LWEBG is a web design firm founded in Louisville, KY providing quality e-commerce web design and development services from our offices at 4965 US Highway 42. We’ve been in business since 1998 and we’re members of the Greater Louisville Chamber of Commerce and the Better Business Bureau where we have maintained an A+ rating since we’ve been members.
If this isn’t your first experience with working with a web design firm, you’ll notice a lot of differences when you work with LWEBG and it begins with service. When you work with us, you’ll always speak with a real person and if you ever have questions, all you have to do is call us. We really do answer our telephone and we answer it 24/7/365. You’re never in the dark with LWEBG.
Another difference is in the actual programming techniques we employ. Every web site we design validates (XHTML & CSS), passes a link validator test, meets Section 508 guidelines.
In addition to providing the most stable and robust eCommerce website design solutions, you’ll be pleased to know that the LWEBG development team can develop websites in any popular Content Management System, including Joomla, Wordpress and Drupal.
Our lead programmers are expert at developing custom desktop and web based applications.
Need something that will function on smartphones? Our mobile development capabilities are unmatched and our SEO team can make sure your customers can find you online.
The Importance of Best Practices in Web Design
Today’s best practices are focused around user experience and quick access. Proper user experience incorporates a number of disciplines to impact the overall experience a person has when viewing the work your web designer has created. It involves a sequence of interactions between you, through your web design, and a web site visitor. When you design a website, you have a series of objectives you wish to accomplish and it is your web design company’s job to apply the proper web design elements to effectively communicate those goals and maximize the effectiveness of your message.
The Most Effective Websites Offer the Best User Experience:
An aesthetically pleasing web design, applying the right amount of visuals, including graphics, photography and videos
Proper use of text to describe your company and establish reasons a person should do business with your company
Clean and accurate navigation to enable viewers to quickly find the information they seek
Our web design team specialize in creating stimulating artwork that inspires viewers and motivates them to become customers utilizing CSS Web Standards programming and html.
A Brief History of Web Design
The first web design was published in August 1991 by Tim Berners-Lee, not Al Gore! Berners-Lee was the first to combine Internet communication (which had been carrying email and the Usenet for decades) with hypertext (which had also been around for decades, but limited to browsing information stored on a single computer, such as interactive CD-ROM design). Web design companies develop websites in a markup language called HTML, and early versions of HTML were very basic, only giving a website’s basic structure (headings and paragraphs), and the ability to link using hypertext. Web design using HTML yielded a new and different result from existing forms of communication – users could easily navigate to other pages by following hyperlinks from page to page.
As web design progressed, the markup language changed to become more complex and flexible, giving the ability to add objects like images and tables to a page. Web design features like tables, which were originally intended to be used to display tabular information, were soon subverted for use as invisible layout devices. With the advent of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), table-based layout is now considered very outdated. Database integration technologies such as server-side scripting and design standards like W3C further changed and enhanced the way web design is done. As times change, websites are changing the code on the inside and visual design on the outside with ever-evolving programs and utilities.
Web Design that’s Accessible
To be accessible, Web pages and sites must conform to certain accessibility principles. These accessibility principles are known as the WCAG when talking about content. These can be grouped into the following main areas.
Use semantic markup that provides a meaningful structure to the document (i.e. Web page)
Semantic markup also refers to semantically organizing the web page structure and publishing web services description accordingly so that they can be recognized by other web services on different web pages. Standards for semantic Web are set by IEEE
Use a valid markup language that conforms to a published DTD or Schema
Provide text equivalents for any non-text components (e.g. images, multimedia)
Use hyperlinks that make sense when read out of context. (e.g. avoid “Click Here”)
Don’t use frames
Use CSS rather than HTML tables for layout
Author the page so that when the source code is read line-by-line by user agents (such as screen readers) it remains intelligible. (Using tables for design will often result in information that is not.) However, W3C permits an exception where tables for layout either make sense when linearized or an alternate version (perhaps linearized) is made available. Website accessibility is also changing as it is impacted by Content Management Systems that allow changes to be made to webpages without the need of obtaining programming language knowledge.
eCommerce Web Design Since 1998
Louisville Web Group has been developing e-commerce solutions since 1998 and we’ve worked with virtually every end use application applying virtually every “open source” e-commerce platform available including Magento, OsCommerce, X-Cart, Zen Cart, VirtueMart, Lite Commerce, DashCommerce, and more.
Here is an example of a simple and inexpensive open source ecommerce solution that we’ve developed, Scentsational Candles. Our first ecommerce web design solution for built for Office Time Savers in LiteCommerce. We’ve built this site for Gun Holsters Unlimited in Magento. Another more intricate e-commerce development solution in OsCommerce is Century Beauty Supply. We’ve recently done work for the world’s largest e-tailer, Swiss Colony.
Our preferred e-commerce engine is now Drupal Commerce.
Using Drupal, we’ve developed a website for Mohawk Medical, a pharmaceutical firm and 1800 Tool Repair, a tool parts and repair company with several hundred thousand parts available online.
Our web site design team specialize in creating stimulating artwork that inspires viewers and motivates them to become customers through the use of front end applications like CSS and XHTML. Our e-commerce web design team creates e-commerce systems that are rock solid, secure and easy to use through the use of PHP and ASP.NET in concert with SQL or Access databases.
Some Key Words and What They Mean
HTML (the Hypertext Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) are two of the core technologies for building Web pages. HTML provides the “structure” of the page. CSS is a powerful language for describing the (visual and aural) display of pages, for a variety of devices. Along with graphics and scripting, HTML and CSS are the basics of building Web pages and Web Applications.
What is HTML?
HTML is the language for describing the structure of Web pages. HTML gives authors the means to:
* Publish online documents with headings, text, tables, lists, photos, etc.
* Retrieve online information via hypertext links, at the click of a button.
* Design forms for conducting transactions with remote services, for use in searching for information, making reservations, ordering products, etc.
* Include spread-sheets, video clips, sound clips, and other applications directly in their documents.
With HTML, authors describe the structure of pages using “markup.” The “elements” of the language label pieces of content such as “paragraphs,” “lists,” “tables,” and so on.
What is XHTML?
XHTML is a variant of HTML that uses the syntax of XML, the Extensible Markup Language. XHTML has all the same elements (for paragraphs, etc.) as the HTML variant, but the syntax is slightly different. Because XHTML is an XML application, you can use other XML tools with it (such as XSLT, a language for transforming XML content).
What is CSS?
CSS is the language for describing the presentation of Web pages. This includes colors, layout, and font information, as well as how to change the presentation on different types of devices, such as those with large screens, small screens, or printers. CSS is independent of HTML and can be used with any XML-based markup language. The separation of HTML from CSS makes it easier to maintain the code, share style sheets across pages, and tailor pages to different environments. This is referred to as the separation of structure (or content) from presentation.
What Does All This Mean to You as a Louisville Business?
It means that the website design and backside coding that Louisville Web Group uses are perfectly suited for Search Marketing (SEO) and that your website will be stable, secure and a productive member of your marketing team for years to come.
Louisville Web Group also specializes in eCommerce Website Design, Mobile Website Development and Web Development.
Call us at 502-749-4131 to talk more.
