Simple Tips: How to Create a Website Like Apple Apple is known for its fantastic designs and beautiful user interfaces. From iPad to iPhone to Mac, the folks over at Apple have proven time and again that they know how to develop amazing apps and websites that perform admirably. They are so successful that they have spawned an entire style of websites designed to visually awe its visitors. More importantly, They do this without loss of user experience – essential in a world with impatient consumers. Apple owes its success to several different factors – some practical, some necessary, and some inspired. As a Silicon Valley-based website design and development company, SDI has had incredible exposure to Apple, Apple products, and Apple-inspired innovations. So, how do we go about creating a website like Apple? Read on! Tip #1: Be Lean, Be Mean Back in the early days of the internet and website design, it was considered beneficial to have web pages packed with tons of information. It was thought that people would appreciate having all of the information they wanted in one easily accessed area. And before the Internet 2.0 and advances in web architecture, they’d largely be correct. People tend to comprehend information better if a layout is clean and uncluttered. But prior to good indexing, searching through multiple web pages was, at best, maddening. No one wanted to spend forever trying to find what they need on some obscure page. So, it was easier for webmasters to make one page packed with a lot of information. Eventually, web page indexing got pretty advanced and Google got really good at searching through an index for a specific bit of information. Webmasters began to realize a drop in traffic on cluttered websites as people got frustrated with info dumps. Apple was one of the first to see where web design was headed. They perceived that humans don’t like being overwhelmed with information if they can avoid it. A simple website with multiple pages makes comprehension easier and results in less dropped traffic. The human brain process simplicity and organization better than complexity and disorganization. Apple capitalized upon this fact by creating a landing page that is free of excessive information, elegant, sharp, and above all, clean and simple. Steve Jobs and his team figured out that having an landing page is the key to a successful website. People who are interested can be easily guided to “deep information” pages located within the overall website, without being discouraged by excessive information. So, the first tip for a successful website is to emphasize simplicity and clarity. Tip #2 Get a Master Architect The key to any successful website is building with a robust enough code to handle unforeseen problems, such as Google updates, or heavy traffic. Vet your developer partner thoroughly: they should be more than comfortable with CSS, JavaScript, Development platform, PHP, and HTML. CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets, provide a definition for the various HTML elements that you put on your page. It sets parameters for how all the different aspects work and is one of the things that make your website look nice. For an Apple-inspired website, CSS is an important aspect that ties together all the HTML tags on your site HTML or Hypertext Markup Language is a way for coders to determine how to text on your website is displayed – color, hyperlinks, fonts, and graphics are all displayed according to the HTML tag. A development platform is essential to having a successful website. Not only does it allow for user-submitted content, but it allows your webmaster to easily update your own content – vital in a world of constantly refreshed information. Our development team prefer programming frameworks like Rails, but WordPress and other similar tools work very well for many situations. PHP is a programming language used in web and software development. As for scripting language that responds (on the server-side) to a website visitor’s request. Currently, PHP programming is considered the best programming language for this type of work. JavaScript is essential to develop an interactive website. Like another programming language, it establishes how elements on your website change based upon a visitor’s interaction. For instance, scrolling across the image of a MacBook opens it up, or increases the size, or changes the color, and so on. JavaScript is absolutely necessary for creating a dynamic website similar to Apple, Windows, Google, and other top-rated websites. Tip #3: Visual Design is Key! This is really an aspect of tip #2 but is so important that it deserves its own section. A good development partner is also incredibly familiar with visual design concepts. One of the most successful elements Apple brings to the table is the easily understood and comprehended by anyone. Visual design incorporates several different aspects, from understanding how grid layouts work, the use of color and fonts, contrast and comparison to shadowing and transparency of different HTML elements. Just like a good ‘real-life’ architect, a web architect combines technical and practical elements with visually pleasing and stunning elements. Apple makes waves with every new product release largely because of this very thing. Their excellent use of clean coding means that Apple websites load quickly and smoothly, but their visual design is so perfectly tailored for the human eye that a child can understand it. That’s not to demean Apple at all – despite its visual simplicity, it still manages to look wonderful. A good visual design is one that delights visitors by making use of contrasting colors, having an effective grid layout, use color gradients to indicate varying levels of importance, and use a font that is easy to read, but no boring or out of style. In other words, a good visual design is one that is modern and hip-looking. Tip #4 Find the Right Design Team Find a design and development partner who is not only known for their experienced coders and programmers but who are known for their graphically stunning work. SDI is a premium web design and development company located in Saratoga, California. We create award-winning websites for clients globally. We have an experienced team of programmers (each with a minimum of 5 years of in-field experience and a degree from an accredited university) Our pricing is perfect for entrepreneurs looking to get in the game, but our quality matches that of Apple. We look forward to hearing from you –Contact us today if you want to build a website just like Apple. In fact call us at 408.621.8481 or email us now to get a free consultation and quote.