How to design a website? Plan and elements of web designing

It is critical to understand design first and technology second while trying to understand Web design. Design principles will be as relevant to future technological developments as they are to current technologies.

Web design does not exist in a vacuum. Trained and skilled people realizing Web design projects are key persons to the process. Getting to final implementation of a good idea requires mastering many processes. A step-by-step approach will increase chance of a web design project being a success.

You have to plan for several critical areas before starting a web design. Some of the key processes are listed below:

• Need analysis
• Solution designing
• Template creation
• Story boarding
• Content planning
• Content drafting
• Product photography
• Graphic designing
• Flash designing
• Animations
• HTML coding
• CSS and XSL
• Java scripting

You may or may not use all these features depending upon the need specified by the website owner.

Web design is the planning and creation of websites. This includes the information architecture, user interface, site structure, Navigation, layout, color, font and many others.

Information architecture is the taxonomy or structure of a Web site. It is generally used to plan structure and navigation process of the whole site.

Common elements of a business Website:

• Products and services page that provides information about products and services company offer.

• About us page that informs about the company, organization and its structure.

• Support page that provides help to the customers.

• Contact page that gives necessary contact information including address, phone and mobile numbers, fax, email etc.

You can start to plan your navigation process after you have defined information architecture of your site. You have to plan Navigation process according to your site architecture. Do it in organized way.

Think about how your customers may look in to the website. Flow charts and storyboards can help you map it out exactly. Navigation must include these four key features:

1. Accessible

2. Meaningful

3. Understandable

4. Prevalent

Web Layouts should be simple and clear Similar to that of Paper Layouts.

Do not overlook layout while creating a Web design. Use CSS, tables, frames but do not ignore the basics of Web layout. Use wireframes while creating your layout. Consider these elements while preparing your layout.

Space and Whitespace

Images and Graphics

Text Width

Balance the graphics and text on a page. Balancing is the most important aspect of design principles.

Think deeply while choosing colors for your web design. Colors impact a lot on human eyes. It effects psychologically and culturally. Different cultures and ethnicities have different meanings for colors. Keep in mind cultural background and ethnicity of your targeted visitors.

Use fonts (Typography) judiciously. Typography uses typefaces and the whitespace around and through them to create a whole design.

Elements of Typography

There are six types of Typefaces On Web pages based on generic classifications

Serif

Sans-serif

Mono-spaced

Cursive

Fantasy

Script

There are few adjustments that can be made between and around letters to beautify your text contents.

Kerning, tracking, leading, measure, alignment and ligatures are the main components of adjustments in typography.

You have to combine all of these features with the principles of design and elements of design to create a good looking. eye catching business website. This will meet goals of the business owner.

Principles of web designing:

Balance

Balance is distribution of materials in the web page. You have to balance darker versus lighter color, heavy versus light materials while balancing design in a web page.

Contrast

There are color contrasts such as black and white. There can also be contrasts in sizes e.g. large vs. small, shapes e.g. square vs. circle and in textures such as smooth vs. rough.

Emphasis

Emphasis is what catching eyes in a design. It is not wise for a designer to give everything equal emphasis. This will make your design bland and flat. It is better to emphasis on the elements based on hierarchy of the website.

Rhythm

Rhythm is repetition. Repetition provides patterns. It creates internal consistency in Web design. Human eyes can comprehend patterns easily. Rhythm makes your website more understandable.

Unity

Unity of a design is based on the principle of proximity and keeping like elements together.

Elements of designing:

Line, Shapes, Texture, Color and Direction are the main elements of design.

Web design is not only a technology but also a creative art. It is essential for an expert web designer to be creative.One can not design a good website without imagination and creativity. You have to visualize a complete website before you start designing.

Visualize and imagine the website you like to bring to your visitors. Keep your customer's need while imagining. Write down all elements together in a paper. Plan the whole thing and start working according to plan. Use basic design principles and design elements while executing your plan. Look at the design when completed. Whether it is complying with your visualization or not. Correct and change the design wherever required. Recheck it. This is the secret of web design. You can create a well designed, eye catching, beautiful website and web pages.

Never forget needs of your customer, owner of the website. You have also to keep in mind customers of the business owners. Ultimately they will be visiting the website you are designing. A well designed website enhances business credit of the website owner. Your designed website must accomplish the business goals.

Please do not forget to validate your website with W3C, World wide web consortium. W3C checks and verifies your site against any error in HTML and CSS. It also gives warning for any possibilities of any future error. Check your web design through W3C, correct the errors and warnings indicated in the report. Re-validate your web design. Once you reach to zero error and warning, your web design is technically error free.

You can out icons of W3C anywhere in your website, preferably in the footer to show that the website is technically error free. All CSS and HTML is correct. This will show your efficiency and accuracy in web designing.