WEBSITE DESIGN EXPLAINED
- By John Perez
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- 29 Aug, 2016
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Web design is the process of planning and creating of websites, that is nowadays more seen as an art form than just another IT job. The design of a website can often be the deciding factor of whether or not visitors leave or stay. It is a process of conceptualizing, planning, and building a collection of electronic files that determine the layout, colors, text styles, structure, graphics, images, and use of interactive features that deliver pages to your site visitors. Basically everything about your website – including the content, the way it looks, and the way it works – is determined by the website design. This includes the information architecture, user interface, site structure, navigation,layout, colors, fonts, andimagery. All of these are combined with the principles of design to create a website that meets the goals of the owner and designer. Professional Web design helps to make your business appear credible online.By reaching out to customers and search engines alike, Web site design serves an important dual purpose that has a great impact on your online sales. During the early 1990’s, after the introduction of the World Wide Web, there were literally just a handful of websites online. The number of websites grew at an exponential rate during the end of the 20th century, and today there are hundreds of millions of websites. Millions of new websites are added each month, and the majority of these websites are created by website designers. Websites are created using a markup language called HTML. Web designers build webpages using HTML tags that define the content and metadata of each page. The layout and appearance of the elements within a webpage are typically defined usingCSS, or cascading style sheets. Therefore, most websites include a combination of HTML and CSS that defines how each page will appear in a browser. Some web designers prefer to hand code pages (typing HTML and CSS from scratch), while others use a “WYSIWYG” editor like Adobe Dreamweaver. This type of editor provides a visual interface for designing the webpage layout and the software automatically generates the corresponding HTML and CSS code. Another popular way to design websites is with a content management system like WordPress or Joomla. These services provide different website templates that can be used as a starting point for a new website. Webmasters can then add content and customize the layout using a web-based interface. While HTML and CSS are used to design the look and feel of a website, images must be created separately. Therefore, graphic design may overlap with web design, since graphic designers often create images for use on the Web. Some graphics programs like Adobe Photoshop even include a “Save for Web…” option that provides an easy way to export images in a format optimized for web publishing. How Can Professional Web Design Help your Online Business? As important as having a great domain name, professional web design can help you: Satisfy customers. Professional Web design meets the needs of your visitors – telling them quickly what they want to know without unnecessary and confusing design items. Making sure the navigation in your Web site design is predictable, consistent and easy to understand will help build a positive relationship with your visitors. Attract search engines. No matter how appealing your Web site design looks, it won’t show up on the search engine results pages if it’s not coded in a way that the search engines can read. Avoid technical glitches. It doesn’t take much to turn a customer away. The degree of customization included in your website design will determine the speed and cost of getting your site up and running.
Web design is the process of planning and creating of websites, that is nowadays more seen as an art form than just another IT job. The design of a website can often be the deciding factor of whether or not visitors leave or stay. It is a process of conceptualizing, planning, and building a collection of electronic files that determine the layout, colors, text styles, structure, graphics, images, and use of interactive features that deliver pages to your site visitors. Basically everything about your website – including the content, the way it looks, and the way it works – is determined by the website design. This includes the information architecture, user interface, site structure, navigation,layout, colors, fonts, andimagery. All of these are combined with the principles of design to create a website that meets the goals of the owner and designer. Professional Web design helps to make your business appear credible online.By reaching out to customers and search engines alike, Web site design serves an important dual purpose that has a great impact on your online sales. During the early 1990’s, after the introduction of the World Wide Web, there were literally just a handful of websites online. The number of websites grew at an exponential rate during the end of the 20th century, and today there are hundreds of millions of websites. Millions of new websites are added each month, and the majority of these websites are created by website designers. Websites are created using a markup language called HTML. Web designers build webpages using HTML tags that define the content and metadata of each page. The layout and appearance of the elements within a webpage are typically defined usingCSS, or cascading style sheets. Therefore, most websites include a combination of HTML and CSS that defines how each page will appear in a browser. Some web designers prefer to hand code pages (typing HTML and CSS from scratch), while others use a “WYSIWYG” editor like Adobe Dreamweaver. This type of editor provides a visual interface for designing the webpage layout and the software automatically generates the corresponding HTML and CSS code. Another popular way to design websites is with a content management system like WordPress or Joomla. These services provide different website templates that can be used as a starting point for a new website. Webmasters can then add content and customize the layout using a web-based interface. While HTML and CSS are used to design the look and feel of a website, images must be created separately. Therefore, graphic design may overlap with web design, since graphic designers often create images for use on the Web. Some graphics programs like Adobe Photoshop even include a “Save for Web…” option that provides an easy way to export images in a format optimized for web publishing. How Can Professional Web Design Help your Online Business? As important as having a great domain name, professional web design can help you: Satisfy customers. Professional Web design meets the needs of your visitors – telling them quickly what they want to know without unnecessary and confusing design items. Making sure the navigation in your Web site design is predictable, consistent and easy to understand will help build a positive relationship with your visitors. Attract search engines. No matter how appealing your Web site design looks, it won’t show up on the search engine results pages if it’s not coded in a way that the search engines can read. Avoid technical glitches. It doesn’t take much to turn a customer away. The degree of customization included in your website design will determine the speed and cost of getting your site up and running.