for a while you may have guessed that I like astronomy stuff. Today’s inspiration post may not be the prettiest site you’ve ever seen, but it’s still really neat. After you’ve read my review, be sure to visit the live site directly, as a static image really doesn’t do it justice.

Read More: Kepler’s Tally of Planets

What inspires you? Do you have a favorite site you visit for inspiration? Or are there just designs that you think are particularly good? Are there people you like to read on social media for inspiration?

• Where Do You Go For Inspiration or a Fresh Perspective?
• HTML5 Designs
• Show Off Your Favorite Web Page Design
• What Design Scares You? - Examples of Bad Web Design
• What Web Design Are You Working On Right Now?
• Favorite Favicons
• Iframe and CSS Designs
• Who do you follow for Web design on Twitter?
• Do You Need Help with Your Web Page Design?
• What are Some Great Ideas for Web Page Content?
• What design techniques do you hate?

Screen shot by J Kyrnin courtesy Kepler’s Tally of Planets

One of the interesting things about being part of a field that is fairly new is watching how the terms change. When I first started working on the internet companies had things like hostmasters, postmasters, and webmasters. After a couple of years my team hired a guy as a “web producer” (To this day, I'm not sure what that title really meant, sorry Colin!). I have since worked with information architects, web designers, web setters, graphic artists, and web production assistants.

In many ways, every one of these people had jobs that were more or less the same. They designed web pages and web page content and put those pages and content live on a web server. Some were more focused on the layout or images, while others focused more on programs for the site, but in the end we all worked on websites and web pages. This article looks at some of the commonly used titles and explains what the job might do. These are not set in stone, and some jobs may vary, but they are a good rule of thumb.

Read the article: I Know HTML, Am I a Webmaster?

• What is a Webmaster? (1998)
• What is a Webmaster: Part Two (2001)
• What is a Webmaster - Take 3 (2008)
• A Day in the Life of a Webmaster
• Do You Want a Job as a Webmaster?

What do you think? What makes someone a webmaster in your eyes? Share your thoughts or see what other people think a webmaster is or just post a comment below!

I get a lot of questions by email, and so I decided to compile a list of as many of the commonly asked questions as I could. The only ones I think I left out were questions that are so generic (“Can you teach me to build web pages?”) or so specific (“I want to build a website that does x, y, and z and is in these colors. Can you help me?”) that they really aren't useful to most people. But I answered as many of the rest of them as I could.

Is Your Question Here? Frequently Asked Questions about Web Design, HTML, CSS, and Web Development

If your question isn't listed there, what is your question? Feel free to email me at webdesign [at] aboutguide [dot] com or just comment below with your question. I'd love to help you out, and maybe you can stump me! :-)

Cookies are one of those features of web development that I find interesting. Cookies are often considered an evil feature that web designers can use to sneak a peek at the lives of their readers without asking, like a peeping tom peering in a window. But that really isn't the case. A cookie cannot collect any information that the customer isn't willing to provide—they just might not realize they are providing it (like what browser and operating system they are using to visit the website). Cookies are just a tool. In fact, in many cases cookies make websites easier for your customers.

Learn how to build cookies: Build Your First HTTP Cookie

• What are Cookies?
• How Cookies are Used
• Are Cookies Dangerous?
• How Big Can a Web Cookie Be?
• How Many Cookies Can You Use on One Website?