Web Design-Getting Started

Getting started is almost always the hardest part of a new project. Keeping things organized and having a clear cut idea on your first steps is a good way to stay on track. Here are a few tips to getting started with your Flash web design.

1. Organize Your Folders. By organizing the content for your site in different folders,
before creating the actual pages, you’re making sure everything you need is clearly
labeled and at hand. Create different folders for different files and give them simple and
clear name tags, such as “graphics” or “pictures”.

2. Structural Guidelines for Flash Web Designs. Just as you organized your designated
content, make sure to keep your Flash timeline structure and library clean and in a
condition to be reused. Think of future projects. Create layer folders if you have more
than 10 layers on your timeline. Think of unique name tags for your layer names. Don’t
use default names such as Layer 1, 2 etc. It may become more confusing as you
accumulate information on your site. To remove unused objects from a library simply click
the small drop down arrow, select the unused items and click on delete.

3. Consider File Sizes. You want your website to be unique and catchy, but at the same
time, it’s also important that your website upload at a reasonable rate. People today pay
more and more money to make sure their internet is fast and efficient. File sizes are large
part of this. Also, distributing your content and media on different pages also helps.

4. Standing on Giant Shoulders. Searching for inspiration on the web is recommended.
Just make sure you’re not flat out copying. If you’re creating a business website for
example, check out other Flash business websites and see what they’re doing. Learn the
competition, study the field. While you want to be different, you also want to be able to
communicate in the same design language as your competitors, and make sure that you
are clear and understandable to your public.

5. Cautious and Sparing Use of Flashy Graphics. Be careful when using Flashy, blinky,
rotating or moving graphics on pages with textual content you expect your site visitors to
read. Flashing graphics are fun and great on certain pages, but they can be tiresome and
distracting on pages where visitors are expected to stay for a long while. Certain study
groups found that many people actually resort to physically covering Flashing graphics
while reading long texts on a page.

6. Test Your Website in Several Browsers. Does this scene sound familiar? You’ve just
created a modern, sophisticated, cutting edge website you are incredibly proud of. The
only problem is – it only works on the most modern and updated browsers. Well, we all
fall in love with our latest designs but it’s important to remember that you’re creating a
website for the online public, and not for yourself. If most people can’t view your pages
because you’ll find yourself playing in a lonely court.

7. Maintaining a Balanced Design. Make sure you don’t have too many white spaces. You
don’t want to have an overcrowded web page, but make sure you don’t leave it too
spacey. Even if you’re using a relatively asymmetric web design, use the ruler to make
sure the spacing between the different page elements operates on fixed principles.
Beauty is often perceived as what appears to have an aesthetic logic.

8. Texts Rule the Web. Make sure you have texts on your website, particularly on your
homepage. The search engines index websites based mainly on the textual content. This
also includes Meta tags, including titles, descriptions, keywords and headers (headers
also appear on the website itself). Take some time to research the keywords that are
most relevant to you and add relevant textual content to your new website.

* To start building your website - Go to our Free Flash Templates, pick the perfect template for you and start working.