Web site Design Advices

Since the beginning of the Web, there has been an unfortunate terminology problem in Web site design area. Print and graphic designers, brought along a different perspective of design, focused mainly on the media. On the other side, traditional art & design schools focused considerable attention on mastery of media. This media-oriented way of thinking about design applied best to problems that had simple structures, no architecture to worry about. Passing directly to the design of individual pages disrupted the planning phase that information architects recognized was required for complex Web sites. This is where the experience of designers in the software application area was an advantage, where planning is the primary design activity and where implementation is performed by programmers. Due to the fact that Web implementation has been relatively easy at the front end, it has often been mixed together with the design process. For many graphic designers who were recruited for Web design in the " boom times ", the design of a graphic image also meant its implementation. To produce high-end solutions, most commercial Web sites today require a greater division of work between designing, planning and implementation.

Advices regarding the Web site design :

1. Don't design a Web site just thinking at the end result. Web design should be about the whole of the product or service, not only about what it does but also about its real usability. A wise man once said that you should focus on creating applications that solve a problem or serve a purpose. This is no different for the Web; the user's experience, the interaction between him and the system or the perception of the system, imply that the system must be considered as a whole: it makes a big difference how the look, content, and behavior are presented by the front end, and what behavior is requested at the back end. Web design is a sum of other services, such as visual design, information design, interaction design, media design etc.
2. Don't design only for a certain browser. Since the final release of Mozilla Firefox at the beginning of 2005 there have been reported more then 30 million downloads (as of February), this meaning a big difference in the preferences of visitors. Firefox, Opera run and interpret differently the HTML code in comparison with Internet Explorer, Maxthon or other browsers with IE core. Firefox is known to respect the standards imposed by the World Wide Web consortium, thus certain problems can appear if you test your Web site only on Internet Explorer. Also, the Internet based software existing "out of the browsers" should be taken into account. It is up to designers to decide what platform is the most appropriate for a new product or service: browser or standalone application. Browsers work very good for browsing but complex transactions are better handled by more sophisticated interaction applications.
3. Don't design only static Web pages, adapt to the needs of your visitors. Before the eCommerce development, Web design was much about page design. It is true that even then it was also about overall site structure, logical flow and navigation. Most of today's sites appear as a cumulus of reasonably static pages. Web applications are generated dynamically from information retrieved from databases in real time (using languages as PHP, ColdFusion, ASP etc.). Creating static Web sites is recommended for non-eCommerce sites, mainly because of the way those are handled by search engines, but high-end eCommerce Web sites need to have dynamically Webpages because of the interactivity they create and increased security.