Website Design: The Best 2010 Articles And Reports From MasterNewMedia

What makes for an excellent website design? How can you tell the difference between a web design that really works and one based on a popular cheap template? What's the difference between having an impactful look and delivering real design value?

Photo credit: Rafael Angel Irusta Machin

If you are not an experienced web designer, answering these questions is not as easy as it may seem. That's why the MasterNewMedia team has prepared a curated digest of our best articles and reports on website design.

In this "best of" guide, you will find both a comprehensive selection of guides and tutorials to understand the difference between a good web design and a design that just "strikes", as well all the practical information needed to plan and sketch out your web design ideas. Specifically:

How to identify and understand the basics of a good web design

What is wireframing and what you need to create a mock-up of your site

What are the best tools and services to sketch out your website design, compared by budget, key strengths and ease of use

How to organize and present the content on your web site to provide the best navigational experience to your readers

How web usability and web design can help you package and distribute effectively your most valuable content

Here all the details:

Website Design: The Best 2010 Articles and Reports From MasterNewMedia

Website Design Guide: Best Practices And Examples Of Web Site Interface And Navigation Design Solutions

A highly curated selection of guides, tutorials and visual samples collections that can greatly help you in understanding better what makes a great web site design and to how to distinguish a design that work from a cheapo, splashy, all-smoke-and-no-fire design template.

by Robin Good and Elia Lombardi - June 17th, 2010

Wireframing And Website Prototyping: Best Free Tools To Design Your Website

Website prototyping and wireframing tools can help you sketch out and draft your overall website architecture without the need to hire a web designer to do it. For this reason, wireframing is the first step one should consider when designing a new website. In this guide you will find the best free tools available out there for wireframing and website prototyping design work.

by Robin Good and Daniele Bazzano - June 7th, 2010

Wireframing And Website Prototyping: Best Tools Under $150 To Design Your Website

This guide is devoted to all those publishers who want to get their hands dirty with wireframing and web site prototyping for a reasonable price. In fact, inside this guide you will find a selection of website prototyping tools that cost under $150 per month (well below in most cases) to sketch out the design of your web site.

by Robin Good and Daniele Bazzano - June 21st, 2010

Wireframing And Website Prototyping: Best Professional Tools To Design Your Website

Professional wireframing and web design prototyping tools take a step forward compared with free wireframing tools and commercial website prototyping tools, by allowing you to draw highly-realistic mockups of websites that really resemble the final look of your site. In this guide you will find the best professional wireframing and website prototyping tools that you can use to create compelling visual web design projects.

by Robin Good and Daniele Bazzano - July 5th, 2010

Content Navigation and Search: How To Facilitate Online Content Exploration

In this in-depth analysis, Stijn Debrouwere explores in great detail how to leverage the content search and navigation potential to best serve the needs of your audience. Though this report was originally conceived with news sites in mind, the points it makes and the strategies it suggest are applicable to most any web site wanting to provide high value to its readers.

by Stijn Debrouwere - June 24th, 2010

How Online Journalists Can Improve Their Website Design, Usability And SEO Skills

How can online journalists improve their design, usability and content creation skills? In this report, journalist Eric Ulken shares some valuable insights on what online journalists can learn from web interaction designers to improve the way they create, layout and distribute their content.

by Eric Ulken - February 10th, 2010

Website Navigation Design: How To Provide Clear Instructions And Directions To Your Readers

Connie Malamed identifies and explains which are the most critical aspects to pay attention to when working to add or refine user navigation messages and instructions to help your online readers find what they are looking for or take a specific action.

by Connie Malamed - July 22nd, 2010

Originally prepared by Robin Good, Daniele Bazzano and Elia Lombardi for MasterNewMedia, and first published on December 28th, 2010 as "Website Design: The Best 2010 Articles And Reports From MasterNewMedia".

Photo credits:
Wireframing And Website Prototyping: Best Professional Tools To Design Your Website - Designer Break
Wireframing And Website Prototyping: Best Free Tools To Design Your Website - WebDesigner Depot
Wireframing And Website Prototyping: Best Tools Under $150 To Design Your Website - Yasuhisa Hasegawa
Website Design Guide: Best Practices And Examples Of Website Interface And Navigation Design Solutions - Villedieu Cristophe
Content Navigation And Search: How To Facilitate Online Content Exploration - Stockphoto4u
How Online Journalists Can Improve Their Website Design, Usability And SEO Skills - Taketorise Computer
Website Navigation Design: How To Provide Clear Instructions And Directions To Your Readers - António Nunes