Chicago Web Design

The main idea behind the concept of separating the content from its presentation is to allow website developers a useful framework to develop their website giving them the ability to change the website’s appearance whenever they like without needing to redo the content structure. This article will explain the rationale behind separating content from presentation.

Don’t get me wrong, there isn’t just one method for implementing this concept. More than that, since the introduction of technologies such as CGI, ASP, and PHP that allow web developers to generate dynamic web pages, a lot of companies have found creative ways to develop their website applications using this concept as their foundation.

Over the past few years, the internet community has been trying to create a set of standards for creating web sites. A new technology called CSS or Cascading Style Sheets has been introduced. There is nothing actually new in the way CSS handles a web page’s presentation. CSS allows the developer to define a style for each html tag element. This is similar to the method developers (programmers) used in the old days when they attached a variable to each html tag defining its style. The major difference is that CSS style definitions can be interpreted by most of the existing browsers available while in the older method the dynamic web page engine performs the interpretation.

The internet standards organization W3C has encouraged the use of CSS by enhancing its ability to control the web page’s look and feel. New style options have been added to the CSS specifications that have not been added to the HTML description language. There’s no doubt that this was a smart move. It’s forced web developers to use CSS to achieve an attractive web page that also supports the principle of content separation. Unfortunately CSS did not find its way into the internet mainstream easily because of compatibility issues with most web browsers. These days CSS is widely supported by most of the major web browsers, while CSS2, an enhanced version of CSS still has serious compatibility issues.

Obviously, the separation of content from its presentation deals not only with the styling aspects, but also with browser compatibility issues. The styling aspects were the first to be handled by web developers and web designers. As the complexity of information technology (IT) systems become increasingly more difficult to maintain, the internet community is looking for a solution that will become a standard so that content can be easily be managed. One goal for this standard is to define a “language” that IT systems can “talk” with each other and exchange information. Large corporations have historically used many different software platforms in their networks to conduct business. Internet based applications can provide a single platform that can act as an intermediary between all of these different systems and allow communication between them.

XML (Extensible Markup Language) has been adopted as a standard to present the content itself. OFX (Open Financial Exchange) is a close relative of XML that has been widely used by financial institutions who have been using Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) systems to transmit orders and invoices over private networks, intranets and the internet for several years.

The need to present the content in a standard way that separates it from any design elements was so urgent that for the first time in software development history all the three major players (SUN, IBM, and Microsoft) actually agreed with each other and XML become a standard almost overnight and was adopted by many content providers and news agencies.

Web Design

For a year or two web professionals raved about social media and how it would change the face of online advertising. It became an essential element for every website design. Now the hype has died down it is time to assess whether it is worth all the effort when you're designing your website.

The basics: Social media is a category of practices, technology, tools, and online sites which utilize social relationships, participation and user-generated content. It is focused on using internet technologies to connect with audiences and draw them into an on-gong conversation. About making a more personal connection through your website and the supporting internet media you choose to utilize. If conducted successfully that helps to keep audiences engaged and committed to a company.

A very basic social media network may allow a user to search for a company website, follow a link from the website to the company blog, then click on an application which allows them to 'like' the company on their Facebook account, leave a link and a message for their friends, who, in turn, can follow the link back to the company website. Social media creates a network of sites, all directing traffic to your website, where companies can generate content, have a certain level of control over the messages but also actively engage users.

Types of social media include social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Hi-5, and Bebo. Twitter, the video sharing site, blog platforms such as WordPress and Blogger and any internet forum is a type of social media. They can all be used with your website to form a relationship and encourage repeat business.

Do you need it on your company website? This all depends on what you do.

If your company is used by one time customers or customers who are not accessing it then there will not be a great benefit in creating a social media presence. If your company targets young people, say you own a nightclub which caters to a university aged crowd, there would be a huge benefit in creating a social media network for your website.

A company which is not technology based, for example a carpet cleaning company or a refrigeration repair company, with one time customers may not need social media. People do not form an attachment to the carpet cleaner nor they expect to need to call the refrigerator repair man more than once so there is no benefit. A website design company without it, the network seems a bit behind the game.

Building a social media network to accompany your website can be very time consuming, as is any relationship building activity. It needs regular updates and takes time to generate new content and takes creativity. A company also needs staff with the time and skills to update the network.




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