Maui Web Design: What is Web Design?

[Maui Web Designer]

Maui Web design: http://www.nemonetworks.net
Web design is the design or designing of a Web page, Website or Web
application. The term generally refers to the graphical side of Web
development using images, CSS and XHTML.


A Brief History of Web Design
When the Internet was first invented, Web design consisted of a basic
markup language that included some formatting options, and the unique
ability to link pages together using hyperlinks. It was this feature
that characterized the Web among other communication methods, and
characterized Web design among other design methods. Because of this
unique behaviour of the World Wide Web, and the unique behaviour it
encouraged in users, Web design would prove to be unlike any other form
of design before or since, with the possible exception of interactive
CD-ROM design.

As the Web and Web design progressed, the markup language used to make
it, known as HTML, became more complex and flexible. Things like
tables, which could be used to display tabular information, were soon
subverted for use as invisible layout devices. With the advent of
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), table based layout is increasingly
regarded as outdated. Database integration technologies such as
server-side scripting (see PHP, ASP, JSP, and ColdFusion) and design
standards like CSS further changed and enhanced the way the Web was
made.

The introduction of Macromedia Flash into an already
interactivity-ready scene has further changed the face of the Web,
giving new power to designers and media creators, and offering new
interactivity features to users.


Controversies
As in all professions, there are arguments on different ways of doing
things. These are a few of the ongoing ones.


Liquid Versus Fixed Layouts
Most Web designers initially come from a graphic artist background in
print, where the artist has absolute control over the size and
dimensions of all aspects of the design. On the web however, the Web
designer has no control over several factors, especially the width of
the browser window.

Many designers compensate for this by wrapping their entire webpage in
a fixed width box, essentially limiting it to an exact pixel-perfect
value, which is a fixed layout. Other designers say that this is bad
because it ignores the preferences of the user, who might have their
browser sized a specific way that they like best. These people propose
a liquid layout, where the size of the Web page adjusts itself based on
the size of the browser window.

It should be noted that there is a usability reason (rather than
wanting control) for why a designer may choose a more fixed layout.
Studies have shown that there is usually an optimal line width in terms
of readability. One rule to appear from such studies is that lines
should be between 40-60 characters long, or approximately 11 words per
line.

The liquid design technique (Liquid Web Design
(http://www.digital-web.com/articles/liquid_web_design/)) was first
defined by web designer Glenn Davis and later popularized by web
designer Nick Finck.

"Webpage building is a lot like bar tending. Build it right and it will
work no matter the container." "Liquid is the epitome of good web
design and the fluid that should be used to hold web pages together. A
liquid page will resize to fit whatever size browser window (within
reason) that the user has available."
- Glenn Davis, 15 Minute Interview
(http://www.zeldman.com/15/davisf.html)

Most designers make this decision of which style of layout to use on a
case by case basis, depending on the needs and audience of the website.

Interesting note: Wikipedia is a liquid layout.


Flash
Macromedia Flash is a robust graphics animation program used to create
and deliver dynamic content and interactive applications to the web.

Many graphic artists use Flash because it gives them exact control over
every part of the design, and anything can be animated and generally
"jazzed up." Some application designers enjoy flash because it lets
them create applications that don't have to be refreshed or go to a new
web page every time an action occurs. There are many sites which forego
HTML entirely for Flash.

Flash detractors claim that Flash websites tend to be poorly designed,
and often use confusing and non-standard user-interfaces. Up until
recently, search engines have been unable to index Flash pages, which
has prevented stores from having their products easily found. Also
Flash websites cannot take into account many usability features, such
as respecting the browser's font size and allowing deep-linking, and
they outright fail any accessibility tests for blind users using screen
readers. Although Macromedia has addressed these long-standing problems
in the latest incarnation of Flash, it has yet to be seen whether it
will lure over stalwart designers.

The final consensus is that Flash is simply a tool, and like all tools
it takes a skillful craftsperson to know when, and how, to use it
properly.


CSS Versus Tables
Back when Netscape Navigator 4 dominated the browser market, the
popular (but now deprecated) solution available for designers to lay
out a Web page was by using tables. Often even simple designs for a
page would require dozens of tables nested in each other. Navigator 4
didn't support CSS to a useful degree, so it simply wasn't used.

After the browser wars were over, and Internet Explorer dominated the
market, designers started turning towards CSS as an alternate, better
means of laying out their pages. CSS proponents say that tables should
only be used for tabular data, not for layout. Using CSS instead of
tables also returns HTML to a semantic markup, which helps bots and
search engines understand what's going on in a web page. Today, all
modern Web browsers, including Netscape Navigator, now support CSS -
with certain limitations.

However, one of the main points against CSS is that by relying on it
exclusively, control is essentially relinquished as each browser has
its own quirks which result in a slightly different page display. This
is especially a problem as not every browser supports the same subset
of CSS codes. For some designers used to the creating table-based
layouts, developing Web sites in CSS often becomes a matter of
replicating what can be done with tables, leading some to find CSS
design rather cumbersome. For example, it has proved rather difficult
to produce certain design elements, such as vertical positioning, and
full-length footers in a design using absolute positions.

These days most modern browsers have solved most of these quirks in CSS
rendering and this has made many different CSS layouts possible.
However, people still continue to use old browsers which do not get
updated any more. Most notable among these are Internet Explorer 5 and
5.5 which, according to some web designers, are becoming the new
Netscape Navigator 4 - a block that holds the internet back from
converting to CSS design.





See also
Computer accessibility
Content management
Faceted navigation
Graphic design
Information architecture
Interaction design
Neen
Separation of style and content
Web colors
Knowledge visualization

External links
Maui web Design (http://www.nemonetworks.net)
Built On Maui (http://www.builtonmaui.com)
About Web Design (http://webdesign.about.com/)
A List Apart (http://www.alistapart.com)
Boxes and Arrows: The Design behind the Design
(http://www.boxesandarrows.com/)
Digital Web Magazine (http://www.digital-web.com)
Jakob Nielsen on Usability and Web Design (http://www.useit.com)
Web Design Reference
(http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/support/Training/Online/webdesign/)
Web Style Guide, 2nd edition (http://www.webstyleguide.com/)