Website design encompasses a variety of disciplines and skills in the creation and management of websites. The different disciplines of website design comprise user experience design; web graphic design; visual interface design; content writing, including standardised coding and proprietary programming; and search engine optimisation. The website design process includes a comprehensive set of steps which need to be followed in order to complete the project successfully and include scheduling, task assignment, reviewing, testing, integration, and reporting. Web design also involves interactive communication with clients as well as the effective presentation of the design and functionality of the website.
The web designer should understand the requirements of the client in terms of the expected technical and functional capabilities of the website. For this purpose, several processes are followed, such as conceptualizing a basic layout or theme, researching and selecting appropriate visual components, creating interfaces, arranging content, and finalising the web design. The web designers have to plan the project on the basis of its actual requirements and budget. This is usually done through online designing tools. In addition, many website designers offer their services online as well.
Web designers use several tools for the web design process. These include different programmes such as Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Illustrator, Fireworks, Corel Draw, and InDesign. A variety of professional website designers also use graphic software to create the visual elements of the website design. Besides, the web designers also integrate various technologies such as Java, XML, Flash, JavaScript, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and Meta tags. In fact, there is a lot of interaction between the web designers and the client in the form of editing, modifying, updating the website design as well as the source files.
Before actually using any of the web design elements, it is important that you identify your audience. The website design should be reflective of the brand identity of your business. Hence, your website design should also be in accordance to the target audience of your business. For example, if your business targets the professionals, you can build a website design that is very sophisticated and artistic. On the other hand, if your business targets the youth, you can build a website design that is very funky and casual.
Another important thing that you should consider in your website design is the page speed. The page speed is the maximum rate by which the pages are produced in an Internet connection. The best way to measure the page speed is the time needed by the users to load the web page, which is expressed as the percentage of total characters used per page.
The next in line is the scalability of the design. It means that you should be able to change the elements of your website design without having to recompile all of it. Usually, the web designers provide templates for the pages and include a plug-in for the users to add their own elements. However, you can also create your own elements or customize the existing elements with CSS.