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What exactly is a web design?

 

Web design is skill of creating visual and auditable content on the Internet that is delivered through the World Wide Web, by way of a Web browser or other Web-enabled software like Internet television clients, microblogging clients and RSS readers.

A web site can be a single page presentation or a collection of so-called web pages that are served from a server on demand.

A web page, which is the single part of a web site or domain name, is the container for texts, images, sounds, animations or videos and/or a combination of those.
Through scipts, like Javascript, and style sheets, like Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) a page can become more interactive and/or comlex.

Typically web pages are classified as static or dynamic:

  • Static pages don’t change content and layout with every request unless a human (web master or programmer) manually updates the page. A simple HTML page is an example of static content.
  • Dynamic pages adapt their content and/or appearance depending on end-user’s input and interaction or changes in the computing environment (user, time, database modifications, etc.) Content can be changed on the client side (end-user's computer) by using client-side scripting languages (JavaScript, JScript, Actionscript, etc.) to alter DOM, Document Object Model, elements (DHTML). Dynamic content is often compiled on the server utilizing server-side scripting languages (Perl, PHP, ASP, JSP, ColdFusion, etc.). Both approaches are usually used in complex applications.

With growing specialization in the information technology field there is a strong tendency to draw a clear line between web design and web development.

Web design is a kind of graphic design intended for development and styling of objects of the Internet's information environment to provide them with high-end consumer features and aesthetic qualities. The offered definition separates web design from web programming, emphasizing the functional features of a web site, as well as positioning web design as a kind of graphic design.

The process of designing web pages, web sites, web applications or multimedia for the Web may utilize multiple disciplines, such as animation, authoring, communication design, corporate identity, graphic design, human-computer interaction, information architecture, interaction design, marketing, photography, search engine optimization and typography.

  • Markup languages (such as HTML, XHTML and XML)
  • Style sheet languages (such as CSS and XSL)
  • Client-side scripting (such as JavaScript)
  • Server-side scripting (such as PHP and ASP)
  • Database technologies (such as MySQL and PostgreSQL)
  • Multimedia technologies (such as Flash and Silverlight)

Web design is similar (in a very simplistic way) to traditional print publishing. Every website is an information display container, just as a book is a container; and every web page is like the page in a book. However, web design uses a framework based on digital code and display technology to construct and maintain an environment to distribute information in multiple formats. Taken to its fullest potential, web design is undoubtedly the most sophisticated and increasingly complex method to support communication in today's world.

For the typical web sites, the basic aspects of design are:

  • The content:
    the substance, and information on the site should be relevant to the site and should target the area of the public that the website is concerned with.
  • The usability:
    the site should be user-friendly, with the interface and navigation simple and reliable.
  • The appearance:
    the graphics and text should include a single style that flows throughout, to show consistency. The style should be professional, appealing and relevant.
  • The visibility:
    the site must also be easy to find via most, if not all, major search engines and advertisement media.

A web site typically consists of text and images. The first page of a web site is known as the Home page or Index. Some web sites use what is commonly called a Splash Page. Splash pages might include a welcome message, language or region selection, or disclaimer. Each web page within a web site is an HTML file which has its own URL. After each web page is created, they are typically linked together using a navigation menu composed of hyperlinks. Faster browsing speeds have led to shorter attention spans and more demanding online visitors and this has resulted in less use of Splash Pages, particularly where commercial web sites are concerned.

Once a web site is completed, it must be published or uploaded in order to be viewable to the public over the internet. This may be done using an FTP client. Once published, the web master may use a variety of techniques to increase the traffic, or hits, that the web site receives. This may include submitting the web site to a search engine such as Google, Bing or Yahoo, exchanging links with other web sites, creating affiliations with similar web sites, etc.

 

Partly rom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:CC-BY-SA