Web Design, Development and Other Aspects of Design

This is a guest blog from Suthan Sangaralingham, UI/UX Designer, 3magine 

Creating a web page or website is about more than just setting up a page and adding some text and pictures. A successful website incorporates many different elements into an entire design process including user experience, multimedia, content strategy, and much more.

Understand the design process and other aspects of design with this helpful guide.

Information Architecture

When designing a house, you need architectural plans, or blueprints before you start. The information architecture of a site is like the blueprints for your web design. This blueprint takes the desired traits you choose in the initial design process and puts them together in a practical and usable way.

The information architecture of your site is important to both your navigation and to your search engine visibility, so it is important to makes sure your data is organized and understandable to others.

Web Design                                          

Web design refers to the part of the process where a website is planned and mapped out. Design will include both practical details and also cosmetic items like color, font, and layout.

The design will be based on the amount and type of information that you are trying to convey. An online clothing retailer may want a site with many graphics and a shopping function, while a journalism student might prefer a text-heavy blog style site. Your design will cover the message you want to share, and how you want to share it.

Content Strategy

Your content strategy can be either basic or all encompassing. For the creation of a web page, your content strategy will detail how you want your web page to work, and how you plan to reach your chosen audience. Content strategies may include the integration of  your web design, copy, images, video, and social media. These elements combined will drive and support your search engine optimisation and paid advertising.

Whether basic or advanced, creating a strategy so that all of your online channels can work towards the same goals (usually audience engagement or sales) will help ensure the best value for your time and money during the design process.

Usability

Usability refers to whether or not your desired audience can actually use your site. Often covered in fields discussing UX or user experience and user research this element of design is about practicality and intuitiveness.

This design element is responsible for answering questions like:

• When I press the button, do I get the desired result?
• Can I find the information I am looking for?
• Can I find my way back to the home page? If not – why?
• Does the site work on my mobile device? (Additional areas of study on mobile usability are often called responsive design.)

User experience professionals study users in focus groups and through volunteer testing, to make sure sites are designed and work the way they are supposed to.

Web Development

Web development is the building of your website. This is the stage where someone will create the code that makes your website work. This process is usually run by an engineer or software developer. Websites need regular maintenance and updating to ensure they are meeting business needs and keeping up to date on what customers expect.