Web design encompasses a variety of disciplines and skills in the creation and maintenance of web sites. These skills are applied throughout the entire lifecycle of a web site, not just in the initial design phase. The various disciplines of web design address many issues specific to web design. The different fields of web design deal with the development and implementation of web pages, user interfaces, content management and search engines.
Web designers are the artisans of the web design industry. The ability to think creatively, analytically and practically is very important. A web designer must be able to envision and plan a solution to a given problem. They also must possess technical skill, know how to follow a schedule and be able to make time management a priority.
Many web designers work on teams; each team assigned a specific purpose, which may be to develop a website for a business or to create a user interface for a new program. Their job responsibilities may cross disciplinary lines and include such things as building customer relations and marketing campaigns. The ultimate goal for a web designer is to provide a superior user experience which increases conversion rates. The three primary areas of focus for a web designer are user experience, search engine optimization and social media marketing.
User experience design is concerned with how users will view, navigate and use the site. This area of web design work often includes a considerable amount of social media interactivity. User research techniques are used to gain insight into what types of experiences potential customers will have when using a site. Many designers use a combination of techniques to collect this data, including usability testing, demographic studies and interviews.
Learning web design is about more than just knowing enough code. It’s also about having the ability to creatively visualize the end result through a number of mediums – both visual and verbal. Web designers use a wide range of graphics, photos, video, audio, text and interpersonal communication tools to communicate their message.
Another important element to web design is the visual design. The visual designer’s job is to layout and arrange the content in a way that it appeals to visitors while remaining professional and tasteful. Although web designers can use HTML, a lot of practice is required before you’re ready to submit your first website. Most professional web designers start out with CSS because it is less complicated and allows them to test various layouts and designs before they’re ready to submit them to the front end developer. A CSS-based web design is more forgiving when it comes to layout and navigation issues, which make it easier to fix mistakes in the future.
One of the most challenging aspects of web design is typography. There are many factors that go into typography such as the size of the typeface, the material being used, whether or not the font is serif, and how it will be set off against the background. Most web designers will choose either a pre-set typeface or one that is customized for their project. One important web designer’s secret is that if they are building a website for someone, they should focus on the emotional design of the site as opposed to the technical aspects.
Emotional web design is all about making the user’s experience meaningful. Web designers usually choose colors that evoke specific feelings or emotions, such as blue for peace and green for happiness. A great tip for web designers is to keep in mind that the typography doesn’t have to be perfect. After all, even a stroke of bad color can ruin an otherwise beautiful piece. With this in mind, it’s important for the web designer to spend time on the typography and color theory.