Nursing Home Design
Nursing homes are designed to serve patients who require preventive, therapeutic, and rehabilitative nursing care services for non-acute, long-term conditions. Usually residents are elderly and frail, but not bedridden, although many will require canes, walkers, or wheelchairs to help them get around.
Patient stays are on the whole relatively long, with the majority of residents staying for the remaining months or years of their life. Most UK Nursing homes will also care for a number of convalescent patients who are in recovery from acute illnesses, but no longer require hospitalisation.
Nursing homes present special design challenges in that for most residents the nursing home is not just a facility, but indeed their home. The reality is that in most cases the residents will live there for the rest of their lives and, moreover, rarely leave the premises at all. The nursing home therefore becomes their entire world. The challenge is to design an environment that is sensitive and responsive to long-term human needs and well-being, both physical and emotional. Thankfully there are a growing number of companies who specialize in the manufacture and supply of stylish yet practical Nursing Home furniture, which means designers are no longer limited in terms of interior d
Web Design – Different Meanings of Design
For some the templates are a shortcut to the world of websites while for others it is a tool for learning. For many designers templates are the road to independence while for others it leads to increase in efficiency. Most of the information can easily be represented with the help of templates and these templates can be used again and again. Most of the designers compare the templates with the designs and consider them nearly the same.
There are drawbacks of using keyboard shortcuts too. At times when a designer uses the templates for modifying the web design, people tend to under estimate the web design work to be very easy. The effort put in for the creativity is usually not recognized. This implies that excessive use of keyboard shortcuts should be avoided especially when you are in front of your client.
The working of the design depends on some prominent considerations that have been mentioned as follows.
Questions:
As a professional designer you should understand that there is nothing wrong in asking questions. The answers to the questions can clarify a lot many things and make your task comparatively simpler. Some of the questions are as follows:
What is the purpose of the website?
Who is the target audience?
Why should people prefer us to the competitors?
Who is accountable for what?
What is the priority?
What is needed to launch the product or services in the market?
How is the website going to be maintained?
Factors that influence the limits of web design:
Some of the ways to influence and enhance the limits of web design are through answering the following questions.
What is the best way to seek the attention of the visitors?
Which factors can distract the visitors?
Is there any possibility of coding the website design in same HTML so that it works on mobile devices as well as desktop PCs?
What the maximum budget allotted for this project?
In how many days should the completed projected be submitted?
When there are restrictions there are problems, but it is the responsibility of the designer to create a design to solve those problems.
Contingency:
Sometimes the unexpected happens and to make the design successful contingency arrangements have to be made.
Sometimes the plug-in that is downloaded does not work as expected. At these times the effort to change the code is of prime importance.
It is also possible that the look of the web design may not be as expected and the designer may need to make some amendments.
Sometimes the negative effect of uncontrollable factors may be so much that the designer may need to extend the time for completing the web design project.
When design is just a noun, design downloading can be a shortcut to obtain quick results but this does not guarantee success. On the contrary when design is considered a verb, it means synchronizing the form and content of the website. Design as a verb requires more effort than design as a noun.
Copyright © 2011
Web Design – Joomla Versus WordPress
Both Joomla and WordPress are established web design applications used by millions of websites across the world. Web Design Companies and web designers have in general supported various open source software for developing websites. Joomla and WordPress are two of the most popular ones and have established communities on the internet. There are hundreds of quality forums and blogs dedicated specifically towards the use of Joomla and WordPress for designing websites. Other web design and content management systems including Drupal and Typo3 have also proved popular and effective. However WordPress and Joomla seem to have an edge over the others in terms of global popularity and use.
Many web design agencies and design professionals are proficient with Joomla and WordPress and are able to customise the software to meet the specific needs of a business. Both these platforms offer the flexibility to extend the core features to meet individual requirements. This article offers an insight into which software is more suitable for developing your website.
WordPress versus Joomla
Usability
WordPress probably scores higher in terms of usability, both from an end user as well as developer’s point of view. Due to its simplicity WordPress is easy to learn and get acclimatised to. However this is also due to the fact that Joomla offers many more features than WordPress and offers more advanced functionality. The new version of Joomla, the 1.5x version has made significant improvements in usability.
SEOMOZ.org, a leading web design and technical blog recently published an article where the author stated that “if you are willing to trade some extra learning time for a more advanced site, go with Joomla.”
Versatility
WordPress is better described as a blog software whereas Joomla is an advanced content management system. WordPress is excellent for publishing content. Joomla on the other hand offers many powerful features. There are Joomla components that target almost every industry and market.
If you have limited time to set up a website or if your requirements are simple then WordPress is probably the better choice. However if you would like to develop or design an advanced website with powerful features then Joomla is more suitable.
Search Engine Optimisation
WordPress is known for its search engine optimisation advantages. By default WordPress is search engine friendly and webpages tend to rank high on Google. On the Joomla needs some customisation in order to target the full benefits from search engines. With the right customisation however, Joomla websites are equally capable of ranking high on search engines like Google. Any expert Joomla developer will design a website to be SEO friendly.
A Joomla websites can be customised a accordingly to overcome any SEO shortcomings.
Scalability
Joomla is easily scalable. Joomla can be used to design small websites as well for developing complex functionality on websites. WordPress is great out of the box and will work excellent if the only purpose of the website was to publish informational content. WordPress is great out of the box but limited somewhat for developing complicated web applications.
Joomla can be scaled as required. Almost any custom feature or application can be developed in Joomla. Joomla has been designed for extending and modifying to meet specific needs. WordPress is fairly limited. There are add-on features available for WordPress as well in the form of WordPress plug-ins but they do not compare to the advanced features that can be developed as add on Joomla modules or components.
Integration
Joomla has clear advantages with regards to extending and integrating the website with other third party applications of software. Joomla has a well formed and powerful API that developers can use to extend the software or integrate with other systems as required. Joomla websites can be easily integrated with other sources or websites.
Development of bespoke features
Joomla is the clear winner here. Customised development can be done in WordPress as well as Joomla. However Joomla’s development framework is more suitable for developing bespoke features for the website. There are many powerful add-on components that can be easily installed on a Joomla website.
Web designers and developers are able to develop additional customised features with ease using Joomla’s powerful development API. WordPress can also be easily extended however development API is not as powerful as Joomla’s.
Administration Features
WordPress has an easy to use, light weight administration panel. It is excellent if the main purpose of the website is solely to publish information. The administration panel is limited to updating or adding new content or media. Joomla has a powerful administration panel that offers a range of features such as e-commerce (Shopping cart), order management, enquiry management, User management, document management, multi-lingual content, etc. Joomla offers endless possibilities are and the administration panel is fully customisable for specific requirements.