I want to get more inspiration and ideas for creating web based business applications. These apps have treeviews, tabs, grid, forms, panels..etc. I develop apps but want to improve my design skills. So I would like to look at very good looking online business apps which have good use of text and background colors, good use of a general theme across the site, good use of white space, groupings and a clean layout.
I am NOT looking for web design templates or how to design a web page using css and columns.
I want to design a business app (semi heavy use of controls) which looks polished and professional.
So if you encountered a business app site or template which you liked, please share.
Business app means something like mint.com or salesforce.com.
these apps are worth
checking out for ideas (you can sign up free accounts with all of them)
Invoicing:
Freshbooks.com - popular
Invoicemachine.com - polished UI
Cannybill.com - polished UI
Blinksale.com
GetBallpark.com - very slick and new, saw it on reddit a few days ago
Accounting:
Xero.com - polished UI, they also use lots of ExtJS controls (rare)
LessAccounting.com
Project management:
Basecamphq.com - popular
There is lot more at feedmyapp.com
Check out Salesforce.
Look at the pinnacle of web applications: gmail.
I was impressed with the Terracotta site, it has a lot of good info without being too cluttered.
The Zoho Suite is pretty sweet.
Seconding gmail, and the whole rest of Google's apps. Bonus attention to Google Calendar, that thing is a fantastic example of a classic desktop app made better on the web.
You could also take a look at the samples here:
http://www.sencha.com/products/js/
Related
I am building a prototype of a financial visualization app, using Meteor. I have zero experience in programming, the extent of my knowledge is what I have taught myself in HTML, CSS, JS and Meteor over the last year. I have a solid working prototype, enough to showcase the benefits of the app and am continuing to add more features.
At some point, I will either find a technical partner (with equity) or find funding to hire a developer. In the meantime, various people have recommended that I spend some money ($500-$1,000) to hire a designer and give the app a better look. I am open to this but my questions are:
how would I incorporate this design work into my app? Would they work directly in my code? Or would they provide me with mockups that I would then need to somehow replicate in my HTML/CSS?
I would love to make improvements to the app, especially if I am seeking funding, as I will quickly approach the limits of my programming knowledge (this is a side project). I'm missing a step as to how I would do this. Thanks.
In my experience, the designer will create a wireframe for you. Basically a fully designed page with hard-coded dummy data. Then you can take their code and replace the dummy data with live data.
Make sure you use version control for this step. You want to make sure you can revert to your version in case something doesn't end up working correctly.
There are pre-made templates and themes for websites that can be free or cost as little as $100. You don't get a personalized touch, but they can make things look presentable if you don't want to break the bank for a designer.
I'm researching the choice of drag and drop html5 web development tools that can be used to quick prototype, test, and possibly deploy a fully interactive animated website.
I've taken a look at Google Web Developer but that looks like it is intended to develop animated ads and not web sites.
So I thought it would be interesting and educational to ask you guys to help create a practical list of the 'all-in-one' tool choices that are out there and are the most useful.
Of course writing code is the best choice when time and budget allow but for a quick 'live' demo or prototype drag and drop can often be used to illustrate an idea quickly and maybe inspire more budget for the project :-)
Thanks for any help.
If you spare some $$, try Macaw... there's also a trial version if you want to do something in 30 days.
Macaw is a very new tool with focus on web design. As far as user base, I can't tell, but there has been lots of buzz around it.
You might get around with Google Web Developer for animation, as you mentioned... But if you're willing to experiment with something even newer, there's a project on github called theatrejs.
I want to build/buy platforms that have the functionality like weebly.com or homestead.com or yola.com. Any ideas where I should look? Any suggestions? I want to host this platform for small business to build their websites for free - niche based, geographically categorized, etc. etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Sameer
Joomla is a great open source platform and it definately fits into your "free" criteria. But there will be a learning curve if you're not familiar with that stuff. I personally hate Yola and Weebly. The websites just look ugly... Cubender (www.cubender.com) is a new product - seems interesting. They have a free trial and the sites look pretty good.
try use a cms to build this website , like joomla
Can anyone point me to a useful guide for UI designers working in google web toolkit?
As per my comment to bhargava's answer, your designers should be learning UiBinder. The whole chapter about building user interfaces seems appropriate too (to get a better perspective), but UiBinder is what they will be mostly dealing with. Without using UiBinder in your project, you are stuck with Java and that's not something your designers are likely to know (and are probably not keen to :)).
I'd recommend building a simple example (but not too simple - maybe you should "strip" the official mail example) that uses UiBinder and show the designers exactly what you expect them to provide and what should be left as stubs. It all depends on the designers in question - whether all they know is HTML and CSS or maybe they have experience with Java, etc. Tailor the example to your needs - you probably won't "get it right" the first time, but with feedback from the designers (what's hard to understand, what they think should be the responsibility of the programmer, etc.), you should arrive at a good learning tool for future employees and a reference for current ones :)
Well if you're looking on how to use widgets and panels in gwt then i would recommend Roughian Examples
This website provides us the basic usage of the GWT widgets and panels and provides us with enough information just to get things started.
I am looking for somewhere that i can design and add a feedback/contact tab to my site. And if possible add a slide out where users can submit a form.
I have no coding experience.
I tried to use the j querys plugin, but cant figure it out.
here is an example;
http://cdn1.thewebsqueeze.com/wp-content/uploads/feedback/
Regards
Refer Wiki:Customer Feedback Management services a list of online services. This page has a list of free and paid tools and their comparison.
The Wikipedia link suggested in the answer by Ankit seems to have changed and doesn't contain the info asked for.
If you use Wordpress as your platform, you can try Usernoise. There are a whole bunch of SaaS based feedback tools that you give a try - GetSatisfaction, UserVoice, WebEngage etc to name a few. Integrating all of these is pretty simple and doesn't need any coding experience. Most of these tools have a FREE version too.
Disclosure: I am a co-founder and ceo at WebEngage.