Improve the design of GUI/website

Question

So i am using visual studio 2008, asp.net 3.5, with the basic toolkit provided.

Now i have made the gui which a lot of functionality but the design is very basic. and looks too old.

I need to give it a new look, a new feeling new designs....

like the gridview, the buttons the textboxes, the menus look basic... this is not working for me.

Please let me how should i go about doing this.?? 1) i have herd about tool kits but dont kno which ones are good..(dont want the really expensive ones) but if it is really good my company is ready to spend.

2) will the new VS 2010 or asp.net 4.0 make a difference.

3) The ajax toolkit or silverlight toolkit is any good?

4) i also need to show Charts and graphs now, currently using MS charts.. but now i need which is good.

Answer 1

Your best bet is to ask very specific questions at a more appropriate forum.

For ideas on designs, look for examples online and do something similar to what you like.

http://www.thecssawards.com/

http://www.csselite.com/

For questions on how to implement a specific design in html/asp.net/whatever, post a very specific question here.

For UI guidance on how to make something specific look better, post a question on http://ui.stackexchange.com. Include a SMALL screen shot of the applicable controls (not the whole page, just the part you're asking about, or at least highlight the part you're asking about).

.NET 3.5 vs .NET 4 will have no real effect on the design of your site. Whether your choose HTML or Silverlight will have a huge effect, but neither is generally better for all sites and switching between them basically means rewriting everything, so you wouldn't do it just for design reasons.

Answer 2

I assume you are referring to UI control libraries. Some of the commercial libraries that I know off and widely used include:

• Telerik RAD Controls
• Infragistics
• DevExpress

They all have a good range of controls from Menu to Charting.