Web Designer Blog

When people are surfing the web they will get very impatient when they cannot find what they want quickly. Navigating the web has to make sense to the surfer and right away, so if the web design is done with this in mind, the layout of an effective website will have similarities to all the others.

You need to use standard conventional links like buttons underlining the text and changing the color. It is not such a good idea to use clever names for the links. Simple is good. Keep in mind the type of people who are going to visit your website and have it designed to suit them.

The elements of navigation are very important so whether you are trying to inform a person about a service or product, or trying to sell them this service or product, the web design for your links can be the important factor to consider. Read on »

Website navigation is our common communication system between all other web pages. Interlinking through unique identifiers (URLs) has worked for decades. If anything navigation links have been with the basics of web design since the early days. Through advancements in digital arts and design we have seen new practices bubbling up everywhere.

Accessibility has turned into a major concern for Internet browsers. With more users on their mobile phones and tablet devices it’s important to develop a navigation around common themes. Below are some themes repeated in modern designs for good, clear website navigation. Read on »

The drop down menu has somehow over the years become quite a complicated design element.  This is mostly due to the controversy surrounding its use.  In the opinion of some designers, these menus are simply not worth it.  They’re complicated and clumsy for the user and thus don’t live up to high usability standards.  Because the goal of most designers is to create the best user-friendly experience possible, drop-down menus end up tossed aside in favor of less frustrating options.

However, when done correctly, drop-down menus can be a workable way to organize cluttered layouts and can give a site a decent amount of flexibility and charm.  The key is to follow a few practices well-known for effectiveness and style.

In this post, we’ll explore these drop-down menus best practices and hopefully diminish some of the controversy surrounding this viable design element.

Two-Tiered Frustration

Perhaps the number one source of complaint concerning drop-down menus is the frustration that often results from using two-tiered menus. The main complaint is that they’re extremely difficult to navigate because of the fundamental complexity of the design.

When the user sets out to select an option, he must pinpoint exactly the right area on the menu or risk clicking an unwanted menu item.  After only a few unsuccessful attempts users usually get so frustrated that they simply give up on the site altogether.  The best advice is to avoid the two-tiered structure whenever possible.

Wait to Deactivate

This practice addresses the issue in hover drop-downs where the menu disappears the minute a user removes the arrow from the menu panel.  At that point, the user must start the menu’s search process all over again by hovering over the menu once more.

Designing around this involves coding allowing users to keep the menu open with a hover and to deactivate it with a click on some other part of the screen.  See, for example, the site below.
Read on »

A stunning Flash menu will lighten the website, and impress the visitors. Web designers would like to use Flash menu as web navigation because of its cool visual effects, high-quality animation and great interaction. Flash menu has the feature of extensive cross-browser compatibility, which is well-supported on various browsers and diverse OS, and Flash drop down menu can be viewed correctly by anyone so long as Flash plug-in is installed, it is operating system and browser independent. Compared with to CSS menu and DHTML menu, Flash menu will be more attractive web menu for all of us.

Generally speaking, there are two tools to create Flash menus: Adobe Flash and Flash menu builder. As we know, any tool has its positive and negative aspect, let’s view their effectiveness in creating Flash menu.

In a word, Adobe Flash is a powerful Flash builder, which enables to ad, banner, movie, etc, but it is not ideal Flash menu builder. If you want to create Flash drop down menu in easy and quick way, please resort to professional Flash menu builder.

Next, let’s approach to Sothink Flash Menu and get more info:

Sothink Flash Menu is an ultimate Flash menu builder, which allows us to create attractive & amazing cross-browser Flash drop down menu in clicks. Built-in templates, fascinating Flash menu with special effects, diverse preset styles and image library, we can make SE friendly Flash menus without coding. Fully customize web menu style. Intuitive interface brings better user experience.

Free built-in templates provide wonderful Flash menus like below:

Download Sothink Flash Menu to try all features in it.

Sothink will proudly release a fresh new product soon — Sothink Flash Menu. This is an ultimate Flash menu builder; it not only creates Flash menus which inherit good performance from DHTML menus, but also endow the Flash drop down menus with diverse fascinating visual effects.

Take a quick look at parts of the cute Flash menus

Using Sothink Flash Menu, you can easily:

• Design the attractive Flash menus from rich resources.

The program provides 46 built-in templates, 50 amazing special menu effects, 35 preset styles and 4 categories of image library.

• Create SE friendly Flash drop down menu

Search Engine Friendly Code Maker, Google XML Sitemap and Sitemap generator can generate SE friendly code or XML file to make your Flash menu indexed by search engine spider quickly.

• Build functional menus for web navigation

Flash menu builder can build cross-browser menu, float menu, scroll menu, highlight menu, multi-column menu and non-English menu, etc.

• Import the various files to generate new Flash menu

Flash Menu supports XML/HTML/image as menu item, imports DHTML/tree menu to generate new menu.

• Customize menu style to perfect Flash menu

Make horizontal or vertical menu of unlimited levels, add sound, auto-adjust item size, auto-calculate menu size, embed font in Flash menu, set font, color, icon, transparent…

• Design Flash menus in WYSWYG interface

The program offers variable layout, preview window, publish wizard and ruler.

Good news for you, ask for discount coupon:

After viewing Flash menu samples and getting brief introduction about Sothink Flash menu, if you feel interested in this Flash menu builder; please email us at support@sothink.com with the title of “Flash Menu Release Notification Request”. When the product gets released, we will email you a notification together with a $10 discount coupon.