Creating award-winning easy-to-use web design software since 1996
Friday, April 26, 2013
NetObjects Inc. a leading provider of innovative website design software, has announced the release of NetObjects Fusion® 2013. This latest version features an array of new tools and enhancements to build and maintain professional websites. Users of all skill levels can take total control of their web content and communicate with their audiences in an up-to-date and cost-effective fashion. Unlike on-line template builders, NetObjects Fusion provides its users with the privacy, control and ownership of their website, forever. In addition to that, website users have the portability and flexibility to choose their hosting provider, as well as build as many websites as they like, at no additional cost.
NetObjects Fusion has earned worldwide recognition as one of the fastest, easiest ways to create, manage and promote websites since 1996.
Some of NetObjects Fusion 2013 latest features:
HTML 5 Form Elements
HTML5 brings major upgrades to the capabilities of websites. It is a convergence of several technologies currently used to make websites interactive. Using new HTML5 form elements you'll be able to collect more accurate information while providing your site visitors a more engaging experience.
Enhanced Support for CSS3
CSS3 brings a host of new styling capabilities to web pages. Take advantage of animating the elements of a web page, applying different effects such as gradients, shadows and many more options. This will give your website that extra sharp look and feel.
Web Fonts
Web Fonts allow you to give personality to your site's content, while making it more readable, accessible and dynamic. In the past websites were limited to a small handful of fonts. Fusion now ships with a library of high quality professionally designed web fonts. You'll also be able to grow your Fusion font library with complimentary web font downloads from NetObjects as well as any other web font provider.
Image Carousel
Use the new Image Carousel to display any collection of photos in a stunning alternative to the photo gallery. Your photos are presented full sized and with the option to automatically animate them through the collection. Visitors to your website can simply enjoy your Image Carousel and the best news is, you just drop in some pictures and it’s ready to scroll!
Windows 8 Compatible
Only “Compatible with Windows® 8” software and devices have passed Microsoft-designed tests for compatibility and reliability on PCs running the Windows 8 operating system. “Compatible with Windows 8” products install without worry and run reliably with Windows 8.
HTML5 & CSS3 Validator
Your sites will automatically publish using industry-standard HTML5 & CSS3 specifications. NetObjects Fusion 2013’s Validator will be that reliable conformance checker to ensure that your site meets and exceeds the proper specifications. Keeping up with the latest changes to web standards is a full time job, let us do the heavy lifting for you.
Online View
Your dashboard for NetObjects Fusion 13 has a new look and feel. Tailored to the new design of Windows 8, Fusion 13’s Online View provides you with the look and feel of the tiled approach. Here's where you'll find a library of free resources for Fusion web designers. As a complimentary service you'll have access to additional templates, stock photography, styles, typography, tutorials and much more.
New User Interface
With a completely redesigned view, Fusion 13 has a fresh and inviting new look. This new User Interface provides an updated control board to design your new and improved website with ease and grace.
New SiteStyles
New Fusion, New SiteStyles. A SiteStyle is a collection of graphic and typographical elements you can apply to every page in your site to create its look and feel. Use pre-built styles from Fusion or custom build your own to create a look and feel right for your site. You can also select parts of multiple SiteStyles to create custom ones.
New Templates
New Templates come along with Fusion 13. A template is a fully designed page or site that you can use as a starting point for your own pages or sites. A typical template might include a banner and navigation buttons, an assigned SiteStyle, and text or other content. You can start a new site from a template or insert one into your current site.
Monday, November 19, 2012
Steve Raubenstine, President & CEO, NetObjects discusses why businesses need a well-designed mobile website with content optimised for browsing on tablets and smartphones.
With 4G technologies debuting across 11 UK cities this month, a new era of mobile communications is upon us. This promises a host of benefits for consumers and business to interact and share content much faster while on the move. The challenge for companies will be to keep pace with increased expectation and deliver an experience that is both engaging and productive.
