The Ultimate Guide To Web Design

Web design encompasses many different skills and disciplines in the production and maintenance of websites. The different areas of web design include web graphic design; user interface design (UI design); authoring, including standardized code and proprietary software; user experience design (UX design); and search engine optimization. Often many individuals will work in teams covering different aspects of the design process, although some designers will cover them all. The term “web design” is normally used to describe the design process relating to the front-end (client side) design of a website including writing markup. Web design partially overlaps web engineering in the broader scope of web development. Web designers are expected to have an awareness of usability and be up to date with web accessibility guidelines.

What Is Web Design?

Web design refers to the design of websites that are displayed on the internet. It usually refers to the user experience aspects of website development rather than software development. Web design used to be focused on designing websites for desktop browsers; however, since the mid-2010s, design for mobile and tablet browsers has become ever-increasingly important.

A web designer works on the appearance, layout, and, in some cases, content of a website. Appearance, for instance, relates to the colors, font, and images used. Layout refers to how information is structured and categorized. A good web design is easy to use, aesthetically pleasing, and suits the user group and brand of the website. Many webpages are designed with a focus on simplicity, so that no extraneous information and functionality that might distract or confuse users appears. As the keystone of a web designer’s output is a site that wins and fosters the trust of the target audience, removing as many potential points of user frustration as possible is a critical consideration.

Two of the most common methods for designing websites that work well both on desktop and mobile are responsive and adaptive design. In responsive design, content moves dynamically depending on screen size; in adaptive design, the website content is fixed in layout sizes that match common screen sizes. Preserving a layout that is as consistent as possible between devices is crucial to maintaining user trust and engagement. As responsive design can present difficulties in this regard, designers must be careful in relinquishing control of how their work will appear. If they are responsible for the content as well, while they may need to broaden their skillset, they will enjoy having the advantage of full control of the finished product.

What Does A Web Designers Do?

Web design identifies the goals of a website or webpage and promotes accessibility for all potential users. This process involves organizing content and images across a series of pages and integrating applications and other interactive elements.

The professionals who perform this process are called web designers, and their job includes the following duties:

• • Selecting easy-to-read fonts.

• • Choosing attractive color schemes that also enable easy-to-read fonts.

• • Implementing a brand’s identity into the colors, fonts and layout.

• • Creating a map of the website’s structure to ensure intuitive navigation.

• • Placing images, logos, text, videos, applications and other elements.

• • Using coding languages, such as HTML and CSS, to create layouts and to style pages.

• • Making optimized versions of websites and pages both for desktop and mobile viewing.

There are two common web design methods: adaptive and responsive design. In adaptive design, the website content is created using standard screen sizes as the frame for the layout.

In responsive design, content moves dynamically according to the screen size. Web designers use the various steps of the general web design process to employ these design methods depending on their client or employer’s preferences and goals for the site.