Website design and its Processes

Some of the ways in which good web design can add value to your site include:

• By facilitating a visitor’s online experience, e.g. through clear navigation and an intuitive structure.
• By communicating information, e.g. through diagrams and charts.
• By transmitting brand values, e.g. by using corporate colors.
• By creating or highlighting a desired emotional response, e.g. through an appropriate use of imagery, color and other elements.

The Website Design Process

Website Design is composed of several distinct disciplines, each of which holds a range of skills. The sequence in which these are employed tends to follow a given pattern, including the following steps:

• Information Architecture
• Interaction Design
• Interface Design
• Navigation Design
• Information Design
• Visual Design

It should be noted that there is no clearly defined point of separation between these activities. In fact, some of them occur in parallel. For example, Interaction and Navigation Design handle a very similar set of challenges, i.e. how to move over a website.

Information Architecture

Information Architecture is concerned with organizing content on a website.

Interaction Design

Interaction Design is a system for structuring and generating actions on a website in response to user behaviour.

Interface Design

Interface Design is concerned with the selection of web elements that facilitate interaction with site visitors. Such features generally encompass links, buttons, check boxes, etc.

Navigation Design

Navigation Design is concerned with helping people orient themselves within a website, and also move through it.

Information Design

Information Design is concerned with the effective presentation of content on a screen. The objective is to optimize communication by organizing information in a consistent and pleasing layout. When creating a layout, the principle output of the Designer is called a 'wireframe'. A wireframe is an outline drawing of a possible arrangement of web content. It often does not contain any colour or other visual elements. It simply shows where content could be placed for the purposes of good communication. It is up to a Graphic Designer to then take the wireframes and convert it into a full visual design.

Visual Design

Visual Design is what most people think of when they consider web design is, i.e. cool online graphics. However, this phase of production is much too important to decide based on what is thought ‘cool’ or not. Rather, it should be based on how well it matches:

• The goals of the site.
• The expectations of users.
• The values of your organization.