A mobile website’s success will hinge on its design; an easy-to-use, slick interface can capture the attention of visitors making it easier for your brand to engage and inspire customers in an instant. As explored last month, once you have a strategy in place to maximise your target mobile audience, it is time to concentrate on designing a mobile website that details and promotes your business in an attention-grabbing and effective way.
Spot the difference – desktop vs. mobile websites
When considering the design and content of a mobile website, it’s important to remember that it is not simply an existing desktop website resized for devices with small screens. A mobile website incorporates a snapshot of the key messages, products and identity of your business. Desktop websites are usually viewed on larger screens, so they can afford to have more content that can be quickly and effortlessly navigated with the precision afforded by a mouse. Smartphones and tablets sacrifice this precision for easy mobility and touch-driven navigation, so a desktop-like website packed with content would be time consuming and awkward to browse quickly and concisely. The best starting point to create a functional mobile website is to develop a simple, clean layout.
The foundations of a good site structure
Easy navigation can be achieved by ensuring the site is no more than three web pages deep. With three layers or less, a visitor can quickly navigate back and forth to access the content they require. Too many layers delays this process by creating additional steps, which can overburden the small processors found in mobile devices. This can slow down a hurried visitor with limited time to browse during a short commute or break. A homepage button on every page will allow visitors to easily return to the website’s main page, further facilitating easy access to content while browsing.
In order to swiftly and simply convey your business’ products, services and key messages, text content will need to be neatly displayed in short ‘scannable’ sections; large blocks of text should be avoided as viewing text-heavy pages compressed onto a small screen quickly becomes impractical and unattractive. The same applies to pictures and branding; choose a few dynamic, well-shot photos of your products and avoid filling a web page with too many logos which should be visible enough to draw the visitor’s attention but still remain discreet and unobtrusive. The borders and background of the mobile website should also reflect your brand’s colours and personality. Cluttered text, complex navigation and poor design will frustrate potential customers causing them to start their search over.
Keeping content ‘lite’
Information contained on the web pages needs to be clear and concise to help visitors easily absorb your website’s content. Instead of paragraphs of lengthy product and business details, focus should be put on the quality and not quantity of information that you are trying to convey. To this end, content needs to be condensed into concise, bite-sized chunks of information conveyed via short, sharp soundbites, bullet-points and sentences.
The maxim, ‘a picture paints a thousand words’, should certainly be borne in mind when considering the visual content of a mobile site. An interesting photograph of your product accompanied by a brief caption can effectively give mobile visitors a brief overview of the product. Videos should also be considered; occupying the same space, but with the ability to communicate more information faster, videos are a rich and growing marketing resource.
Success can be found in attention to detail and that is certainly true when it comes to design. With a slick, streamlined design you will have a strong foundation to further develop a successful mobile website through exploring social networking integration, expanded functionality and intelligent analytics, helping propel your business forwards within the rapidly evolving mobile space.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Steve Raubenstine, President & CEO, NetObjects discusses why it is imperative businesses have a mobile web presence to capture a growing audience on the move.
Web-connected mobile devices are being used everywhere for business from accessing email, downloading reports or updating social media in transit. Worldwide sales of smartphones and tablets continue to trend upwards fuelling not only an increase in the numbers of people accessing company websites while on the move but also a business debate on how to address the mobile web...
A new browsing trend equals new business opportunities
According to Gartner Research, mobile web use will overtake desktop browsing by 2013, with the number of smartphones and browser-equipped phones exceeding 1.82 billion units. This increase in internet-enabled mobile devices is changing the way people browse the web with many people choosing to use mobile devices as their primary internet browsing format. For businesses this means a more dynamic, wider audience to target and build relationships with. It also means that a business and its audience can have near continuous access to each other, allowing the business to tap into a rich resource of potential customers.
Thanks to the growth and spread of mobile internet access, businesses can find their customer base growing organically, as customers can instantly visit a company’s website on a mobile device the moment they hear about its products and services through advertising or word-of-mouth. Such immediate access can not only boost visibility of a business’ website but also increase sales as mobile visitors are able to make spontaneous purchase decisions outside the comfort of their homes.
