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Explanation of Overview of Web Design - Strategies to Succeed in Web Design. Also refer goals, customer, client, motivations, publishing, content, appearance, navigation, marketing, distribution, technical, Ron Kurtus, School for Champions. Copyright © Restrictions
Overview of Web Design
by Ron Kurtus (25 June 2008)
Web design is the process of constructing a website that will achieve your goals or the goals of your customer. Note that people and companies have different motivations or reasons to have a website. Web design can be thought of as analogous to publishing a nonfiction book, in that you must have content and appearance that appeals to the reader, it must be easy to read and find information, and it must be properly marketed and available in distribution channels. Part of web design also concerns the technical aspects of coding and managing the information intended on being distributed in the Internet.
Questions you may have include:
- What are different reasons people want a website for?
- How is web design like book publishing?
- What are the technical aspects of web design?
This lesson will answer those questions. There is a mini-quiz near the end of the lesson.
Define reasons for website
If you are designing a website for yourself, you need to determine what your purpose is for having a site and what you hope to achieve by it. It is to start up an online business, to use as a brochure to advertise your skills, or to use as a vanity site to post things about your life and family?
If you are developing a website for a customer or client, you need to know their expectations and what they hope to achieve from the site. Individuals, companies and organizations get websites to help fulfill their goals. Reasons may be to advertise about themselves or show what is available, to display their product line, or to make money from the website through online sales.
Often people are unrealistic about what can be achieved by having a website, as well as what material should be displayed. Some expect to simply put up a site and get millions of hits and money flowing in just because it is a website.
Analogous to publishing a book
Web design is said to be analogous to publishing a nonfiction book.
Audience
Books are published for specific audiences. Defining the audience determines the look of the book and how it is marketed. Likewise, the desired audience for the website should be defined. This will determine the type of material, the look and even technical features of the site.
There are very few sites that are aimed at an extremely wide audience. These are search websites such as Google and Yahoo, encyclopedia sites like Wikipedia, file-sharing sites like YouTube and social networking sites like MyFace. most other sites have a narrowly defined audience.
Content and appearance
A good book and good website must each have useful information and content for the user. The text should be easy to see and read. Illustrations must be sufficient to make the site appealing to the eyes. Consistency of appearance is also important, so the user does not think he or she entered a different website. Note that a book has the same style throughout. Flashing ads or too many ads can detract from the appearance and readability of a web page. The layout of a page is important. It also must appear the same on different browsers.
Finding information
A well-written book usually has a useful table of contents and index. It is easy to find things and to navigate. An e-book often allow searches of key words or phrases. Likewise, a website needs to be structured so that it is easy to navigate and look at other pages for desired information.
Part of finding information is in how long it takes for a page to load. Just as a book that has too many pages can discourage a reader to even investigate it, so also will a website that's pages take too long to load discourage users from seeking information on the site.
Marketing and distribution
A published book should be available in the bookstores and also needs to have advertising about it. Likewise, a website must be readily available to the public. It must be easy to find in the major search engines, have referrals or links from other websites, and be advertised in other media.
Technical aspects
Considerations must be made for the various technical aspects in putting a website up on the Internet. The pages must look pretty much the same on different Internet browsers, computer operating systems and screen resolutions.
By defining your audience, you can often tell the technical sophistication of the audience as to whether they have high-end computer systems or older, basic units. A website appealing to average people, should look to the lowest common denominator in what type of system the users have and thus what level of sophistication can be expected.
Summary
You want to construct a website that will achieve the the goals of your customer. Web design can be thought of as similar to publishing a nonfiction book. You must have content and appearance that appeals to the reader, the site must be easy to read and it must be properly marketed and be available in distribution channels. Part of web design also concerns the technical aspects of coding and managing the information intended on being distributed in the Internet.
Seek to be the best you can be
Resources
The following resources provide information on this subject:
Websites
Books
Top-rated
books on Website Design
Mini-quiz to check your understanding
If you got all three correct, you are on your way to becoming a Champion in Web Design. If you had problems, you had better look over the material again.
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Overview of Web Design