Amongst the many mince pies, beer and festive foods over the last two days I thought I would just fit in a quick blog post showcasing some tools that I have used every working day in 2012! I have compiled a quick list of basic web design tools every web designer should be using. Whether you’re an advanced website designer looking to double check you have all the fundamentals or you’re new to web design and want a comprehensive list of the necessary tools – this blog post will be useful for you.
www.wetransfer.com
WeTransfer is one of a host of free services that allow you to easily send a file that’s too big for regular email. What makes this particular service stand out is the excellent 2GB file limit, and the ability to send multiple files simultaneously without having to register for an account, making it an ideal way to get your larger files around the web.
www.evernote.com
Evernote allows you to create a virtual scrapbook of web pages, photos, text and audio that you come across while browsing and access them on any of your devices including your desktop computers, phone and tablet. The database allows you to create keywords and tags to quickly categorise and search for items in your notebook, and even uses OCR to digitise text in photos and images.
dropbox.com
Dropbox is a free service that allows you to store files on the web (in the cloud) and automatically synchronise them between your different computers and devices. It works on Android, iPhone and iPad, as well as your desktop computer, and supports collaboration through sharing of folders with your contacts.
Instant access to documentation for CSS, HTML, JavaScript and more.
css3generator.com
A tool that generates code for tonnes of CSS3 features.
css3clickchart.com
Code, links, and examples for loads of CSS3 features.
www.getskeleton.com
A boilerplate for responsive, mobile-friendly development of sites.
www.google.com/webmasters/tools
Webmaster tools for optimising websites for search.
wordpress.org/plugins/wptouch/
WordPress plug-in that instantly adds a mobile version to your site.
www.google.co.uk/analytics/
Don’t rely on guesswork when it comes to your web design/ development investment. Get insights and data that you can act on from Google Analytics.
Everyone wants their website to rank high on search engines like Google. The Google Keyword Tool allows a web designer/ SEO consultant to research the competitiveness of keywords when planning what text to place in their website and what keywords to target.
