El Valle Consulting
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Design Elements
The elements of web design can be quite
complex. The major elements are discussed below. Each
element is further reviewed on a separate page linked from the summary
of each subject. Links to each page are also in the Design
Elements menu in the left panel. Samples can be viewed from this
link:
Samples
- Site Design
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Site Design establishes the
overall framework for the concept, scope and mechanics of your
website. It is the starting point for organizing your
thoughts. A few of the questions which need to be answered
are:
 Who is the target audience?
Will the web site be browser specific?
Will the web site include lots of pictures?
Is the web site intended to be an
e-commerce site?
What is your budget? This is
probably the most importantwebsitedesign element. Don't
select a basic design which will cost thousands of dollars for
development and maintenance unless that is your budget
and your budget is
supported by an appropriate return on investment.
Click on the Check List link to help organize your thoughts.
- Page Design
- Page Design starts with thinking about your
target audience. What age group are they? What is
their income range? What are their interests? This
demographic analysis will provide the basis for deciding on
whether the pages of your web should be modern, fancy, basic or
out of this world. How fast do you want the web site's
pages to load in browsers? Do you want to dynamically
create pages, or will static pages meet your needs?
Click on the Check List link to help organize your thoughts.
- Graphic Design
- Graphic Design is the follow-on to Page
Design. In Page Design you determine the type
of pages that are appropriate for
the web site. Graphic Design is how, and where, a developer
applies the Page Design requirements. At the start of a new
web site project you should receive from your web developer
several design concepts. It is then up to you to decide
which concept should become the design for your web site's pages.
- Navigation Design
- Navigation Design is how your viewers will move
from page to page. There are different methods for
providing navigation. You can select simple hyper-text
links, graphic links, image map links and automatic links using
either, or both, graphic and text links.
Automatic links are the least expensive method to
use.
- Typographical Design
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Typographical Design is the selection of type
faces, size of type and use of paragraphs, cascading style sheets (CSS)
or tables for positioning and maintaining a consistent appearance
of content. Be very careful with this element as
maintenance of typed content can be a significant cost
consideration. Your budget will dictate, to some extent,
the typographical design. For instance, do you intend to do
content maintenance yourself using a word processor? If so,
you should not use use tables unless your word processor supports
tables and a direct conversion to HTML tables.
- Content Design
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Content is what the viewer reads or sees.
This is primarily text and pictures. Content may include
sounds, music and video. Content should be designed for
your target audience. If your website is being designed
for university English professors, then certainly you would want
the content to be grammatically correct and suitable for their
interests. Thus, copywriting becomes a crucial element.
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Design Elements: HTML, CSS, JavaScript and ASP.
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