Adapt to succeed: Why mobile websites matter to meeting audience expectations
In response to this change in browsing habits, businesses are already developing mobile versions of their desktop websites, designed for browsing on portable devices. If you are running a start-up or SME, now is the time to develop your own mobile website in order to keep up with shifting audience expectations and utilise the latest business communication channels and technologies.
By incorporating a clean, functional design with only information and products most relevant to the target audience, a mobile website will be a streamlined version of its desktop counterpart. This will provide an intuitive optimised layout catering for the immediate needs of the mobile visitor, perfectly suited to touch navigation. Without it, visitors attempting to browse desktop websites on tablets or smartphones can often end up frustrated as they attempt to navigate a content-heavy site optimised for a larger screen with mouse and keyboard. In the context of a noisy or hectic environment, a visitor can swiftly become impatient which may delay a potential purchase or drive that visitor elsewhere.
In essence, SMEs looking to drive growth cannot afford to ignore the mobile web; a digital channel that is growing exponentially. The lack of an optimised mobile website runs the risk of alienating a growing proportion of your audience and potential customers that are increasingly present online while on the move.
Optimise mobile browsing to capture a wider audience
Large corporations and well-known brands have also started to develop apps to go alongside their desktop websites. Effective commercially-focused apps, however, can be expensive and time consuming to design and construct. These are often restricted to a single major mobile operating system such as iOS, Android or Blackberry, effectively cutting out potential customers using a different mobile OS. To this end, mobile websites offer SMEs a more cost-effective solution, plus also ensure websites work across a variety of mobile devices. With a growing variety of smartphones and tablets on offer to firms and consumers, a mobile website can make a significant difference in maximising the reach of your business.
Developing a mobile website requires thought to be put into its design, content, layout, functionality and social media integration, but the first crucial step is to understand your audience. To create an effective mobile website you will need to understand what expectations your target audience will have when searching for and browsing your company’s products, services and profile. Knowing the requirements of a prospective customer on the move will allow you to tailor your mobile website to best meet their needs which will in turn help to achieve digital marketing objectives.
Online applications such as NetObjects Mosaic allow you to create a mobile website that can include dynamic content, social media widgets and optimised mobile functions, allowing your business to tap into an up-and-coming digital channel and boost associated leads and sales.
Friday, September 14th, 2012
NetObjects Inc. is proud to announce that we have packaged our royalty free image packs into a convenient centralized location (over 700 images)! You can check them out at our Google+ page here. These photos were taken by in-house staff and are available to all NetObjects customers, free of charge. See a small sample below.
Royalty Free Images for the use of NetObjects customers.
©2012 NetObjects Inc. All rights reserved
Monday, August 27, 2012
We’ve been hard at work and released some significant improvements to NetObjects Mosaic. Creating amazing mobile websites is now easier than ever.
Mobile Site Designers are now able to upload custom background images or repeatable patterns to create a truly unique mobile web site. Content sections on web pages that overlay the background images may now have custom colors and opacity. Designing a great looking mobile website has never been easier!
C’mon in and check it out. Register for a 30 day free trial. (free means free. no payment information required to start) https://mosaic.netobjects.com
Monday, August 27, 2012
Please check out our Mosaic documentation at:
http://netobjects.com/mosaic/documentation/index.html
Monday, August 27, 2012
View this tutorial to learn how to automatically detect and redirect smartphone visitors from your NetObjects Fusion web site to a mobile website made with NetObjects Mosaic.
To learn how easy it is to create a website optimized for the mobile web, visit https://mosaic.netobjects.com.
© 2013 NetObjects Inc. All Rights Reserved.
NetObjects, NetObjects Fusion, SiteStyles and The Web Needs You are registered trademarks and SiteStructure, SitePublisher, SiteProducer, TeamNetObjects Fusion, Changing the World of Web Design, The Smart Way to Build Websites and Build Great Sites are trademarks of NetObjects Inc.
