Design NewsAs the weekend approaches, I’m reflecting on a great week. We got our blog off the ground and I am so excited to start sharing some insights into web design. One of the latest discussions I’ve read is that designers are still battling with the concept of great design while keeping page sizes low. If you know anything about website development, you will know that we always try to keep our web pages lean and fast loading. But, the days of keeping web pages under 100k are long gone, in my opinion.
So, if you can’t keep your page size below 100k, what can you do to improve user experience? Well, for years, we have been using different techniques that work well. I think the best way to save on file size is to keep your code as clean as possible. We have used all CSS layouts for years, which has helped. But, there must be more. I found this great article on optimizing images with HTML5 canvas. The article discusses the ability in HTML5 Canvas to optimize your images directly on the viewers web browser.
Ok, so this seems more like a rant about development than design. But, the reason I bring it up in the design section of this blog is to mention that we, as designers, need to be constantly aware of how development and code allow us to better design our sites. As I head off into the weekend, I encourage all you designers out there to learn as much as you can about code. There is a constant battle between what we want to do as creatives, and what the development world needs from us. Knowing exactly how to live in harmony will make us stronger teams that create amazing websites.
