Before and After

I've been throwing around ideas of how to get started on my moms site and found a really great course on Udemy (link below)

Design and Development Tricks

Chapter 4 from the lecture is all about development and in particular lecture 11 is focused on an introduction to HTML with some other useful lectures as well.  As I was listening along to some of the lectures, I started thinking back on elements of a good design.  I like to think of  using the right techniques, but making sure they serve a purpose.

This prompted me to go back and find a site I came across the other day that compared before and after real estate sites

In the book Design your Imagination the authors explains that "the primary concern of a business website is to design a website which is attractive and interactive " When I looked at the sites above, the after websites exhibit appealing colors that invite the user to keep reading and possibly explore the site further.  Other elements that are discussed in the book include using strong colors, centered orientation, easy to read text with simple font.  I'm excited to start reading more on web site design in conjunction with emerging technologies.




Sites and Sources

http://www.udemy.com/web-designdevelopment-tips-tricks/

https://www.agentimage.com/before_after.htm

WebGuru India (2010). Design your Imagination. Brainware Consultancy Pvt. LTD [E-book, version 1]

coming up with ideas tonight!

Creating something new

My mom has always wanted a sleek looking website for her Real Estate Business.  She has been in the business for almost ten years now and this is one area where she can greatly approve.  She has embraced social media by creating a Face book page to advertise her listings, share pictures of new home buyers and she uses this to keep in touch with her clients.  With so many different media outlets, I suggested to her that she needs a central hub where prospective clients can view her listings, fill out questionnaires or get information on buying a home.  She needs an interactive and engaging site to promote her business.

As part of the company she works for, they offer standard web site templates each agent can use but they seem to plain and my mom is anything but that.  I am helping her gather ideas for her site in the next month and I am really excited about it.  This will be my first true attempt to build a site (I did build two sites in college, a long time ago, but after I graduated the sites, along with my school e-mail became inactive).  I have started reading the Dream weaver text to get in right mind site before starting this. Our first goal is to create a Mission Statement and figure out what the purpose of the site will be.  I'll be going to LA in the next few weeks, so by then we decided to bounce some ideas off of each other and go from there.

I'll post my progress in this blog along with other instructional strategies, ideas, and designs that I came across.

This article gives examples of some good sites, that I will most likely gather themes from:

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/04/23/30-beautiful-real-estate-websites/

-graceg