OK, notepad has popped up with a whole bunch of stuff I don't understand, what now?

OK, now you're just looking for certain parts of the code. Partss that will tell you exactly what the designers have done to get your website looking the way it is.

From this, you can tell just how much time has been spent on a website. Giving you a good idea which designers are banging out quick websites and which designers are taking care in their design.

When looking at the source of the page, you should be looking for groups of code. First things first, look for these:

Frames:

If you see FRAMESET in your source, then this website is built inside frames. This immediately smells of inexperience. Frames were OK in the 90's, but are extremely rarely used in todays design. Why? Well, because there really is no need for them, browsers are not keen on them, screen readers simply hate them.

Tables:

Alot of websites still use tables. There is actually a website design company that produces hundreds of these. Pretty much all of the websites that this company creates uses tables, well, from our research anyway. Which, we can't help but a) laugh about and b) feel sympathy for the client as they really are getting a rough deal on their website.

Why are tables so bad?

Well, back in the day before CSS, tables were all the rage. Why? Well, because that was simply the only way to design web pages. These days however, with CSS and web standards, things have improved considerably.

A website built with tables will not comply with web standards because screen readers find them almost impossible to read and search engines, including your friend and mine Google simply hate them and unless your website is monsterous, will choose a website with clean web standards code over your website every day of the week.

Again, tables show inexperience. They show a designer who has refused to move on with their design knowledge, refused to adhere to any rules and more importantly refused to provide their client with a good clean website.

Now don't get us wrong, we love tables here. We always have and probably always will. They're easy to create and do what you tell them to do. But, unfortunately, times move on and you have to go with the flow and adhere to the latest ways of working. The new way of working is more time consuming, which of course isn't great for business, but it's great for the client, and let's face it, the customer is always right, right?

These days, a website made with tables is almost certainly created by initially getting the clients approved image, using a piece of software to slice up that image and then thrown together in a slap dash way.

A website made with tables is quick, quite often nasty and is done in half the time a real website should take, quite often less time. It's great for the company as they can still charge the same but put very little effort in.

That's not to say a website cannot use tables at all. Tables are still often used for forms on most websites. This is because they work better with forms and because they're only a small part of the website they're acceptable, but a website that uses nothing but tables is a poor website created by inexperienced people who simply refuse to move on and are stuck in the stone age.

So what is the right way to build a website?

The right way to create a website these days is with XHTML and CSS.

When you look at the source code for most websites (most GOOD websites), you'll see something like this:

Divs and CSS

If you see this code in the website source code, and you like their designs, then you've just found a candidate to build your website.

Using DIV's and CSS classes is the way things are in design these days. This form of design is loved by everybody ... Web Standards, Search Engines, Screen Readers... Everyone.

Designers and design companies that use XHTML and CSS are designers that care. Care that the client is getting a good website and not just some 5 minute hack job. Which is the way it should be. It's these designers that if I were looking for a website, then I'd insist on having a website with this code.

A couple of very good tools to use to see if your website is well written, is to use the W3 validation services. This service will tell you which sites are well written and will show you if there are any errors on the website. The more errors of course the worse the designer and of course the less they care. Click on the links below, type in the name of a website and you'll see the results:

Website Validator - See if a website has errors

CSS Validator - See if the CSS on a website has any errors

We hope this gives you a good insight into how a website should be created and helps you avoid all the Mickey Mouse designers and companies out there.

Happy website hunting

TSD

Step Two: The Design Process

We appreciate that not everyone is a designer. We also appreciate that not every customer has a clear idea of what it is they want from their website design. Therefore, we do our best to use our skills to advise on how we feel would be best for the websites structure, layout and so on ...

Customers quite often just want a website that looks great and has all the functions that it needs. Of course, with any design, we would need an idea of what colours to use. The way we see it, everyone has a favourite colour or two. All we need to get started are two colours. Obviously those colours should ideally compliment each other, but if they don't, all we'll need is just the one coloour, then we'll advise on a second colour. It's always a good thing for us if the customer can provide a brief idea of how they want their website to be laid out in terms of where the menu will sit, how many columns there should be etc... But this is not important as once we've discussed the websites purpose, then we use our skills to lay the website out the way we feel it would benefit most.

Step Three: Getting the look

Every website design starts in Photoshop. A website designer will put together the layout, with the colours requested and logos etc .. and create a sample image where the customer can take a look and decide if the website design is exactly the type of website they were thinking of. Now, due to people's individual tastes, this is not always a formality. What looks great to one person may not always look great to another. It does happen from time to time that there'll be a few re-designs, so that everyone is on the right page as it were regarding the way the website is going to look.

We've been quite fortunate here at Trojan Soul Website Design. We'd say that 80% of our website designs have been approved on their first draft. Though we of course don't mind if they don't. We're quite happy to adapt any website design until it hits the spot with the customer. There are no limits with our re-designs. It's your website, so as far as we're concerned, the customer is always right, which means we'll perform as many re-designs as is needed to get the website design just right.

Step Four: Coding the website

Once the customer is happy with how their website is going to look, the next step is to code the website. We'll take the approved website design image and code it accordingly. This basically means that we'll turn the website sample image and convert it into XHTML format which your browser can read, which is the website code that makes a website work. We'll then apply a custom stylesheet for the website so that the end result becomes a website that looks exaclty like the sample website design.

Whilst we're encoding the website, this is where we implement your basic search engine optimisation (SEO). Making sure that your title tags, Meta data, Image optimisation and so forth is in place. We must stress at this point that the search engine optimisation (SEO) we provide at this stage is basic search engine optimisation (SEO). SEO is a timely service that cannot possibly be implemented all at once for your website to be number one on Google. For a full description of SEO, please visit our search engine optimisation page.

Step Five: Cross browser capability

Of course, with so many website browsers out there, we have to make sure that the website looks exactly the same in all of them. Now, most of this would have been done whilst encoding the website design. But there are always a few quirks that individual browsers have that need to be addressed so that the website design displays as it should. This process has been the website designers nemesis in the past, and, in some cases still is. But it's a process that needs to be addressed for total satisfaction.

Step Six: Functions

Once the look and feel has been addressed and converted, then we'll add any features that the client has requested into the website design. Also adding further pages should they be requested.

Step Seven: Deployment

Once we feel every angle has been covered, we will then deploy the website design to the internet. Once deployed we'll run through the website to correct any unforseen problems should there be any, which isn't often, but it does happen from time to time. After the website has been deployed, then now is the time when you can go and brag about your new website!

To Conclude

We hope this has given you a good idea of what is involved in creating a great looking website. And help you to appreciate the amount of effort that goes into creating a first class website design. We look forward to working with you.